Ephesians - Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

14 August, 2006.
Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

The Readings for today are taken from First book of Kings, Ephesians and Gospel according to John. The Gospel continues the focus on the bread of life discourse in John’s gospel.

However, today the letter to the Ephesians 4:30-5:2 has caught my eye. It both comforts and afflicts.

Whatever the context of the letter – to the Christians of Ephesus or a circular letter to several churches, the communities to whom it was written would be a mixed lot – different classes, races and backgrounds.

First of all Paul tells those who have been baptized and thereby gifted with the Holy spirit:
Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God who has marked you with his seal for you to be set free when the day comes. Never have grudges against others, or lose your temper, or raise your voice to anybody, or call each other names, or allow any sort of spitefulness. Be friends with one another, and kind, forgiving each other as readily as God forgave you in Christ.

This is what it means to grieve the Holy Spirit – to keep those very enjoyable pastimes of holding grudges, temper outbursts, the deliciously spiteful remarks that can be so clever and witty. All those behaviours that exalt ourselves to the cost of others; that put an unassailable wall to defend our poor egos.

Sadly, much of our public humour falls into these categories. The television show that has canned laughter after a put-down; the political wit that denigrates.

Does that mean that Paul is asking the Christians of Ephesus to be dour and humourless? Not at all. After all, joy is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Does it also mean that we must be always be ‘nice’ and never say the confronting word. No.

The context is friendship. Friendship with God and with each other that is the gift of the Spirit in Baptism. It is friendship because God has first called us his children and his friends. Friendship forgives, holds the other in esteem, delights and rejoices in the other and friendship will ask of us at times to say confronting words to our friend. Even if that friend is the enemy – after all Jesus demanded we love our enemy, do good to those who persecute….

So this texts afflicts in that it holds a mirror up to our defences and asks us to dismantle them. We won’t easily do it completely – there is too much fear and pleasure in the cynical word. So the comfort is that God who has first befriended us forgives us hurting ourselves and his other friends and because we are God’s children, always learning God picks us up and helps us start again like a child learning to walk. I would like to think that like a loving parent God grins at our failures when we keep trying and loves us all the more for giving it a go.

Finally, the reading for today says:
Try, then, to imitate God, as children of his that he loves, and follow Christ by loving as he loved you, giving himself up in our place as a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God.