Be Careful How You Live

 “Be Careful How You Live”

 Ephesians 5:15-20 In St. Paul’s letters, he likes to use a negative example, followed by a positive, Christ inspired condition or action. The first negative/positive example is unwise/wise in verse 15. Verse 15 – “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.” Paul knows the Ephesians are living in a cultural melting pot along the Aegean coast in which they’ll need to be careful and wise. There are roman worshipers of Caesar, pagan philosophers, and other devils and temptations to be weary of. Here in the U.S.A., 2,000 years later, not much has changed. We are a cultural melting pot in which we need to be careful and wise. We have a modern day Nazi skinhead murdering worshipers in their temple and a troubled college student walking into a theater shooting everyone in sight. We have much to be weary of. National unity reaches its peaks in times of crisis, such as W.W. II, the height of the cold war, and the early days of the war on terrorism. When the threat passes, though, watch out. Because we then turn on each other. Some of us remember the 1990’s. After the Soviet Union fell and the Cold War ended, Americans began to rip each other apart in some of the nastiest political fights of the past 50 years. We lost our devil and began to bludgeon one another, fighting over the Contract with America, and the impeachment trial of President Clinton. Seeing life as a battle between absolute good and pure evil is a form of dualism that has a long history, appearing in the Middle East about 2500 years ago or 500 years before Christ.

  Matthew Skinner, professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul writes: “A dualistic perspective on reality, claiming there is a pure evil force or person lurking out there, allows people to avoid blaming themselves or their own people for failures or frustrations they experience.” It’s always easier to fight a “devil out there” than to do the hard work of solving our internal problems, as individuals and as a nation. Again St. Paul writes in verses 15-17: Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, 16making the most of the time, because the days are evil. 17So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. What is the will of the Lord? Is it the will of the Lord that we attack evil “out there”? Is it the will of the Lord that we attack one another? Is it the will of the Lord that we love God and love our neighbors as ourselves? The 9/11 attacks gave us a common enemy in the terrorists and for a brief moment we were united. For a brief moment even worship attendance increased across the nation. But that unifying moment passed quicker than you can say “Iraq War.” Osama bin Laden was a devilish character and most Americans cheered when he was killed last year. But he was such a shadowy figure that I’m not sure he could have served as a rallying point for us. Bin Laden’s messages were sporadic and unfocused, and over the years it was hard to tell if he was even alive. Such foes unite us by giving us a focal point for our anger and aggression. But when the enemy disappears or is hard to see, we demonize each other. Following our dualistic tendencies, we move toward the political extremes and begin to consider fellow citizens with opposing views to be our enemies as with the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements.

 As comedian John Clease has observed, “You can be as nasty as you like and yet feel your behavior is morally justified. So, you can strut around abusing people and telling them you can eat them for breakfast, and still think of yourself as a champion of the truth, a fighter for the greater good, and not the rather sad paranoid schizoid that you really are.” That’s what happening now as we move toward the presidential election. The two candidates are putting tremendous amounts of time, energy, and money into attacks on their opponent. This political rage is growing in spite of the fact that 61% of Americans believe that the rude tone of U.S. politics is unhealthy for our democracy according to a recent poll. A reversal of this destructive trend will begin only when we are energized and united by a battle against an evil that’s seen as a common threat. This is part of our cultural make-up and is rooted deeply in our religious traditions. As Susan Garrett, professor of New Testament at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary writes, “New Testament authors sometimes portrayed enemies as under Satan’s power,” such as when Paul links “false apostles” to ministers of Satan (2 Cor. 11:13-15). John associates a female prophet with teachings that he characterizes as “the deep things of Satan” (Rev. 2:20- 25). In both cases, says Professor Garrett, the enemies are fellow Christians. Such demonization helps us when we’re fighting Hitler but hurts us when we’re choosing the next president. So, like addicts who begin our recovery by honestly admitting we have a problem, we need to accept the fact that we are drawn to a dualistic world view. It is a powerful and deeply rooted approach to life, but not the only one we can take. If we resist the temptation 4 to see everything as good vs. evil, we will discover that there are no true devils in the race for the White House. I realize, of course, that a dualistic world view is an effective way to rally supporters and get out the vote. A parishioner in Nebraska who was the state attorney general once told me that, “It’s easier to get votes when you can convince people that the stakes are high and the other side is evil, as opposed to just wrong.” Since good and responsible people know that they should never compromise with evil, they end up entering the polling place with a battle mentality. But such an approach only makes sense when Satan is running for president and despite what you might have heard, Satan is not running in 2012. It would be much better for us as individuals and as a nation, if we saved our righteous anger for the devils that will inevitably appear again as threats to our nation. It’s better for us to put time, energy, and money into fighting the evils that are afflicting us internally, whether we choose to focus on feeding the hungry with our pantry and monthly meal served at Redeemer Crisis Center, providing space for our

  A.A. groups, promoting health with our parish health ministry, reaching out to the grieving and those in crisis with our Stephen Ministers, being present with our home bound and nursing home residents with our communion carriers and Loretta’s ministry, or just being a family that supports families in a society in which families are disintegrating. As always these threats are harder for us to face, because the demons are inside. As an early persecutor of Christians, Paul knows about internal demons. So he continues to use a negative example of an internal demon followed by a positive, Christ inspired action in verses 18-20. 5 “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery: (negative) but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing songs and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And to help us sing those songs and hymns and spiritual songs, we welcome home Tricia next Sunday, who first learned to sing songs and hymns and spiritual songs in our Divinity Sunday School rooms and in this sanctuary in our children’s choir and even in our adult choir. We needed a minister of youth and music and God has helped Tricia find her way back to Divinity. We’re excited to work with her in being the Body of Christ “giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!” May the peace of God . . .