Ephesians 5:15-20 tells us four pretty random things that when taken together don't seem to make a whole lot of sense; these four things are: "be careful how you live because the days are evil," "don't get drunk," "sing a lot," and "give thanks for everything." Taken out of context, it's difficult to see what's really going on in these verses, which is why I decided to backtrack and take a look at the other readings from Ephesians we've been hearing over the past several weeks. And you know what I found? An awful lot of interesting and germane things, such that, when put in context, these five verses begin to make a lot more sense.

So, let me begin by summarizing what the letter's all about. Ephesians is about the inclusion of Gentile converts into a largely Jewish Christian Church, about what accommodations those Jewish Christians are called to make on the one hand, and what amendments of life those Gentile converts are called to make on the other hand. In other words, it's about a big ol' conflict, the resolution to which (according to Paul) will require much from both sides if each is to remain faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Here's the deal: Paul was convinced that the Church should be open to Gentiles, and that Gentiles should be able to join the Church without becoming Jews first. (After all, becoming a Jew would necessitate a rather painful bit of elective surgery for most Gentile men…) But if Gentiles didn't need to become Jews first in order to become Christians, what did that mean? That several millennia's worth of Jewish teaching and tradition no longer meant anything? And since Gentiles engaged in many practices that were morally repugnant to the Jewish Christian mindset, that opened further questions about what things Gentiles might need to do (or stop doing) in order to start living Christian lives. On the surface of this conflict, it seemed the choice was between either unquestioning inclusivity or unflinching moral rigor.

Ephesians was written with this tension between inclusivity and morality in mind. But rather than resolving that tension by siding wholly with either Jews or Gentiles, the author of Ephesians calls the Church as a whole to an even deeper unity in the ordering of its relationships in godly love, affirming that there is an equal place in the Church for both classes of human being, and proclaiming that each class, Jew and Gentile, is called to leave behind whatever immorality they previously engaged in, and thereby live into a covenanted life together.

Paul walks a rather tight line between declaring to Jewish believers that much of their tradition has been radically changed--even abolished--by Christ's revelation, while simultaneously drawing upon the best of that same tradition in exhorting Gentile converts to abandon idolatrous practices and live holy lives. Let me give you an example directly from the second chapter of Ephesians. To the Gentile converts, Paul writes: "remember that you were…aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ…In his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us." Paul makes it pretty clear that in Christ Gentiles have access to the same "covenants of promise" as the Jews. In the very next verse, however, Paul seems to sweep aside those very covenants, declaring to the Jewish Christians that Christ "has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body…"

If Paul had ended his epistle at this point, it would be clear that the Jews simply needed to make way for the Gentiles, end of story. But not so, for Paul also places heavy demands on Gentile converts, telling them two chapters later, "you must no longer live as the [unconverted] Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. That is not the way you learned Christ! You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." Thus, while Gentiles are to be included in the full life of a Church that was founded by Jews (without themselves first becoming Jews), they must now also conform to certain moral standards, chief among them the avoidance of licentiousness and idolatry.

In our own day, we face similar questions of inclusivity and morality. Just last week, liberals in the Episcopal Church were celebrating the confirmation of an openly gay man as Bishop of New Hampshire while conservatives mourned what was seen as an unprecedented departure from apostolic teaching. And here it's very important that I be clear from the outset that as a priest I am not interested in telling anyone what they should or should not think or feel about the actions of our General Convention. I respect this congregation far too much to presume that I have exclusive access to the truth of the matter; if anything, I am still working these issues out for myself. But I do have a few things to say about how we as a community of people who have promised to follow Jesus as our Lord and Savior might continue to follow Jesus together. And that's where I intend to start, with what shapes us as a community: the story of Jesus and how Jesus treated people.

Christopher Bryan, who was Charlie's professor of New Testament at Sewanee, wrote a book entitled And God Spoke: The Authority of the Bible for the Church Today, and in it, he writes: "we must never forget the story, or allow ourselves to be distracted from it. That is why the Church insists that we remind ourselves of it by regularly rehearsing it in outline in the creeds. Whenever we begin to feel confused or lost, it is to the foundational story itself, the story of God's faithfulness, that we must return. By studying it and claiming it as ours, we remind ourselves who and whose we are."

Last week, we celebrated a baptism, and at both liturgies we renewed our Baptismal Covenant, which contains the oldest creedal formulation of the Christian faith, the Apostle's Creed. Following the recitation of the creed, we all promised among other things to "respect the dignity of every human being." Now this promise to respect everyone doesn't mean we are to regard the Church as a place where "anything goes." Far from it. That's why we have creeds in the first place. We have moral standards and traditional teachings that we try to abide by, and we expect that people of good will who seek to live a faithful life according to Christ's revelation will abide by those standards and teachings as well. A major difficulty arises, therefore, when those standards and teachings are called into question. Now it would be one thing if these standards and teachings were assaulted from the outside--that's to be expected. But it's another thing altogether when we hear of these standards and teachings apparently being abrogated by the very people we expect will guard them.

The epistle to the Ephesians is most helpful at this point, for it reminds us that even when traditional standards and teachings are being called into question from the inside, and even when strife and conflict results, we are called to remain in community with one another. It is in this context that the five verses we heard this morning fit in, for now we can see that they are actually part of a larger set of instructions on how we are to conduct ourselves when our Church is in conflict. It is here that Ephesians' particular emphasis on worship as the source and focus of our unity becomes so important in sorting out how we should react when we are upset by the direction we see our own Church heading.

Simply put, when the Church's actions engender anger, hurt, or confusion, we have four possible responses. Our options are:

1. Act as if nothing's changed; that is, live in denial;
2. Accept the change (either grudgingly or willingly);
3. Leave and join another denomination with whose positions we agree; or
4. Stay connected to our community of faith, and allow ourselves to be challenged to grow in faith and love as we rely on the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth.

The first option, act as if nothing's changed, is untenable for people of faith because to deny a reality that's staring us in the face is to be dishonest with ourselves, to avoid pain at the expense of possible growth. As Ephesians puts it, "let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another."

The second option, accept the change, is always a possibility, and may under some circumstances either be the best we can do or truly the right thing to do. Quite often, however, a pernicious form of passive-aggressive behavior is cloaked beneath an outward attitude of "acceptance," manifesting itself in grumbling and other actions ranging from the merely unconstructive to the downright destructive. As we find in Ephesians: "Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful 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."

The third option, leave, is really the worst of the four, because it tears apart the very community that the truth is supposed to hold together. Schism is a grave sin because it simply heaps one evil on another. One cannot correct a wrong by wronging another. Nor are we called to be in community only with those who believe and act as we do. Rather, when we have conflicts, Ephesians tells us to "Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice…" I have been most distressed over the past couple of weeks by those who are using recent events as a pretext for breaking away from local communities of faith. After all, if we walk out on each other, we abdicate our responsibility to participate in transforming our lives and our community for the better.

Clearly, I believe we are called to choose the fourth option, to stay connected--in the words of Ephesians to "be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you." For if we remain connected, there are three things we can do:

First, we can become clearer on what we believe and why we believe it. The three other options of denial, passive acceptance, or leaving all have one thing in common: They effectively make it possible to avoid spiritual growth. And what else is the Church about, if not spiritual growth? Without challenging ourselves to come to a deeper understanding of what it is we believe and why, we run the risk of stagnating in our faith. One of the greatest gifts we can give each other is a safe space in which we can examine our attitudes and preconceived notions. Saint James, I would like to believe, is one of those safe places, where we can ask ourselves: Are all my attitudes truly Christian? That is, do they manifest the love of Christ for my brothers and sisters in the Church? Am I living into my Baptismal Covenant?

Second, we can become more aware of why others hold the positions they do, and while recognizing that not all opinions are created equal, ask ourselves: What in another person's approach can I recognize as being rooted in Gospel values? In my disagreements, do I demonize the other person, or am I respectful and loving towards even those whom I see as completely wrong-headed? In other words, do I care more about being right, or being in relationship?

Third, we can resolve to remain in community, recognizing that it is when we are most in conflict that we need each other the most. It is only by remaining in community that we can keep things in perspective, and not be led astray by individualism. Further, it is only by remaining connected to each other that we can make sure our voice is heard in the official institutional structure of the Church. For instance, do you know how to let your bishop know how these decisions affect you? Do you know how to get involved in the decision-making process in the Church? These actions don't take place in a vacuum, you know. Real people went to Minneapolis and real people voted on your behalf. Next time, you could be one of those people who goes to General Convention and votes on our behalf. Maybe in these decisions, both those in which we rejoice and those at which we are dismayed, we can hear God calling us to become more engaged, not just with our own, personal faith, but with the faith journey of the entire people of God whom God has gathered together in the Episcopal Church. But even if your call is not to step into the fray of national church politics, your very presence here, week in, week out, can stand as a quiet testimony to your dedication to community, valuing our relationships in Christ over those things that threaten to divide us.

Finally, in the midst of these conflicts, don't forget to pray, pray, pray. And sing. For as we heard from Ephesians this morning: "be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms 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." Amen.

On Thursday I visited www.bridges-across.org, a website dedicated to fostering loving Christian debate and dialogue across the theological divide on issues of sexual morality. They had a really clear articulation of their approach, which can be summarized as follows: "There are, of course many sides to the homosexuality debate…There are people from many backgrounds who for religious or other reasons believe that homosexual relationships have the same value as heterosexual relationships. And there are those of many faiths who disagree, believing that only a male/female relationship in marriage is the Creator's intent for our sexuality. But there is another divide which exists within both camps, and that divide [is in which] method" we use to approach people on this issue. The first method asserts that "the proper approach to people on the other side is to denounce them, avoid them, keep them away from the children, name them as dangerously evil and do whatever must be done either to change them or silence them. Government should be called in at some level to make sure this happens." (These tactics, I might add, are just as prevalent amongst liberal activists as they are amongst conservative activists.) In sharp contrast, the second method asserts that "the proper approach to people on the other side is to recognize their humanity, try to hear them, love them, learn where their pain is, and stand in solidarity with them as human beings in opposition to the approach taken by [the first method]…The difference between these methods is the difference between coercion and openness, fear and love, control and vulnerability, violence and nonviolence…The way of Jesus brings us to [practice the second method]" and what we should be doing is "evangelism to convert people," not from one view to the other, but from the world's method of fear to Jesus' method of love. In the end, I honestly believe it matters much more how you treat the people you disagree with than whether you are on the right side in those disagreements, though of course it's always nice to be right. I will post the link to this website at the end of my sermon when it's put up on the parish website this week, for easy reference. They have a lot of good resources there, and I commend it to your study and reflection.