Relationships - how they make or break our lives! Our capacity to relate to others and to God means everything in the world - in this world and in the world to come.
To be a Christian is to have within you One who in his nature reaches out to others and to his Father, turning his adherent inside out in generous love. If you adhere to Jesus Christ and he adheres to you, your existence is 'relational' in the best and most wonderful sense.
I want to turn to our Scripture reading from Ephesians 4:25 to 5:2.
Here St. Paul sets out for his readers teaching about the practical Christian life. It is all about relationships. It reads rather tough and demanding, a bit like the Sermon on the Mount:
Putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours… thieves must give up stealing…let no evil talk come out of your mouths…put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice…
Lying, stealing, foul talk, bitterness - all of these actions and attitudes undermine our relationships.
To live our baptism is to recognise we are above all of this because Christ is above all of this and Christ is in us. So at the conclusion of the set passage, the beginning of Chapter 5, we’re called to the imitation of Christ. 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.
If Christ is in our lives our imitation of him should not be an effort. We just act out what we are, as those seated secure in Christ and walking always with him, believing he is with us.
Our Lord has the capacity by his fragrant offering and sacrifice to God to help us redeem our capacity for relationship and make it an instrument for the building up of the Church.
Let's look more closely at the main body of teaching on relationships in our passage, at its start from 4:25: Putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another.
To live with Christ is to live by the truth. When Jesus is in our lives we see an ongoing healing that reconciles us to the way things actually are.
How can you build relationships with others unless you are determined to be truthful?
Putting off falsehood is not just a matter of not telling lies to other people. It is an ongoing process of illumination and healing. As we more and more possess ourselves we gain integrity and the capacity to be generous towards others.
Sometimes the falsehoods we hold to are benign, like white lies - if there is such a possibility. When we have received a cruel blow our inner defence mechanism helps us deny the fact. That denial shows itself in our faint heartedness before some situations. Sometimes our relating to other people seems to be 'lifting a scab', unsettling an old wound in need of healing.
To live with Christ at the centre of our lives involves seeking healing for such inner hurts that make us live in falsehood.
Speaking truthfully to (your) neighbour does not mean telling all. It often means holding back information, out of love. Just as we cannot ourselves bear the whole truth about ourselves so with the bearing of truth to others. There is a time - but we need patience to choose such a time to speak the truth in love.
Our passage has a lot to say about one of the greatest threats to good relationships - anger: Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice …or earlier on: Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger
To live as a Christian is to live with a perspective beyond oneself. We are no longer the centre of the world but find completion outside of ourselves. So much for the principle. Let someone 'tread in our space' so to speak and we discover how much we really live out in practice that selfless principle! Healing our relationships is about facing up to and dealing with this anger as it brews up in our life from time to time, or as it gets repressed deep down inside us.
We are to 'get rid' says verse 31. The earlier verse 26 of Ephesians 4 is more merciful - it gives us 24 hours to do so. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger. To protect our relationships we should always end the day as best we can in peace with our neighbours. In this way, as he goes on, we do not make room for the devil.
St. Paul indicates in v29 that when we own the Lord deep in our lives we let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up…so that your words may give grace to those who hear. The way we talk, like the expression of anger, has a profound effect upon the sort of relationships we build, even obstructing our capacity to build relationships at all.
V29 is hard teaching if it is something we have to battle to attain in our own strength - but we don't - for we are 'seated with Christ' and Christ is in our lives! With Christ as our guide there is less of a battle over evil talk. We are able to seek the release of his Spirit into our lives and into our language.
The Spirit of Jesus is a spirit who encourages. Like Jesus himself he is an 'Advocate', one who always speaks and pleads on behalf of people.
We do not see much Holy Spirit talk today in the mass media. Contemptuous talk, yes. Unwholesome talk, yes.
Jesus in us is able to show us words and actions that are useful for building up…so that your words may give grace to those who hear. Our relationship with other people grows and deepens as we open ourselves to the gifts of the Holy Spirit that give insight into human needs around us. As we are shown people's hearts by God we are enabled to bare our own hearts and to be bound together in a true and deep relationship, the needy with the needy.
Our passage also speaks of overcoming greed: 28 thieves must give up stealing How many of our relational difficulties come down to greed and acquisitiveness! At a basic level each individual has a selfish instinct for survival. When Christ comes into our life he begins to transform that instinct so that we do not live to amass and possess but to serve. As believers we see ourselves as stewards of life, not 'proprietors'.
32 Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, as God in Christ God forgave you. To be a Christian is to have within you One who in his nature reaches out in love and mercy to others. It is to adhere to an infinite source of generous love. Here is our deepest healing, bringing us into a wholeness of being, the fullness of human and social well being.
Jesus has the power to free us gently from the falsehoods about ourselves. He can touch with his healing the inner hurts that make us less than we are meant to be. In this way our capacity to grow in relationship with God and neighbour is enhanced.
When the patience of Jesus is recognised deep in our lives our capacity for anger is compensated. We can no longer rage, treating people as if they were objects. Instead we are those who make space for others.
The keener sense of our own sense of inadequacy and our need of grace and mercy brings with it fresh generosity towards those who in any sense 'cross our path'.
Jesus in us is able to show us words and actions that are useful for building up…so that your words may give grace to those who hear and so that our relationships grow and deepen, heart to heart.
When we know the Lord deep within us our material possessions begin to serve our relationships. Material concerns lose their power to dominate and to destroy relationships when the power of love gets to work deep down.
St. Paul implores the Ephesians in our passage do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.
As the ministry of the Word now gives way to the celebration of the sacrament we might ask the Holy Spirit in a quiet moment or two to show us any grief he has about our lives to prepare our hearts for Holy Communion.
The Holy Spirit wants to lead us into wholeness and truth - but gently, step by step!
Where is the falsehood to be offered up, the inner hurt to be touched?
Is the Holy Spirit grieving over my inner anger or acquisitiveness?
If I feel badly done to, how forgetful have I become about the benefits of Christ?
Come Holy Spirit, now, and fill the hearts of your faithful people! Show us our exact needs at this hour - and then give us courage to reach out to you, so that Christ may be better formed within us!
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on us - fill us anew, fill us anew!
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