Sermon Tone Analysis

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.