Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Blessed Damozel (1878).
The following is a sermon based on Ephesians 4:15, entitled Speaking of Unity. I offered it at an annual gathering of pastors and other church leaders.
Ephesians 4:14-15:
We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Messiah.
Organizing Idea: Forsaking anger, we speak the truth in love, and so draw closer together, preserving God’s will: the unity of the body of Messiah Jesus.
I.
Picture this scene: We fall in love.
I’m a bit proper, and intimate chat—you know, what the young folks these days call “spicy” talk—that makes me uncomfortable.
I don’t know how to handle love-talk, so as we walk through your garden, you whisper “sweet nothings” to the roses.
I laugh as you tell the roses how much you love them.
But there’s one problem: We fall in love during a war.
You leave to fight in the war, leaving me with instructions on how to care for the roses.
I do my best to keep the roses alive until you return.
There’s one more problem: one thing you told me to do I won’t do—and that is talk to the roses.
Why not? Well, that’s ridiculous!
Honestly, I won’t talk to the roses because I miss you.
In the letter I send to you, I share that the roses are surviving—but they are not thriving. The roses are alive, but they are not living because they are not getting the conversation they need.
Why did we fall in love in the middle of a war? What a silly thing for anyone to do.
II.
What you just pictured is a scene from the new, fabulous Broadway musical Operation Mincemeat.
Jak Malone won the Tony Award for his performance as Hester Leggatt, who sings about falling in love during World War II and caring for the roses while her lover, Tom, is away fighting the war.
For reasons you’ll need to figure out yourself, the song is called “Dear Bill.”
III.
Roses are, of course, a cliché for love.
Teenagers at prom.
Honeymoon suites.
Romance novels.
But in Hester’s song, the roses are more than cliché.
They’re a revelation.
The roses in Hester’s song reveal what it means to speak of unity.
Ephesians repeatedly emphasizes that God’s will is to unite everything and everyone (1:10). In fact, God, through the cross of Jesus the Messiah and the ongoing advocacy of the Spirit, has completed that goal.
Unity is not something we create.
Our pastors, leaders, youth, members, or visitors can’t command or create unity.
God gives unity to the body of Messiah, to the church. Unity is grace.
That’s why Ephesians urges us to “accept each other with love, and make an effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit with the peace that ties you together” (4:2-3).
Preserving unity, the unity that God gives us through the weakness of the Messiah, in the Spirit—that is our work.
Planting, growing, and watering the roses–that’s God’s work.
Our task is tending to them, giving the roses the conversation they need to thrive.
But there’s one issue: we are living in wartime.
IV.
We are in the middle of a serious culture war. One that too often successfully pulls us out of the garden, almost guaranteeing that the roses won’t get the conversation they need to thrive.
Military helicopters are descending on Chicago, targeting communities of color—and ICE, armed like Roman soldiers, are kicking in the doors of citizens and their children, hauling them into the streets.
Rome’s agents ruthlessly round up our fellow human beings without papers—the vast majority of whom are, like all of us, trying to build a good and decent life.
Across this divided land, killers strike our fellow citizens in their homes, on campuses, and as they walk to lunch—and yet we only recognize some victims as saints.
Today, our government is shut down because we refuse to agree that our neighbors deserve affordable healthcare.
V.
We are in the middle of a war, so all the chatter I am hearing in my circles, from both sides of the partisan divide—and everything in between—about buying guns is not so surprising.
Even Ephesians encourages believers in the Messiah to arm themselves. We are to put on the belt of truth, take up the shield of faith, wear the helmet of salvation, and wield the sword of the Spirit (6:13-17).
The author of Ephesians encourages us to dress up like Roman soldiers.
That’s no small thing. Fashion moves us.
Remember that time you finally fit into those tight jeans or that expensive dress you never thought you would fit into… and then immediately booked a flight to New York to walk the runway during Fashion Week? Or, remember the time that you got a great haircut, and you seriously thought, “I could be a rockstar with this hair.”
Playing dress up as a Roman soldier is not as innocent as it seems.
And before you think I am overthinking this, consider that the author of Ephesians, just a few verses earlier, explicitly commands us to adopt a Roman lifestyle.
Just before asking us to dress up like Roman soldiers, he commands wives to submit to their husbands, and slaves to obey their masters.
If it’s any consolation, he does request that husbands and masters, masters and husbands, treat their property with kindness (5:21-6:9).
That’s so cringe. I know.
It’s also very, very Roman lifestyle advice.
But like every text written in wartime—Ephesians is all about a clash of cultures—it resists simplicity.
VI.
Earlier in the letter, the author of Ephesians declares, “I’m telling you this, and I insist on it in the Lord: you shouldn’t live your life like the [the Romans] anymore. . .” (4:17). [unstated exegetical note: It is because the author moves in this direction that I emphasize the Roman cultural connections rather than the Jewish ones. The author of Ephesians was likely Jewish. See Daniel Boyarin’s excellent study, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (1999), for an analysis of the overlap between Jewish and Roman cultures, along with its main theme: how Judaism and Christianity eventually became distinguishable religions].
But in the middle of his musical, let’s call it, The Roman Family Musical, the author offers some Roman advice that is actually sound: he tells us to avoid anger. [Underlying source: see Martha Nussbaum, Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice (2016) for a sophisticated and careful analysis of the character of anger.]
The Romans, and the Greeks before them, believed that anger was a female thing. They thought males were rational and disciplined, and females were childish and prone to excess.
One thing is certain: when you lack control over your own body, anger does feel empowering.
Even so, avoiding anger is good Roman advice because human anger is always an injustice.
Anger always works against God’s will to bring everything and everyone together.
Please don’t take my word for it, the truth is as close to you as your own family.
The author of Ephesians commands children to obey their parents (6:1-4). But this time, there is good reason to comply with his command:
The commandment to love your parents is the only one that comes with a promise: We should listen to our parents so that everything may go well for us and that we may live a long life.
That’s promising!
And parents, if you want to command your children’s respect and ensure everything goes well for them, avoid provoking them to anger.
That sounds promising, too!
I confess, I am surprised; I never took Ephesians for a letter with much promise.
In fact, I typically feel like this dude is a prude.
No drinking. No cussing. No joking. No rock, pop, or blues music. No good sex (it’s all missionary style for him).
But this time, I thought: maybe the perils of anger explain his social conservatism.
VII.
Nowadays, anger is a respectable thing to feel, especially if you are a male.
The fruits of male anger are predictable—a terrible tale as old as time: males drink, males boast, males covet the spouses of other males.
Outrage follows. Men die. And women and children are the collateral damage of male anger.
Here is a new thing about anger: it’s especially powerful on social media.
Rage-baiting is all the rage. Why? We love it. We like it. We comment on it.
The algorithm gives us more and more of it. Influencers and social media platforms profit from it.
There is a reason we describe getting angry as “going nuclear.” It is the most potent weapon in our culture war arsenal.
Anger always goes viral.
Here’s why: Anger is a feeling that is always—and I say again—always related to the pleasures of retribution, of punishment, of revenge, of domination—of really sticking it to someone who stuck it to you.
The logic of anger is devilishly simple: if I can wound the one who wounded me, I will be made whole again.
Anger is always a form of magical thinking: the thought that revenge will right a wrong.
It won’t.
Anger is always a verb. It is always about getting even.
That’s why we should avoid provoking our children to anger and getting angry ourselves.
“Get angry,” we are told, “but don’t sin” (4:26-27).
In other words, don’t get angry, because anger is always related to sin; it is always opposed to God’s will, to unity and its preservation in the church.
Speaking of unity, I remember visiting family in northern Idaho.
I was in my mid-twenties, sitting with my brother and uncle in a bar called the Six Devils.
After I enjoyed about six devils, I decided it was time to share some angry thoughts. The result was predictable: more anger.
My brother, a huge, muscular guy (the opposite of me), stormed out of the bar—and my uncle did too, after he started to cry.
What I said damaged our relationship; it certainly did not bring us closer together.
That’s why the author of Ephesians urges us to forsake anger and begs us to adopt a different lifestyle, one characterized by speaking the truth.
That’s one word in Greek—it means to speak the truth continuously.
Like anger, speaking the truth is a verb. But it’s not angry speech. It is not permission to say the nastiest things imaginable about people while smiling.
Well, bless your hearts.
Speaking the truth–quite unlike anger–is always a matter of love-talk, and love-talk is always talk that inspires–indeed is–the preservation of unity in the body of Messiah Jesus.
VIII.
Now, with that in mind, let’s re-imagine what speaking of unity—what giving the roses the conversation they need–looks like.
Picture this scene: We are back in the garden; the roses are there between us. I start talking to them because I know you don’t like it when I talk too directly about love. Here’s what I say to the roses:
I was asked to preach at the Church of Christ, but I was told there was one topic I could not mention in my sermon.
So, I angrily left the garden to fight on the Western front of the culture war.
Walking to the battlefield, I was reminded of a time I asked a layperson to avoid a topic. I asked them not to disparage members of the church I was serving from the pulpit.
One member was barely back on his feet after being disowned by his entire family. Another member was coming back to church after she had stayed away for years, fearing abuse from the pulpit. Yet another member had just lost his husband.
Please, I asked, preserve the unity of the Spirit in peace.
This layperson had somehow learned to say yes when he meant no, and he offered a condescending and damaging message that drove people–including me–away from one another and that congregation. His comments severed our unity.
As I marched to war, I considered what it meant to be prohibited, in the name of unity, from preaching a message of extravagant welcome.
I also started to feel sad. I learned, again, that Rev. Kay Ray was right when he observed that I was excited about ministry because I hadn’t been doing it.
I thought despairingly: If being the United Church of Christ means that one church can degrade and exclude people like me, my family, and our friends, while another church can boldly fight racism, preserving the grace of unity is surely impossible.
The feeling only worsened when I remembered the times that even our leadership expressed the view that folks like me in the church are a “controversial” issue.
They think it is a sign of faithfulness not to take a position on such a “controversial” issue.
Here is what should be controversial:
Rome’s Supreme Court empowers conservative parents to pull their kids out of public-school lessons that entail “controversial” themes and even to send their “controversial” children to conversion therapy. Yet, it denies caring parents of those same children the power to make their healthcare decisions.
“Controversial” adults in North Carolina now have to hand over their false birth certificates, the ones they received at birth, along with their real ones, whenever they require a passport, other necessary documentation, or for identity verification purposes.
What should be controversial is our historical ignorance.
Did you know that the Greeks thought that males and females were different species? A similar idea, Ibraham Kendi reminds us, enabled some white folks to justify the institution of slavery.
The Romans got rid of the idea of the sexes. Male and females represented points on a sliding scale—the only difference being that some genitals stuck out while others turned inward . . . .
What sticks out asserts reproductive power; what turns inward submits to reproductive power. Rome privileged and empowered what asserted itself on women and on both male and female slaves and other non-citizens.
What we now think of as sex and sexuality are the creations—very real and very unnatural social creations—of the 1700s and 1800s. [Underlying source: see David M. Halperin, “Sex/Sexuality/Sexual Classification,” in Critical Terms for the Study of Gender (2014), 449-486, for this history and a spirited and clear analysis of it].
There is no such thing as “biological truth.” But too many Christians seem to be sticking with Rome. Some of y’all are too Roman for my liking.
My anger was further enflamed when I remembered times that our leadership couldn’t even celebrate the good that the Southern Conference had done, like our fight in 2015, because they couldn’t bring themselves to name it, to mention it explicitly.
Rome’s Court is—once again—looking for an opportunity to make some of us sit at the back of the bus.
And some of our leaders are uncomfortable even discussing their own desires, fearing they may cause controversy.
Family, unity should not come at the expense of diversity in the church.
We should not be cutting off toes to fit into a Roman sandal.
If unity comes at the cost of the dignity of other parts of the body, it’s just not worth it.
In fact, it just not unity.
It’s not a just unity.
It’s hostility.
And it is contrary to God’s will.
Yes, I was feeling some kind of way when I received your letter. Something about it made me drop my weapons and walk away from war.
Honestly, I missed being together with our roses.
As I walked back to our garden, I did feel like a motherless child.
I felt like a kid who had grown up without a good enough mother, tossed to and fro because his caregiver was not reliable—except in their efforts to provoke him to anger.
But something about your letter also made me feel like I no longer had to be an angry soldier out fighting the culture war of rage.
Your letter, your hymn, inspired me to think that speaking of unity—giving the roses the conversation they need to thrive, to really live—is an infinitely more pleasurable use of our time.
Your Psalm reminded me:
It’s good and pleasant when we live together in unity!
Unity feels like precious oil on the head, running down over the collars of robes.
It’s like the smell of morning dew.
It’s like the simple beauty of water droplets gliding across rose petals.
It’s life forevermore (Psalm 133, redacted).
May it be so.
Amen.