The Church was made to GO More (Ephesians 5:6-21)

Moving Funny

One of the stars of the silent movie era was a comedian by the name of Buster Keaton. Like Charlie Chaplin, Keaton entertained audiences with zany antics meant to make audiences laugh. Few actors of that era, though, moved as much as Buster Keaton. Chaplin was known for sentimentality and elaborate stage sets. Keaton was known for movement and action on big venues, especially the outdoors. In fact, he moved so much, camera operators had to learn how to keep the camera moving so that the angles captured Keaton at just the right comic moment. Keaton was always moving and his well-timed stunts continue to be mimicked on the big screen even today. His films were full of chaos, stunts, gags, and impeccable timing. There’s at least one website dedicated to breaking down the physics of Buster Keaton’s stunts because many of them seem impossible, but were done well before the green screens we have today. In fact, Keaton’s goal in the silent movie, was to allow the motion and movement to carry the story. His movies during the silent era were notorious for having very few title cards. He wanted the action to eliminate the need for the subtitles. Keaton said this about all of his motion and movement:

“No man is really funny unless he moves funny.”

Movement makes the funny stuff believable or more real. Whatever story Keaton is telling, he is selling that story with movement and motion because movement and motion are the stuff of life. “No man is really funny unless he moves funny.”

Keaton was on to something. There’s something you can tell about a person in the way they move and walk. Scientists tell us that our gait, or the way we walk, is even more distinct than our fingerprint. You can identify us by the way we move. The same can be said about a church. No church is really all about the gospel unless that church is a moving gospel… moving toward others with Good News, the embodiment of Good News. That kind of movement defines us. Being sent or GOING is in the DNA of church. A church that is not moving out and walking among is no longer being the church.

The Church Moves with Good News

We are in the 5th week of a 6 week series of messages in which we have been looking at the complicated and sometimes confusing thing that we call the church. In spite of the way we use that word in many different ways, as we read the Bible we begin to understand that church is the body of Christ here on earth. God fills Jesus with himself. Jesus fills the church with himself. And the church fills the world with Jesus.

Mission is in the DNA of what it means to be a gathering of Jesus followers. We’ve defined the church in this series as

a gathering of Jesus followers where the Word is preached and the Sacraments are provided.

That gathering is not static. It is moving, the Word preached and Sacraments provided producing arms and legs that move toward the neighbor.

Quick overview of Made for More

Paul as he writes to one of those first local churches gathered together in the city of Ephesus has so far in our journey through the letter to the Ephesians reminded them and us some important truths about the church. That is through the church the fullness of Jesus can fill every corner of society.

So, here’s a refresher for where we have been the past 4 weeks:

1. More Jesus

Truth 1 - It is through the church that Jesus and his fullness is going to fill every corner of society: where we live, learn, work, and play

Shift 1 - From more effort to more Jesus

2. Made to BE More

a. Truth 2 - Every follower of Jesus is a unique masterpiece work of God

b. Shift 2 - From more volunteers to more masterpieces

3. Made to Love More

a. Truth 3 - The primary motivation for filling Jesus into all areas of society is love

b. Shift 3 - From more guilt to more love

4. Made to Do More

a. Truth 4 - Jesus gives organizing systems to His body for fullness, for more impact, and for the mobilization of EVERY member

b. Shift 4 - From more hierarchy to more missionaries

5. Made to GO More

a. Truth 5 - Our “GO” is to embrace our mission field and “make the most of every opportunity” to express the FULLNESS of Jesus to others.

b. Shift 5 - From more programs to more mission fields

Another way to think about this is the shift from “come and see” to “go and be.” From centralized to de-centralized church. You are your best for the Table in your own mission field… where you work, where you play, where you live, and where you learn. More Jesus in every area of live means that every area of life is a mission field. We’re not used to thinking about church this way, but this is exactly how the church started off in the Bible.

Despite all the different ways we use that word “church” our focus as the Body of Christ has been on that which Jesus started his church to be all about to begin with. And that body didn’t really function like the body we know today. Before there were buildings, there were homes, and the set times for worship varied, and the order of worship was random, and there was little organization. The church was simply the gathering of believers around the confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. That Jesus was celebrated because he had died and risen from the dead for the forgiveness of sins. They had preaching, they had the Lord’s Supper, they had prayer, they had the Word read in public. And they may have had music, but even music was not highly organized. In fact, one of the songs of the Ephesian church is most likely in that passage we just read;

Ephesians 5:14 “Get up, sleeper, and rise up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

That passage is loosely quoting the Old Testament, but it’s also in a bit of a poetic form. It’s quite likely that’s a verse or chorus. Regardless, church was unlike what we know now. So as we think about ways that we are engaging a culture in which a majority of our neighbors are de-churched, it is helpful to come back to the Bible and into a book like Ephesians to see what they were doing in their culture.

The Walking Church

And this week, Paul again is speaking about the church in ways that show the church is in motion, the church is moving toward the world so it can fill all things. Here’s where it begins to show up in our passage this morning.

Ephesians 5:15 “Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise—”

That word “walk” is translated in some translations as “live”… pay careful attention to how you “live”. That word literally means “to walk about”. It does have in mind for us to be living wise lives, but this word occurs five times in this section of the book, and they are all interconnected. “Walking” or “moving about life” is how the church fills every corner with Jesus:

Eph. 4:1: Walk worthy of the calling you have received.

Eph. 4:17: “You should no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thoughts.”

Eph. 5:2 “Walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us.”

Eph. 5:8 “Walk as children of light—”

Eph. 5:15: “Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—”

Yes, this is about how we live, but how we live is not in isolation or in some fixed spot, we live on the move. Not in the sense of being nomads, but this word “walk” is loaded with mission and gospel. We are moving toward others, walking about as we fill every corner of society with Jesus. Moving toward neighbors where we live, moving toward colleagues where we work, moving toward friends where we play, moving toward classmates where we learn. We’ve been called to continue the work of Jesus in this world where we are already located.

Missionaries in the USA

One of the neat things about our house in Dayton, mom and dad were constantly entertaining missionaries. Many of them would stay at our house, some of them for a few weeks. We heard all of the stories about the gospel being spread to all corners of the globe. As I got older I was able to visit some of those places. It always fascinated me how much of the missionary life was spent just doing life with people. I remember being in one village where there were a series of sewing machines set up. The missionaries were teaching villagers how to become seamstresses not only for their own family, but for the rest of the city. And out of that large room where women learn the sewing trade, a Bible study had grown, involving more than just those who were in that class. I also recall, churches setting up basketball tournaments and leagues on city courts, out of which Bible studies and churches were born. Living life with the community in the community.

What I found fascinating is that the churches in those places felt more like the churches we see in the Bible. The church moving toward the community in life. Paul wants us to see in this word “walk”, church beyond the walls and moving toward the community. All the ways people are being reached with the gospel of Jesus in those far away places are the same kinds of ways we can be reaching our own community. People who have left the church and don’t want church, won’t come to church… walking toward them and among them as wise. With the wisdom of Jesus… what it means to live lives of forgiveness and grace in light of the gospel.

Our walk is a messy walk. Jesus loved us in a way that is messy. He was the friend of sinners. Friend. Someone sinners trusted. Someone sinners knew had a listening ear. Someone listeners knew had empathy and unconditional love and forgiveness. Jesus meets us in our messiness. And that’s captured here by Paul as he writes to this congregation in Ephesus:

Ephesians 5:16 “making the most of the time, because the days are evil.”

Taking advantage of the time that we have, because at some point these days will run out. This literally means to buy back time. To exploit time. To fill up the fulness of time, in the language of Ephesians. Why? Because filling up the time with all the fulness of Jesus is what the new creation does while the old creation is passing away. These evil days that Paul talks about… he is talking about the era between Christ’s resurrection and His last day, or the last day. This present evil age. Not that everyone in it is evil, but that this age that is passing away is identified with the evil one who is also passing away. This is the time for the gospel. This is the time for salvation. This is where heaven intrudes into a dark and messy world as the church, in the Word and in the Sacrament.

We are using our time wisely when we are filling every area of society with Jesus. We are exploiting every opportunity for the gospel. The Table is of a different age, the age to come. Heaven is in our DNA. Living as if today is the only thing that matters is foolish. This world is passing away. Everything burns. So we ransom and redeem time for the sake of the good news of Jesus as agents of peace and forgiveness.

The church walks about this evil era, this time in which all sin, death, disease and destruction is still around, is still part of the mess, but, at some point is coming to an end. Paul tells the Ephesians that their lives as the body of Christ is light in the darkness. We are exploiting the time in a temporal fallen world full of brokenness, walking into and walking about and filling every area of our life with the light of Jesus. Moving toward those who are just like us who are in need of Jesus.

Moving toward and among Los Fresnos

Sometimes we don’t realize the opportunities that really are all around us. We experienced this Thursday evening. Thursday evening was organized chaos. Hundreds of kids and parents showed up to get school supplies and hair cuts and backpacks and school uniforms. What a delight and honor it was to serve those families. At our table, we provided parents with the opportunity to fill out a prayer card. We ran out of prayer cards. You can almost guess what parents are requesting prayer for on a back-to-school blast off with the school year just days away… safety. I hear it again and again… safety. And so we will pray. But sitting underneath those cards are those who recognize and feel that they are living in a broken and messed up world. Nothing could have been more clear in all of that organized and wonderful chaos is that life is messy. Things are broken. This age that Jesus himself descended into is full of terrible things, even when things are great. And we know it.

The church was made to GO More

That brings us to our shift. Most of our community doesn’t go to church and has no desire to go to church because they have already been there, done that. And us saying, “we’re different than the last church you were part of” isn’t going to bring them through our doors.

If you build it, they won’t come.

The days of attracting people to come to church, for the most part, is part of the past. Moving toward and among Los Fresnos means we have to be on the move and be in motion and the motion has to be moving away from the gathering on Sundays. Redeeming the time or exploiting the time because the age is an evil age means we GO in every area of our lives

5. Made to GO More

a. Truth 5 - Our “GO” is to embrace our mission field and “make the most of every opportunity” to express the FULLNESS of Jesus to others.

b. Shift 5 - From more programs to more mission fields

Into this world, among our neighbors we are called to be more. We are called to bring Jesus into every area of our world. Redeeming where we live, learn, play, and work because the days are beset with sin and sickness and death.. part of this evil age. We don’t have to go anywhere more than where we already live, work, learn and play because we are perfectly positioned to make an eternal difference right here and right now. Our eyes and ears become more attuned to the people around us if we let them.

Let’s Pray.

Movement and motion. It’s all here. The broken body and shed blood of Jesus not only feeds us and nourishes us and forgives us… it moves us. It moves us toward others.