Sunday Musings
Imitating goodness
Today is the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost.
On this day, we hear clear instructions on how not to live and how to live. Is this section of Ephesians an early Christian moral code, rather like the Ten Commandments?
Please don’t forget to scroll all the way to the bottom of the newsletter. There’s a survey opportunity especially for clergy, Cottage Zoom announcements, and a link to The Convocation.
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
Putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, 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. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly 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 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. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
People often think that the Bible is obscure, hard to understand, and irrelevant. But today’s reading from Ephesians seems as fresh and accessible as when it was first written some 2,000 years ago.
The passage is straightforward. It is a list of don’ts and do’s, a kind of inventory of spiritual virtues.
The “don’ts” are clear and, at the same time, convicting. Don’t lie. Don’t let anger fester. Don’t steal. Don’t gossip. Don’t make God sad by cultivating bitterness, seeking vengeance, being enraged, fighting, defaming people, and or wishing others evil.
The “do’s” stand as quite the contrast. Tell the truth. Let your anger be appropriate. Work honestly and share your gifts with others. Speak to encourage others. Be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving of one another.
Quite simply, this short section of Ephesians is a Christian moral code. In these few verses, you might hear echoes of the Ten Commandments. The “don’ts” reflect the long-standing religious directives of Israel, found in Exodus and Deuteronomy. But those Commandments are more than “don’ts.” Christians often forget that the “don’ts” of the Ten Commandments are immediately followed by words of “doing” that together provide ethical instructions for life:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise…Do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, so that it may go well with you.
Years ago, I remember an earnest preacher saying that the difference between Judaism and Christianity was that Judaism was a “religion of do’s and don’ts” while Christianity was a faith based on grace. There’s no other way to say this — that’s really bad theology.
These moral codes, both the Ten Commandments and the virtue list in Ephesians, intertwine behavior and grace — the “don’ts” demonstrate the hurtfulness of human sin and the “do’s” reveal the beauty of a community shaped in God’s love.
The wisdom of the Ten Commandments winds through Christian scriptures — in the teaching of Jesus and in the letters written to early churches — like a stream watering the way proclaimed by the One the first followers embraced as Friend and Savior. Jesus never took the “don’ts” away. Instead, the Jewish rabbi Jesus widened the horizon of the Commandments, reminding his followers to not fixate on only the “don’ts” (which is far too easy for us humans to do) but to act upon the “do’s” for the sake of others.
The “do’s” are rooted in a single thing — God’s love — the embracing, renewing, liberating, always forgiving nature of the Holy One. They aren’t works; rather, they are virtues. Each quality is a single piece of a sacred mosaic — truth, appropriate anger, honesty, generosity, trustworthy and respectful language, kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. In doing these things, and by practicing these characteristics, we imitate God, our Great Creator and Tender Parent.
These moral codes are not complicated. The “don’ts” show us how horrible the world can be (and is). We know how often we succumb to them, how hard it can be to rise above them. The don’ts point to disorder and division. The “do’s” lure us toward love, wooing us to be our best selves, as faithful members of a community, seeking to imitate the goodness and rightness that is both our ancestral inheritance and cosmic destiny. The do’s open the path toward peace, justice, and wholeness.
The reading from Ephesians could hardly be more relevant to this moment in history. Every single day, we experience the suffering and horror of living in societies blind to truth, married to anger, toiling for selfish purposes only, consumed by bitterness, hungry for vengeance, and devoted to malice. The “don’ts” are poison, they have deadened us, and taken away our capacity to hope. The toxic politics, the corruption of many institutions, and the raw self-centeredness of far too many among us are the result of ignoring the “don’ts.”
Indeed, many gleefully embrace the “don’ts” as if they are the better part of valor. But, as the prophet Isaiah wrote: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”
The “do’s” are the way out of the morass. Can we imagine a world of kindness, compassion, and forgiveness? A community dedicated to truthfulness and generosity?
None of us can ever enforce the “don’ts” as a code for others. The best we can do — should and must do — is to live the “do’s” as intentionally, authentically, and gracefully as possible. Without the “do’s,” the “don’ts” mostly seem like self-righteous scolding. But, when the “don’ts” and “do’s” reside side-by-side, they create an ethical map that point to both a good life for each of us and the common good.
If we purposefully reject what is hurtful and act upon what is good, we could create communities where good would be imitated by even more people. In effect, recognizing the “don’ts” as morally deficient and acting on the “do’s” as morally desirable opens the possibility for others to organically adopt characteristics and virtues that contribute to social flourishing. Put simply, if you act with love, joy, hope, consideration, compassion, and care, you help generate a society where others imitate these principles and influence the same.
In recent years, it appears that we haven’t been living this way in this social media-fueled performative world. Moral imitation has been largely ignored — perhaps forgotten — as a valuable aspect of shaping community. Far too many have rewarded anger, greed, and malice and imitated it, thereby reifying lies, dishonesty, grievance, and retribution on a large scale.
In all truthfulness, we can do better than we’ve been doing: Speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another…. Be kind, tenderhearted, and forgive one another.
If we did just those few things, what a difference it would make!
Maybe it isn’t as hard as we think to turn things around. We can abandon the habits of lying and practice honesty. We don’t have to surrender to malice and can pursue goodness. Pay attention to who and what you are imitating that you might be imitated. Or to use contemporary parlance, be influencers for truth and kindness by being truthful and kind. That is enough.
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INSPIRATION
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
— Naomi Shihab Nye, “Kindness”
We all know that children learn through imitation. They observe and then mimic their parents when learning how to speak, perform new motor skills, and interact with others. What you may not know is that mimetic learning is a lifelong process. In adulthood as well, the way we behave is heavily influenced by how others conduct themselves.
Every single day, we are exposed to the actions of others — whether it’s friends, family, colleagues or those in the public eye — but may not realise that mimetic learning is taking place, which can lead to unintentionally copying unproductive behaviours.
— Dr. Hannah Rose, “Mimetic Learning: The Power of Learning Through Imitation”
We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines
When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear
When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.
— Maya Angelou, from “A Brave and Startling Truth”
NEWS CORNER
CLERGY AT THE COTTAGE
My friends over at Englewood Review of Books are conducting a survey of clergy reading habits. The ERB is shaped by the conviction that reading is an essential practice for the flourishing of church communities, and this study has been designed in conjunction with Cultivating Communities, a program funded by the Lilly Endowment’s Thriving Congregations Initiative.
They are looking for about 5000 clergy to participate and are especially eager to reach out to clergy at The Cottage. Just click here — Clergy Reading Survey — for more information and to take the survey. You can also share the survey with your colleagues.
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UPCOMING AT THE COTTAGE
SAVE THE DATE: Next Thursday, August 15 at 10AM Eastern/7AM Pacific, New Yorker writer and Pulitzer Prize winner Eliza Griswold will be at The Cottage talking about her new book, Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church.
This event will be for paid subscribers only. Details TBA - don’t worry if you can’t make it - we will record the discussion and email to all paid subscribers.
In early September, my Convocation colleague, Jemar Tisby, will be with us online for a conversation about his new book, The Spirit of Justice. You can pre-order the book now HERE.
Details will be published in about two weeks regarding the Zoom conversation with Jemar.
Sometimes common Scriptures can be read or heard with boredom, and I’ll admit that is true for me. Today it was as if you picked up a boring looking stone I had just tossed aside. Then you turned it carefully to catch the light. Bright bits of gold sparkled there in the rock I had just given up. Thank you for the fresh look.
What a profound response to Christian nationalism!