Transfixed

Preached on June 9, 2024, at Dickey Memorial Presbyterian Church.

Scripture

Ephesians 4:1-6, 25-32

I, therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort 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 of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

…

So then, putting away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with your neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Those who steal must give up stealing; rather, let them labor, doing good work with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths but only what is good for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

Sermon

I love cults. Well, I love the idea of cults. Whether it’s Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate, there’s something darkly fascinating about cults. There are a million questions we can ask: how did this group get off the ground? Who is the type of person who joins? Why do they stay? And what does this group say about America or our society? If Netflix, Hulu, and HBO are any indication, a lot of us around the globe are fascinated by these new religious and ideological movements.

In a very popular docuseries called Wild, Wild Country, viewers follow the story of the Rajneeshees, a new religious movement based on Eastern philosophy that finds a home in Antelope, Oregon. And amidst the idyllic, natural landscape and the blue-collar, overall-clad townspeople of Antelope, we see a few individuals stand out like a sore thumb. Because peppered throughout the town, outnumbering these blue-collared men and women, are people dressed head to toe in red, orange, and maroon. These new arrivals–from almost every corner of America–are impossible to miss. Red, orange, maroon. Red, orange, maroon. The Rajneeshees.

Similarly in Nashville, members of an insular and secretive community called The Remnant Fellowship are also easy to spot. Members of this cult-ish group wear white–exclusively white–everywhere they go, and are required to maintain self-destructive standards for their body image. White. White. White. The Remnant Fellowship.

Finally, though my favorite cult is fictional, it points at very real truths. As 16-year-old Karen Smith says to Lindsay Lohan in the movie Mean Girls, “On Wednesdays we wear pink.” These teenage girls called “the Plastics” wear the same clothes, in the same way, on the same days. Pink. Pink. Pink. The Plastics.

For every one of these cults, you can tell who is in and who is out by their outward appearances. To be a Rajneeshee is to wear red, orange, and maroon. To be a member of The Remnant Fellowship is to wear white. To be a plastic, you wear pink. But we know that what makes a cult dangerous isn’t what its members wear. It’s what it does to a person. It’s how it damages individuality, diversity, and personal autonomy. It eats up the soul until there’s nothing left, and then it moves to the next victim. In many ways, that outward appearance is a symbol of what is happening inside a person: complete, exacting uniformity in mind, body, heart, and spirit. To be part of the religious community, the victim has to be completely uniform with every other member.

Today, in the letter to Ephesus, the author writes to a community that is incredibly multicultural. The church in Ephesus is both Jewish and hellenistic, not a melting pot, but a rowdy community that has many competing beliefs, interests, worldviews, and socio-political values. This is a church that is trying to go everywhere, but in doing so, manages to go nowhere. At the heart of this epistle, and especially today’s excerpt, the elephant in the room is “unity.” In particular, “unity of the Spirit.” But unity is not uniformity. Uniformity is when things are the same. For example, wearing pink or white or maroon all day every day. Uniformity is when we believe the same things, vote the same way, use the same words, and share the same values. Unity is something different.

For a period of over three hundred years, the Roman imperial cult was a central part of public religion. Beginning in the decades prior to Christ’s birth with Caesar Augustus, the Roman emperor was deified and worshiped as a god. Eventually, the emperor was due προσκύνησις (proskynesis), physical gestures and acts that acknowledged the emperor’s supposed deity. And for the early Christian assemblies in the first centuries C.E., Rome was in many aspects a theocracy. To speak against Rome was to speak against the gods; to oppose Rome was to oppose the divine will; and to pledge allegiance to Jesus, a man executed on political grounds by the state, was to pledge allegiance against the very deity of caesar himself. To live as part of Christ’s new community was to live in opposition of the uniformity of the state. Toxic uniformity was not only the source of state power; it was what crucified our hope and salvation. Toxic uniformity was a mechanism of unmeasurable violence.

This epistle is not about judgmental finger-wagging that prods us to become more uniform. It’s absurd to think that the early church would hear any of it as a command to believe the same things, live the same way, or carry the same convictions. This epistle isn’t about uniformity. It’s about unity - unity of the Spirit! The epistle says that we are “called to the one hope of your calling,” that one faith, baptism, and Creator, all of which the Spirit weaves together into one great tapestry of unity. We aren’t called to one set of beliefs, politics, ideologies, cultures, identities, or values; but rather, that one faith, baptism, and Creator. It’s not that those things like politics and beliefs aren’t important; but unity is always borne of the Spirit, knit together from our one hope and faith, and sustained by the Spirit into the world to come. Throughout Ephesians, this is what arrests our attention again and again. Unity of the Spirit. As verse 1 says, it is “the calling to which [we] have been called.”

“Toxic uniformity was not only the source of state power; it was what crucified our hope and salvation. Toxic uniformity was a mechanism of unmeasurable violence.”

To really hear today’s text, we need to adjust our understanding of unity. Unity isn’t as much about doing something or behaving in a certain way as much as it is about experiencing and sharing something together. When the eclipse moved across the United States, it seems like it was all anyone could talk about. The news cycle covered it every day, it seems. Social media was buzzing with excitement. Hotel rooms were booked months and years in advance. Though I didn’t travel into the path of totality, many people did. And for many people, they described it as a spiritual experience. For a colleague of mine, she said it was humbling and deeply impactful. The birds and animals stopped chirping and moving about. The temperature changed. She said it was as if the whole planet was still. Everything was united, transfixed by the sight and experience of totality.

There are lots of words we can use to describe unity. We can blather on about it with theology and philosophy and psychology. But there’s nothing that can capture it better than this image of totality.

That’s unity.

Unity is being transfixed on something so great, so universal, so timeless, transcendent, and otherworldly that we are left irrevocably changed for the good. Being united in the Spirit is being transfixed on the very person of God and being transfixed on “the total reality of God’s self.” (Carlson)

Unity in the Spirit is to be made captive to one great hope. For our whole being to be enraptured by God; compelled by who God is. Unity in the Spirit is to be so convinced of God’s love for Dickeyville that it leaps from our hearts out of this building; Unity in the Spirit is to let go of the inner chains and obstacles and self-doubts that prevent us from encountering our Creator with our neighbors.

Ultimately, the church isn’t here to stare at itself or its problems. Every Sunday, every time we gather as a church throughout the week, God has placed a timeless, eternal, Spirit-filled encounter before us. Just like the eclipse, there is hope in God that quiets everything around us, drowning out the noise of our egos, dimming the lights on everything that is meaningless. We find connection and healing; hugs that warm our hearts; music that touches our inmost being; a God who becomes present in bread and wine. When gathering here, everything takes on a secondary meaning, being understood only in relation to this “eclipse moment,” this unity of the Spirit. And that’s impossible to ignore. Our own purposes and agendas and neuroses and wound-licking will never, ever, ever compare to unity in that Spirit. We will never be fed by our own grievances or resentment or apathy; but as we are united in the Spirit, plunged into deeper, mature ministry, we will find our souls transfixed. 

“Our own purposes and agendas and neuroses and wound-licking will never, ever, ever compare to unity in that Spirit. We will never be fed by our own grievances or resentment or apathy; but as we are united in the Spirit, plunged into deeper, mature ministry, we will find our souls transfixed. ”

For the writer of Ephesians, nothing else except that shared, compelling vision seems to bring life into the church community. For a community that is in a crisis of identity and ministry and mission, the writer of Ephesians doesn’t ask them “who are you?” to figure it out. The writer doesn’t say, “let’s get matching outfits,” or “let’s think the same way about what’s next.” Uniformity and clear-cut answers weren’t demanded. Instead, the writer says, “let’s enjoy God together in the diversity of our experiences. Let’s all experience God’s beauty and grace and love; our one faith and Creator and baptism.” To find a path forward, the community was asked to encounter the Spirit together and gaze at an eternal, timeless vision.

I believe that God is asking this congregation to do that, too. Not to be sucked into hypotheticals, toxic uniformity, or “what if’s”, but to first and foremost be enraptured by the joy and hope of God. 

What’s that? “What does this mean for us today?” OH! I’m so glad you asked. The second excerpt of Ephesians that we read, beginning in verse 25 is pretty specific. The writer doesn’t leave much up to the imagination by writing this checklist of moral living. The writer says, “be angry but do not sin,” “Don’t make room for the devil,” don’t steal, share with the needy; speak words of grace; remember your baptism in the Spirit; be kind; be tenderhearted; and forgive. If you forget any of these, it boils down to this: don’t be a butthead.

But I suggest another way we think about this. In the epistle, we hear this: “Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called” That word, “worthy,” makes it sound like we have to meet some sort of standard or expectation. If we get sidetracked or start getting a little nostalgic about what used to be, then we’re somehow failing. That’s not what this says. Where our Bibles say “worthy,” the Greek uses the word ἄξιος (axios). Axios is a word that is all about balance. It’s an economic term, actually, referring to the balanced scales used in commerce and trade. When the epistle says to walk in a manner worthy of our calling to unity, it connotes that we are to walk in a way that is balanced, aligned, and honest. In the big picture, we are asked to live as who God has made us to be. We are asked to bring our lives into alignment with the way things really are, the way God has really created us to be. It’s to cut away the personas and egos and false stories of our lives and community, becoming more and more attuned by the Spirit.

That’s what this means for us today. Not matching outfits. Not the same perspectives and thoughts and ideas. Instead, unity of the Spirit means a shared vision, shared life, shared hope, that is surely drawing us to maturity in faith, relationship, and community. To become who God knows us to be. To deepen our knowledge in the Word and our polity. To seek out new and unfamiliar perspectives. To let ourselves by challenged by new narratives, new stories, and new ministry. And to be transfixed, with joy, by the triune God and hope everlasting. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sources

Richard Carlson, “Commentary on Ephesians 4:1-16,” Working Preacher, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-18-2/commentary-on-ephesians-41-16-6