Give Thanks…In Love Ephesians 5:15-20 August 19, 2018
- This morning we sang God be in my head, my heart, my lips, my hands. Sounds very much like Paul, doesn’t it. Paul, whose letter to the Ephesians we have been digging into these past few weeks, is very interested on what is going on inside our head, heart and sinews, our interior life. Because what is going on inside affects outward behaviors. Last week, we talked about Paul’s use of the word “therefore.” Inwardly we want to be a follower of Jesus, therefore certain actions have to be practiced on the outside. Those behaviors include Speak truthfully, Don’t sin in your anger, Be useful, Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit, use wholesome language, meditate often on Christ’s death and resurrection and what that means for you.
- For this reason, Paul is often called the NT mystic; he searches the deep mysteries of our interior, seeking unity and wholeness within, because so many of us are torn apart, unsettled inside.
- This morning, Paul follows up and says, be careful then, how you live. The days are evil. That is, they are full of temptation and ways to mess things up. There are about a thousand ways to mess things up and a very few to do things right. “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter.” (Matt. 7:13-14). There is a wise way to live and a foolish way to live.
- How do we live our lives wisely as opposed to unwisely? How do we live so that we, as Paul says, might understand what the Lord wants us to do? Well, it begins on the outside and moves outwardly. We must get our heart and head right, and then wise behaviors follow.
- Now usually, when you think of wisdom growing inwardly, you think of the old wise owl, quiet, thoughtful, sitting high on an old, knotty tree limb looking down over life, calmly taking it all in and arriving at slow deliberate decisions. Motionless. Quiet. But Paul offers up a different vision of how we live our lives wisely. He says be filled with the Spirit! Speak to one another in psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord.
- I attended a required pastor continuing education course Friday night and Saturday at the University of Indianapolis with UM pastors from across the state. We were there to study deep theological questions and practical issues of church administration. But the most incredible information that stuck with me was what a fellow pastor shared at lunch. He said, “Did you know that you can sing the lyrics of Amazing Grace to the tune of the Theme to Gilligan’s Island?” I did not know that. But I know that now, because that crazy tune has been in my head for the past 18 hours.
- It makes a point for us. Something will be in your head. Something will be in your mind. Try to stop thinking and see what happens. Here comes another thought, and another, and another. So what will you fill your head and thus your heart with the hours of your day? Negativity, crudeness, bitterness, anger, envy, jealously, dullness?
- The wise life, the one that leads to understanding what the Lord wants us to do with our lives, is to be sung. Life is a song, Paul says. Which means life is enchanted. Enchanted comes from the Latin in cantare. From which we get cantata. The wise life is a cantata. The wise life is not some lifeless, musty, dusty, dark, dank, pessimistic, the end is near attitude toward this gift of life. It is a life in which we are always giving thanks to God…for everything…
- Now there’s a spiritual practice I challenge you to engage in this week. Engage in life so wisely for twenty minutes each day this week during which time you are mindful and thankful of EVERYTHING you encounter. I can envision my morning. Lord, thank you for the alarm clock…these slow to get moving legs…this sore back that will work itself out (it always does)…the running water there in the bathroom…that light that just came on when I flip up that switch…that noisy mockingbird outside the window (he’s already at it)…patter, patter, here comes the puppy down the hall way…thank you for Lux…Oh, it appears he wet on the rug…thank you for Lux any way…And so on. Really, if we took it all in and were grateful for the new day each day, the people in our lives, the blessings, even in the midst of the struggles and hurts, we could discipline our hearts to sing a song of thanksgiving in love to our God.
- Then there is that specific singing Paul calls us to…Sing psalms, hymns and songs, songs from the Spirit to one another…the spouse whom you had a little spat with last night…the child whose not showing respect…the irritating coworker…the irascible boss…and so on. Paul says sing them a song.
- Now there are all styles of music…Southern Gospel, Rock and Roll, Hip Hop, Blues, Jazz, classical…So there are different ways to sing psalms to a person…Some of you will live out a thankful heart with a loud, joyful noise in your heart and coming from your lips…Fortissimo, they call that in music…Very loudly…Others will sing in a softer volume…piano is the Italian musical term…You will go living out your gratitude and wisdom with a soft tune, but people will hear your song just as clearly and be just as blessed from knowing you. Forte, piano…whichever, the point is to be filled with the Holy Spirit and then live from a heart filed with the Holy Spirit.
- The nice thing about learning and practicing the discipline of singing to one another in psalms, hymns and songs of the Spirit is that even when you are having a bad day, or your heart just doesn’t feel like singing, the Spirit will sing for you. Paul says in Romans 8:26-27 that “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans…the Spirit intercedes for God’s people.”
- When we don’t know what to sing – either because we are just not up to it, or we’re angry, or we’re tired, or just cranky – the Spirit keeps on singing even in our weakness.
- Have you ever gone to a hear a chamber orchestra. You have all of these musicians getting ready to play a beautiful piece. Let’s say Handel’s Messiah. Hallelujah!…Now you would hope that most of the musicians on the stage are having a good day, but likely some are not. One had a car break down…One just got dumped by his girlfriend…Another found out his mother has cancer…There human, and so in these situations they’re not feeling too well. Don’t feel like making music. But written before them is a masterpiece, a beautiful arrangement that has brought joy to people for generations. So they pick up their horns, flutes, bows, and they play the music written before them…And together it all sounds beautiful…Grateful…Spirit-filled.
- Sometimes, when we don’t know what to say, we default to negativity, complaining, blaming others, projecting our fears, hurts and anger onto others…We get ugly…But the Scriptures say be careful how you live…not as unwise but as wise…making the most of every opportunity, even the bad ones, because, you know what, the days are evil. They bring us all kinds of bad news and plot twists that we never expected. In everything give thanks.
- Now, there is one other way, other than thanksgiving or negativity that you could approach life with all of its topsy-turvy episodes, and Paul specifically speaks to this one. You could be foolish and get drunk on wine. You can medicate yourself, get a buzz, get your drink on, get high…And a lot of people do. Rather than being filled with the Holy Spirit (who is with us even in our weakness), some people are filled with spirits. It is not coincidence that people use the same word for God’s loving presence as they do liquor – Spirit. Because if you get drunk on wine, it becomes a spirit with a small “s” that competes with the Holy Spirit for the direction of your life. Foolish or wisely.
- Paul warns about leaning on the bottle, on the spirit of liquor for your joy, because it leads to debauchery. Now there’s an ugly word…Debauchery…It just sounds awful, like it hurts..Debauchery…It’s an Old French words that means to “to entice from one’s work or duty,” to be led astray. What is our work or duty in our current context? Thankfulness in all things. Not to mention that drunkenness can also entice one away from their obligation to work, family, friend ands church. You want be foolish? Make life about liquor.
- But the main idea in our passage today is to live wisely by being filled with the Holy Spirit. And what that looks like is to live an enchanted life, in cantere, a life of song “from your heart to the Lord.” And what that looks like is thanksgiving in everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, who holds all things together.
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