Do This, Not That: A Recipe for Spiritual Living

Do This, Not That: A Recipe for Spiritual Living

Good Morning. I want to thank you for welcoming me here to worship with you this morning. My name is Nancy Neal, and I am a Candidate for Ministry in New York City Presbytery and an Elder at Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn. Greetings from Brooklyn! I am very glad to be here with you this morning.

Will you join me in prayer for just a moment? (Silence)

God we thank your for gathering us here together this morning. I ask that you be present and work through the words that I speak, through the meditation, thoughts, and prayers of all of our hearts, and that your blessings be upon us, for you are our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Being a candidate for ministry and a relatively new preacher, it is not often that I get calls to preach. Any time I am asked to preach, I jump at the opportunity. So when called to preach at a new church, I am often asked to supply a sermon title. So after spending two days reflecting on the text, I selected the Ephesians passage and was thinking that in a way, Paul’s text functions kind of like a recipe…for spiritual living.

I am sure that many of you are talented cooks. I think churchwomen are kind of famous for it—at least in the churches I have had the privilege to be a part of. Growing up in the low country of South Carolina, women handled any food from the kitchen and men handled any food from the out of doors—including Barbeque, the Grill, and the roast—as in oyster roast or pig roast.

Like many, I watched my mother in the kitchen. I remember her hands having the sweet odor of cooking, which I later learned was the smell of onions on her fingers. Every dish of hers, it seems, started with onions. But I loved the smell because it was familiar and comforting, it was my mother. Of course when I told her this, she was actually quite embarrassed that such a pungent odor reminded me of her.

I grew up with the privilege of having a mother who cooked all of our meals growing up. (We did have other chores, but I think she really just enjoyed cooking.) So I did not learn to cook until I had moved away from home. When I learned to cook, I was living in a small community in Comer, GA with people who frequently ate vegetarian meals. I was so inspired by the food and the effort of the community to eat lower on the food chain, that I decided to become a vegetarian. I owned two vegetarian cookbooks, Laurel’s Kitchen and Moosewood. They were, at the time, the basics in vegetarian cooking. After that summer, I moved back to school and lived with three women who were definitely not vegetarian and definitely not interested in eating low on the food chain. They ate a very “traditional” American diet. So when I showed up with hummos, noodle kugel, rice and beans, chili with texturized vegetable protein, and lentil soup, needless to say, they were all pretty amused.

I got teased relentlessly at dinner when we were all together. As they were pan roasting chicken and beef, microwaving frozen vegetables, and boiling potatoes or rice, I was flipping through my cookbooks trying to figure out what to make. I usually cooked after they finished, while they watched their evening television shows. And when I would finally sit down, they would inquire sarcastically, yet lovingly, about what I had prepared. I can hear Carolyn now saying, “So Nancy, whatcha got there? It looks pretty interesting.” Of course I would offer to share, and she would politely decline.

Now sometimes my food was quite tasty. Other times, not so much. I made lentil soup often because it was easy and always turned out well. (I actually can’t make it any more because I over-did it 15 years ago. And I can’t do red wine vinegar because of the frequency with which I put it on said lentil soup.) But the attempt at the Indian insipered “dahl” over rice was horrible and sat in the fridge for weeks until I was kindly asked to throw it out.

Admittedly, I liked being different from my roommates. I liked eating different food and trying out new stuff—even if it ended up being inedible. I loved the daily adventure. And the kitchen wasn’t the only place where I was different. I was a night owl. They all went to bed by 10:00 everyday and were up in the morning by 6:00. I was more of a 2-9 kind of gal. I think I liked the privacy and quiet of the living room after they all went to bed. I was messy and disorganized and they were all lived very orderly lives.

You may be asking yourself now how in the world this relates to the Ephesians. But the truth is, the Ephesians were a lot like this. They were comprised of two groups of people living quite different lifestyles: the Jews and the Gentiles. And if you remember, Jews and Gentiles were nothing alike. In fact the Jewish traditions were established in order to make themselves different from the Gentiles. So their insistence on hand washing and circumcision—among other things—probably seemed a little odd to the Gentiles. And the Gentiles in their ways, I’m sure seemed—well, un-kosher to the Jews.

You will remember that the author of this letter to the Ephesians was Paul. He was the avid persecutor of Christians who had a huge conversion experience on his way to persecute Christians. As a child we were taught in a song, When Paul was Saul, he wasn’t very nice at all—as a way to remember the character. In his conversion, Saul’s name was changed to Paul. Paul being a fierce persecutor of Christians at Saul became an equally fierce defender of the message of Chris and he traveled Asia Minor starting churches wherever he went. The Epistles, for the most part are his letters to these churches.

In this particular letter, Paul is writing to the Ephesians with instructions for how to live together and to build spiritual lives together in ways that transcend their differences.

In my college apartment, we handled such conflict with light teasing with lots of love. But alas, I was an unsuccessful vegetarian to say the least. I grew up eating meat and loving meat. But I thought it would be a nice challenge for myself to eat lower on the food chain and potentially be healthier in my eating. But after many lapses, I finally gave up my label. I have friends from that time who still have a little v next to my name in the list of friends in their brains.

Once I started eating meat again, the challenge became learning to cook with meat. So for a while I ate meat in restaurants but still cooked predominantly vegetarian meals at home. But eventually I decided I needed to face my fear of cross contamination and under/over cooked meat and try it out. As my life has settled down I eat more meals at home, I have taken up the challenge. I have called my mother a hundred times and of course my brother the professional cook is super-helpful. But as you well know--it takes practice to be good at anything.

I have found that I rely some on recipes, but a lot on intuition as well. And my brother is always offering helpful advice about the basics like, season each ingredient of a dish to achieve a rounder and fuller flavor. Or leave the lid off the pot when boiling pasta. And my favorite is that dry herbs go in early and fresh herbs go in later. To many of you this might be obvious, but for someone teaching herself to cook, these are secrets that have transformed my cooking.

So when I was reading this text and pondering my sermon title, I imagined that the text was like a recipe for spiritual living. The more I have spent time with the text it feels more similar to an outline for a course in kitchen basics than an actual recipe. The tips here seem simple, but can have profound and transforming affects on our spiritual lives.

In the first part of the letter Paul lays out a beautiful theology of the church. He says that historically, everyone, including the Jews, was far off from God at birth and that through circumcision the people were brought close to God. But now, in Jesus death on the cross, everyone is brought close to God, including the Gentiles. He says further,

“For [Christ] is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also citizens of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and of the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.”

The second half of the letter gets down to the practical stuff. It’s like, “Now that you know that you are united in Christ and that God dwells in you, this is how you should live, and by the way I am praying for you a lot.”

Our text this morning summarizes this quite nicely. You might have noticed from the long and rambling section I just read that Paul likes to wander a little and repeat himself a lot. This is probably because the letters were read aloud to their intended audience and the repetition helped them to grasp these ideas more thoroughly.

What I love about Paul is that his directions on living a spiritual life are all encompassing. He doesn’t just tell folks to pray their way through life or to just be ethical, devoid of theological framework, or even how to live in community without theological and spiritual context. Our scripture lays the message of a whole spiritual practice pretty clearly.

In the first basic lesson in spiritual living, Paul says, “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.” The literal translation for the word live here, is walk. Paul is saying to be careful how you walk on your journey through life. And he juxtaposes this idea of careful walking against a background of an evil time. Paul is telling the Ephesians to be alert and attentive to each step they take in life. Be wise not unwise.

In our journey, it is sometimes easy to be oblivious to some the decisions we make because we’ve made them over and over in life. It’s easy to go along with the crowd because we don’t have to be accountable for the crowd’s decision. In particular when two groups are uniting under one banner as the Ephesians were, it is easy to hurt feelings or be too sensitive. Wnderstanding each other takes work, and we must pay attention at each step, at each interaction to do the right thing.

A friend tells me the story of moving into a new apartment with roommates. Each of the apartment bills was in a different roommate’s names. So she got the mail and found the cable bill, which wasn’t in her name. And when she told her roommate that the bill had come and she had opened it, the roommate was upset. It might be obvious that one should not open mail that does not have one’s name on it. But on the other hand, it might be obvious that it’s a community bill and therefore anyone can open it. With different backgrounds and different senses of privacy, people’s expectations can be different. And living in community, we must be wise, not unwise in our actions to try not to step on other’s toes, and to trust when our toes have been stepped on that it was not the intention of the other person.

In the second basic lesson in spiritual living, Paul says, “So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” We have already heard that in Jesus the law has been banished with its ordinances and commandments. But this does not mean free-for-all, anything goes, foolish living--or should I say walking. We must align our will and our actions with the will of God and not be foolish.

The second lesson builds on the first. Be wise, not unwise. But how do we know what is wise? In God’s will, we will find the wisdom.

I have another friend who is struggling to figure out his purpose in life. And he comes across as indifferent about the whole thing. But I know that he suffers deeply for not having a sense of what he is called to do. I don’t want to suggest that because he doesn’t buy into the message of Christ that he can’t find his purpose, but I know that not having the structure and framework of bending his will to the will of God makes his struggle to find his purpose that much more difficult.

Trusting that there is a God who created the universe with wisdom and order can ease our mind that we fit somewhere. It doesn’t necessarily make discerning God’s will any easier, but we do know that it is there to find.

In the third lesson in spiritual living, Paul says, “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves.” Be filled with the spirit, not drunk with wine. The word debauchery is literally translated “ dissipation”, which is wasteful expenditure or consumption—foolish behavior.

This word debauchery is used one other time in the New Testament in the story of the Prodigal Son, when he goes into the world blowing through his inheritance. Getting drunk with wine leads to foolish behavior, it is an impediment to discerning. What a great reference. The Prodigal Son, after his debauchery is welcomed home with open arms just as God welcomes us home with open arms when we stray. We find that yet again we are able to connect with the community, the household of God.

The alternative that Paul offers is for being drunk with wine is for them to be filled with the Spirit by singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs together. Just as we gather together singing songs of praise and thanksgiving with the knowledge of the presence of the Holy Spirit, Paul encourages the Ephesians to do so also.

I grew up in a very white, very traditional Presbyterian church in South Carolina. While it was spirit-filled at times, it was not lively or energetic spirit like in the Black church tradition of Gospel music or the Evangelical tradition of praise music. What I love about these traditions is that with the intense emotion we feel more open to the power of the Holy Spirit. While I do not believe that we summon the Holy Spirit in our worship, I do believe that we change in a way, that the music opens our hearts in a way to be more attuned to the movement and wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

Of course there are other ways to do this. There is prayer, meditation, reading of and reflection on scripture. And of course there is being together in community. One of the most important aspects of our worship is that we are together. Spirituality is not an individual activity. We can pray personally, but it is community that gives our spiritual practice a richness that we cannot find on our own. With community comes accountability, feedback in our discerning, the opportunity to share our experiences to help each other understand better.

The closing portion of our lesson in spiritual living reads, “singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, being subject to one another out of our reverence for Christ.” We break from our “do this not that format” to bring us to focus. If we keep our eyes focused on this one point, the rest will come naturally. If we keep our hearts focused on gratitude to God for all of our blessings, we will stay filled with the Spirit and wisdom and discernment will follow. And we do not do this alone. Together we sing songs and make melodies and give thanks to God. And in doing so we put our egos aside and we submit to one another in love.

Think of a time in your life when you have experienced true gratitude—that kind of gratitude that wells up from the tips of your toes and fingers and overwhelms your heart and you just want to soak in the moment. It is in those moments that we’re not afraid of not having enough or of getting our feeling hurt. We are not preoccupied about making the right decision or about looking good enough or saying the right thing. It is in those moments that we feel the peace that only God can give to us.

As with cooking, spiritual life takes practice. It is not something we are born knowing or doing. We learn from our community, we follow our intuition, ans we just practice in every moment of every day. And when we forget or when we stray, we are welcomed home as the Prodigal Son to open and loving arms of God and our communities.

So I invite you this week to keep a song of God’s praise and thanksgiving in your heart and see how much easier it is to bend your will to wisdom of God. And remember that you are not alone. You are a part of this community gathered here. You are part of the greater church, united even in your differences by God.

Blessings and Peace to you this day.

Amen.