Playground Rules

Ephesians 4:17 5:1

Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the 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! For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. 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.

So then, 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,

Today I had a conversation with somebody who is in the midst of some church related debate...seems like many of us are these days!

Many of the issues facing the church are connected directly to our emotional processes: How do we respond to cuts to our household budget which challenges our ability to give to the church? How do we allocate our available funds when we are not in agreement with policies of the church? How do we interpret scripture? How do we respond to ignorance regarding people who are different from us...and whom we may fear?

The reality is that our minds and our emotions don't always aid in our desire to imitate God. St. Paul reminds us of the many, many types of behavior that predictably appear (often enmasse) in the midst of congregations. Folks may actually be doing all they possibly can to express thoughts or feelings directly and clearly...but they may not be doing so with the love and grace to which we are called as beloved children of God.





There is only one way that we can "be" faithful in the midst of confusion or conflict. We must keep Christ at the center...we must cling to the cross and dwell in the love that has been lavished upon us through Christ's life, death and resurrection.

I wonder what would happen if every hour we spent with people who annoy or challenge us was spent with 45 minutes of conversation about how we are together in Christ....and 15 minutes devoted to how in our minds and hearts we are separate (or even in total opposition).

I wonder what would happen if St. Paul's counsel to the Ephesians became the rules of the playground that we followed as we go through these anxious times of "unknowing"?