Pentecost +12 – Clothed in Christ

Sermons – St. Brendan's Anglican Church

Rev. Doug Floyd

Pentecost +12
Rev. Doug Floyd
Ephesians 4:17-5:2

The story of the Good Samaritan begins with a question. Jesus declares that the heart of the law can be stated in the following commands, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”^[1] To which a Pharisees responds, “And who is my neighbor?”

Jesus proceeds to tell the story of a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. He falls among robbers and is stripped, beaten, and left half dead. A priest and a Levite walk by without stopping. Then a Samaritan sees him and has compassion. He binds his wound, pours on oil and wine and takes him to an inn where he can heal.

The priest and cultural critic Ivan Illich once suggested that this story of the Good Samaritan is about the end of ethics. Illich like to provoke, so his initial response strikes us as odd. Then he proceeds to explain that ethics give expression to a value system of a given tribe or ethnic community. The Samaritan’s community would frown upon him helping the enemy of their people. But Jesus opens the way for people to freely serve one another across tribal restrictions. The story anticipates a new kind of ethics not rooted in ethnic divisions but a common humanity.

Our letter from Ephesians invites the people to leave behind the way of life of the Gentiles and follow in the way of Christ. It’s not that the Gentiles were without ethics. The ethics of a given society may have some overlap with Christians values, but they may also allow and even support behaviors that are antithetical to the Gospel.

Paul is writing to people living in the Roman empire. The historian Tom Holland used to consider himself a classicist in that he believed his values were congruent with the classical societies of Greece and Rome. But the more he studied these cultures, the more he realized his values had been shaped by Christianity. This was the beginning of a move toward Christianity. Holland discusses the expectations for rulers in Rome. These men were predatory and expected to be so. It was a way they demonstrated their power.

While we’ve been blessed by the freedoms we enjoy in our culture, there are still many ways in which the dominant cultural values are antithetical to Christianity. We look to Christ and the community of the faithful.

In Ephesians four, Paul contrasts living under the old self versus living as the new self. He uses the language of clothing. He says, “Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, ²³ and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, ²⁴ and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”^[2]

Now on the one hand, Paul is talking about our personal responsibilities and the life we live, but simultaneously he is talking about our corporate self. In chapter two, he speaks of Jews and Gentiles being raised together in Christ. Then he goes on to discuss what has happened to the Gentiles. He writes,

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— ¹² remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. ¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴ For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility ¹⁵ by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, ¹⁶ and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.^[3]

Christ has brought those who were far off near by his blood. He has broken down the wall between Jew and Gentile and made one new man. Christ is the head of this new man and the church is His body. We are all bound up in Christ. In the book of Romans, Paul contrasts those in Adam and those in Christ. He says,

[D]eath reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. ^[4]

Adam is a type or a picture of the human condition in sin. Adam points toward the one to come: Jesus Christ. Paul continues in Romans 5:15,

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.^[5]

Markus Barth suggests that this kind of imagery is behind our passage in Ephesians. The old self or Old Man was all humanity born in Adam, that is born in transgression. The new self or New Man is being raised up into Christ.

I mentioned that he uses clothing language. He says, “put off your old self.” Now think about this. In the story of Adam and Eve, we see the image of humans trying to clothe themselves in fig leaves. All humanity tries to dress ourselves in our own righteousness. But we are bound in sin. Isaiah says that “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.”[6]

Under the “old self” we are bound to unrighteousness. Humans “are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.”^[7] This is not to say that humans do not have any virtues. We can find codes of behavior in ancient societies that have some parallels with the 10 Commandments. At the same time, we can see abuses of the poor and weak and all sorts of sexual perversions that are considered acceptable.

Even in our contemporary culture we see this mix of hardness of heart alongside some acts of kindness. As the church, “God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”^[8]

We seek to be clothed in Christ, in the way of holiness, in the way of communal love. For we are members of one another. Our bodies are in service of Christ. The hand that steals is to become the hand that works and serves and gives. The lips that curse are to become the lips that encourage and bless those that hear. We can extend Paul’s exhortation to the whole body. The feet swift to shed innocent blood become the feet clothed in the Gospel of peace.

Even as we recognize our need and desire to be clothed in Christ and His righteousness, we acknowledge that Christians have often followed in the paths of the surrounding culture and defended ungodly behaviors such as racism, hatred of enemies, taking advantage of the weak and defenseless. We acknowledge our own capacity to follow in cultural patterns that are antithetical to the way of Christ. We ask God for mercy. We ask God to reveal our patterns of sin and death. We pursue Christ.

Even as Christ has forgiven and continues to forgive us, we seek to forgive one another. We follow Christ in the way, seeking to imitate him in word and deed and in laying down our lives in love.

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^[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Lk 10:27.

^[2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Eph 4:22–24.

^[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Eph 2:11–16.

^[4] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ro 5:14.

^[5] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ro 5:15.

[6] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Is 64:6

^[7] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Eph 4:18–19.

^[8] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Col 1:13–14.