Ephesians 4:1-6, Genesis 37-50, Psalm 132/3
You know what happens when you do not keep a schedule? Frequently you end up with a harder task than you would have had if you hadn’t shirked a responsibility. That is my plight this week – I did not work on my blog and podcast according to schedule, and so missed last week’s wonderful passage in Ephesians, full of juicy theological themes. Instead I see that we are now, for this coming Sunday Liturgy, smack in the middle of Ephesians, at chapter 4:1-6. How can I sing the Lord’s song of unity in this strange Covid-divided land? I am tempted to hang up my harp on the willow and self-isolate.
But this is a passage we need to hear and heed. The apostle appeals to us:
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of [us] all, who is above all and through all and in all. (Eph 4:1-6)
It is relieving to see that the apostle does not write to us from a position of superiority, or even strength. He calls attention to his status as a “prisoner” rather than a leader, and “begs” rather than commands. He reminds us that we are in process, called to a calling, and hoping for God’s promises rather than completely possessing them. “I, a prisoner, beg you to remember your calling, a calling that involves hope,” he says. This is very helpful in our time of division, and even polarization. Many of us are, I think, tired of commands, distrustful of competing authorities, medical and political, critical of leadership being given both in the Church and outside of it. The apostle’s words come to us not from the outside, imposed, but from the inside, reminding us of things that we already know—our LORD, our faith, our baptism, shared by all and each of us. He reminds us of the things that we hold dear.
At the same time, he urges us to take on the mind of Christ—a difficult thing for each of us. We are to live with each other “with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love.” We might think that this pattern became the model for God’s people only at the advent of Jesus, our LORD, who took on the frail flesh of a babe, and put a child in the midst of His disciples to teach them. In fact, it is a model found all through the Old Testament as well, and brought to perfection in our Lord. Consider Moses, the great law-giver, who demurred that he couldn’t speak publicly, and so God paired him with Aaron. Or the fiery Elijah who had a stand-off with the Baal prophets, but who also bowed in deep humility when God showed His glory to him, and spoke to him in that still small voice. I suppose the most obvious example is the long-suffering Joseph, found in the last fifteen chapters of Genesis. He began his career as a brash teen with dreams of glory, but learned humility—like Jesus, he was imprisoned, like Jesus, he was unjustly accused, like Jesus, he freely forgave his brothers their terrible deeds, and brought them into a world of riches out of their poverty. For the sake of their mutually beloved father Jacob, he opened his heart to his malicious brothers, and blessing came. What they had sought to do to bring him harm, God meant for the good of his family. Even more dramatically, what Jews and Gentiles did to Jesus on the cross was used for the good of those who would become Jesus’ brothers and sisters! God the Son’s power is such that He can stoop, and so make those whom He loves great. On a human level, Joseph showed forbearance with those who accused him, patience with those who did him harm, and meekness before godless rulers—and so he was raised up both by humans and by God himself, to pave a way for the Hebrews. On the part of the perfect Man who is also God, we see this enacted in an extreme way. The One who was above all, plunged into the grime and abyss of human life, united us to Himself, and to each other, and brought us up to a plane we could never have imagined. To his accusers, he did not give any self-justification, but showed an astonishing meekness. By His unthinkable humility we are healed, and made strong.
And it is to this strategy that we, too, are called. It is hard for us to kindle in our hearts and minds the idea that true humility, meekness and forbearance come out of strength, and do not then exemplify weakness. The confident person can pull his or her punches, and not lash out, or act too strongly out of fear. Humility, meekness, and forbearance are called for not only as we deal with those outside the Church, but with our brothers and sisters as well. Sometimes, it seems, in the Church, we excuse what we say or do by appealing to an ideal that we should be intimate with each other, when we would treat others whom we know less well with far more courtesy. Do we take advantage of the love of our fellow Christians, and assume that it is their job to accept us “as we are” when we are being unkind? It helps to remember that we have become accustomed to an extremely informal age, and that in past eras, there was a reserve and deference that was followed even when friends knew each other well: remember what we might think of as the “quaint” bowing between friends that we see in such books or films as Sense and Sensibility. Remember that the Scriptures speak about Sarah calling her husband “Lord.” (Feminists wince at that!) Our individualism, our egalitarianism, and our tendency to see such courtesy as artificial, or even as dishonest, are not necessarily signs that our day courageously loves the truth at all costs. Instead it may be that we have become used to rudeness and self-centeredness, cloaked under a disguise of “I’m just telling it like it is.” In the Covid debate, I fear that I see this on both sides—among those who chastise their brothers and sisters for not “loving” the compromised, because they have questioned the efficacy of masks; among others who dismiss leaders and fellow Orthodox as faithless for following prescribed Covid requirements, either from the state or the Church. When we talk this way, how can it be that we are in the process that St. Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 3:18—are we really gazing, as in a mirror, upon the LORD, seeing there His image in each other, and being transformed from glory to glory? Joseph could either have groveled before his godless king, or righteously punished his unrighteous brothers. He did neither.
Besides the godly example of Joseph, we also have an evocative Psalm that speaks in poignant ways of unity:
Behold, how good and pleasant it is
when brothers dwell in unity!
It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down on the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down on the collar of his robes!
It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion!
For there the LORD has commanded the blessing,
life forevermore.
Psalm 132/3 helps us to picture unity in terms of the anointing of Aaron: the sign of his priesthood does not stay like oil on the head, but runs down the beard, and onto his robes. That is, it affects the entire body, with everyone benefiting from this blessing, with all being a priesthood and a kingdom. Then the psalmist uses a geographical reference, talking about the life-giving dew of Hermon, the mountain of the north, actually bringing life to the arid mountains of Zion: the whole land is seen as united, in a symbiotic relationship, with the richer parts helping the poorer. As St. John Chrysostom puts it, “Beautiful is this bond. With this bond we bind ourselves together both to one another and to God. This is not a chain that bruises. It does not cramp the hands. It leaves them free, gives them ample room and greater courage” (Hom Eph 9). When there is this kind of unity, God commands his blessing, which is life everlasting, says the Psalmist. After all, when the oil flows freely to every member, and where one helps the other, there God’s people are showing what He is like. As Christians, we understand this even better than the Psalmist, for we have seen the desire of the ages, the fulfillment of all love. Speaking of our passage in Ephesians, St. Augustine remarks,
Those who read very closely recognize the Trinity in this passage. Paul writes of God the Father “who is above all and through all and in all.”21 All things are “from God,” who owes his existence to no one. All things are “through him,” as though to say through the Mediator. All things are “in him,” as though to say in the One who contains them, that is, reconciles them into one (On Faith and the Creed 19).
And so God, in His mysterious Tri-unity, shows us what true love and oneness actually is. Each Person of the holy Trinity makes room for the other, gives glory to the other, shows honor to the other. There is an order, for the Father is “over all,” as the letter to the Ephesians puts it: yet there is a mutuality, in which each Person is of equal glory, and God is all-in-all. Like the one God, we are one body in Christ. St. John the Golden-Mouthed reminds us of the historical extent of this unity: “What is this one body? They are the faithful throughout the world—in the present, in the past and in the future.”
In our differences and disagreements, then, we may find some help as we look to the past, to our fathers and mothers in Christ, and forward to the future as we think of those who will come after us. It is not as though the Church has not had more pressing conflicts than we are experiencing—we ask, “To mask or not to mask?” “One spoon or more during this time?” “Listen to state-guidelines about distancing, or take a stand?” “Sit loosely to requirements, or report those who are committing infractions?” “Obey my priest and bishops when I think they are wrong, or find another parish?” These are not trivial questions, nor do I want to suggest that they don’t have implications for our understanding of worship, tradition, the nature of humanity, the unity of the Church, or even theology. But consider the issues of the early Church—to continue keeping kosher? to require circumcision? to bow to the authority of the Jerusalem apostles, or adapt to the Gentile context? to listen to the charismatic prophets, or to the appointed leaders of the area? to understand Jesus as fully divine, or as an exalted Messiah? to eat food previously offered to idols in an age that believed in more than one God? to exult in Christ’s freedom, and proclaim that there is no God but one, by eating this food without reserve? To worship at the Temple, or worship in households that named Christ? To brave the arena and the animals, or to keep their faith as quiet and as peaceable as they could? They had a lot to think about, and to work out. Jesus assured them, and us, that He would be with us to the end of the age, and that His Spirit would guide us into all truth. When He prayed for the apostles, He also prayed for those who would believe because of their witness. That is us. He prayed for our unity with Him, with them, with each other.
I am going to resist telling you what I think about the issues we are debating right now. The New Testament gives several examples of how to act under pressure, and it does not seem that one size fits all. So, St. Paul refused to obey the authorities and would not quietly leave the prison where he had been unlawfully incarcerated: he required a public exoneration. Yet, in speaking to the Corinthians who were claiming they had the right to eat anything, he agreed with them in principle, but then held up for them the model of Jesus, who did not claim his due, and said that he would refrain from eating meat if it ended up hurting his weaker brother and sister. We need discernment as to which kind of moment this one is—a moment to take a stand, or a moment to consider those who are fearful and do what we would not normally do.
I am not a bishop or a priest, and I have good friends and members in my own family who disagree about how best to honor Christ in these extraordinary circumstances. But what I can do is remind myself, and you, my friends, of our call to meekness, humility, and forbearance, and the reality that we are one body. It may be that this humility will go along with a dose of civil disobedience. It may be that this humility will go along with our obedience to bishops, even when we would rather claim our rights. How that works out on the ground may look different from place to place, even from family to family, and person to person. But in everything we should remember the calling to which we are called. If we do the right thing, but with the wrong motive, or in the wrong spirit, we will not show forth God’s character. Even more important than what we do practically, I think, is that we do not throw away our first loves—to Christ, to each other, to the world for which He died. Our hope, after all, is to acquire His likeness, so that the world will know that we are his disciples, having love for one another.
Edith M. Humphrey 