I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in 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 you all. Ephesians 4:1-6
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Paul was a great theologian (trained all three parts of his mind, gut with the law, brain with great teachers before and after his conversion; heart through his direct encounters with God).
Most importantly, Paul was pastor. Here we have words that he was directing to his flock in Ephesus, a coastal town in what is now western Turkey, across the Aegean Sea from Greece. These words were directed to the Christians at Ephesus almost two thousand years ago, but they could just as easily have been written for us here in the Lehigh Valley today.
This chapter of his letter to the Ephesians begins by describing himself, saying,
“I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord.”
St. John Chrysostom, a 4th century theologian and pastor, composed what most have been an entire hour long homily on just this line. It is wonderful, and I recommend it to you. The thing that I would like to bring out is that he was reminding his readers that he had “skin in the game.” He was not just someone who was giving them good advice, he was someone that considered what he was telling them so important that he was willing to suffer for saying and living it. St. Paul was brilliant. He could have had a career doing anything involving knowledge or leadership, but he chose and stuck with being evangelist even though it took him to prison and martyrdom.
Psychology shows that we take people more seriously when they have skin in the game. When they don’t, they come off as hypocrites and, even if their intentions are good, untrustworthy. St. Paul had skin in the game. We can trust him. He is not a hypocrite. He is worthy of our attention.
He goes on to say;
“I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called,”
What is this calling to which we have been called? To pay our dues? To come to church? To give to the poor? To be nice to one another? These are worth considering, but they are not our calling. Our calling is much greater than these; we are called to be members of god’s holy council (Ephesians 2:22) and to reign with Him on high (Ephesians 2:6)! Could there be any higher a calling? No. In this we are raised up to live and serve even with the angels and the other sons of God.
Knowing the magnitude of the calling, how can we walk worthily? By putting on airs? By acting as though we were deserving of so great an honor? By lording it over one another? Surely this is our temptation. Experiments have shown how power goes to people’s heads and changes them into monsters. Is this how we can walk worthily? No! St. Paul knew this temptation and he had mastered it in his own life. He saw it threatening his flock, so he shared the secret of “walking worthily” while still appreciating the tremendous calling of every Christian, a calling that will have us ruling even over the angels (1 Corinthians 6:3).
How can this be done?
“I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness”
How can we be lowly when we have been raised up so high? Because we know that we are not worthy of it. We appreciate the difference between what we have earned and what we have been given. We recognize that we have been bought with a price, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross. Lowliness and gratitude work within our hearts to make us worthy.
It is this that then leads us towards the next way that we walk worthily; we walk with
“I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love,”
Gentleness. How often are we gentle with one another? Is it a habit of our hearts, or is it something that we only do when we are in the mood for it and others behave worthily of our kindness? I think you know the answer. But if we have cultivated the twin virtues of lowliness and gratitude because we appreciate what the Lord has done for us, should we not be willing to do the same for others… even when they have earned the hottest kind of hellfire? You and I deserve the hellfire. We are certainly not worthy of God’s gentleness… and yet He is gentle and kind. Kind enough to do everything within His power to protect us from hell. And do we do the same? Or do we create our own hellfire to share with those who cross us? Again, is this how we walk worthily? Is this how we show that we true belong in God’s grace and in His heavenly kingdom? Where is the love?
St. Paul tells us to suffer for and bear with one another. Again, we are showing we belong with the Lord by imitating Him. He suffered persecution, the horrible passion, and death on the cross for us.
We walk worthily as His brothers and sisters and as God’s sons and daughters when we suffer for one another. And most often this suffering takes the form not of physical pain, but by offering patience and kindness when our instincts tell us someone deserves a rebuke. We walk worthily when we are willing to suffer in silence when others are worthy of actual suffering. Do you see the logic? Do you see how much it goes against our instincts?
But this really is the way of the Christian. To suffer not in weakness, but in strength. The Lord could have obliterated the Romans and Jews that attacked Him, but for their salvation, He held His power in check… knowing that the best use of His power was to bring them to salvation through His willing sacrifice. He knew that the greatest victory did not come with winning the immediate battle with His oppressors, but by winning the battle with oppression itself through His loving sacrifice.
We are called to do the same. Through humility, through gratitude, through gentleness, through suffering for one another, and through love.
All these things require incredible strength. They require incredible courage.
But if we do them, they bring the reward of the places in the kingdom of heaven that God has set aside for all his saints and, more importantly, we draw others towards that same inheritence.
