Trinity 19
Bishop Ray Sutton

An African Bishop from Nigeria told the following story about a village somewhere in the Congo. There was a man in the village behaving strangely. He would creep up on his fellow villagers and stare at them. Apparently he would simply watch what they did. He would slip up behind folks while they were working, playing or even praying. And he would hide, watch, and gawk at young and old, whether male or female. He seemed harmless enough but his actions unnerved the community. He was finally considered to be mentally unstable, a crazy person.

One day the village idiot happened to be looking into the house of a prominent leader. The man of the house was gone. The wife was there by herself. She decided to take a shower. The door to her bathroom had been left open since no one else was at home. As she was just coming out of the bathroom with a towel around herself, she noticed the crazy man of the village staring at her through one of her windows. In an awkward moment, her eyes met his as he tried to duck out of sight. But she knew that he was there. She didn’t know how long he had been there; any amount of time was too long. At first she quivered with fear; she was terrified. She didn’t scream for fear he’d break into the house and hurt her. She didn’t say anything. Quickly she realized that she could still hear some movement outside her window. She tried to pretend he wasn’t there but he was. She stepped behind a door in case he looked again.

Then something unusual happened to the woman. Anger began to well up in her. She gradually became furious over the situation. In a fit of her own growing rage, she ran after the man to confront him. She dashed through the house, out the door and after the peeping tom, forgetting that she was only wearing a towel. Surprised, the man jumped up and fled from the now screaming woman uttering all kinds of ugly words. Before long both were running through the streets of the village. As he was sprinting, his outer garment fell from his body. People could see the two in pursuit. As they looked on, they saw a rather confusing scene: the village leader’s wife, half clad, was chasing the village crazy man, who was not fully clothed. An observer looking at the two of them concluded, “One crazy person being pursued by another crazy person; they’re both crazy.”

Chasing the crazy away is not enough. One can become so involved in driving away the negative that he too becomes a variation of what he’s rejecting. The call for more than rejecting what’s wrong is detailed in our Epistle lesson for the day from the Book of Ephesians, 4:17ff.

St. Paul in typical epistolary fashion follows a doctrinal section in his letter with one on the moral, spiritual, and pastoral implications of his teachings. In the Book of Ephesians, the Apostle teaches the great theological reality of the union with Christ. In the first chapter, he explains that a believer is in Christ. Indeed he uses that phrase nearly 14 times, “in Him” or “in Christ.” The statement means that belief in Jesus Christ places us in a mystical, dynamic union with several ramifications. One is that we’re actually united with Him while He is in the heavens. We have sanctuary access.

Second and related to our passage before us today, our sanctuary access makes us saints, holy people. As such we are called to live lives consistent with sanctuary access and sainthood.

St. Paul speaks of this call to sanctuary/saintly living in our Epistle lesson with a clothing metaphor of putting off and putting on. Actually, this language is covenantal. Biblical covenants were often formed in part by an exchange of clothing, each party bearing a clothing gift from the other. The exchange of clothing was another way of expressing the very union spoken of by St. Paul as “in Him” in Ephesians 1.

The clothing metaphor applied by St. Paul is detailed as a double action of putting off and putting on certain behaviors. He says, “You have put off concerning the former life of the old man, which is corrupt according to deceitful lusts; so be renewed in the spirit of your mind so as to put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” The new man is Jesus Christ and all the obedience associated with Him. Notice that Christians are not simply to stop doing wrong, they are to replace what is stopped with what is right. The Apostle summarizes with a call to replace negative ungodly behavior with positive godly action. Listen for the double action as I paraphrase St. Paul: “Putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor; be angry and sin not; let not the sun go down on your anger neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more, but let him labor, working to the end that he can do good and give to those in need. Do not let corrupt speech come out of your mouth, but use your words to edifying and speak grace and graciously to others. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit who has sealed you to be redeemed. Put off all bitterness, anger, dissension, and evil speaking; instead be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving as God has forgiven you.”

Notice how one negative behavior is to be offset by a positive one. Christianity is not simply giving up things. It’s overcoming the bad by doing what is good. This is why the Christian life of worship, prayer and service is so important. Going to Church is a start. But there is much, much more in the Christian walk to overcome sinful behavior: there is giving, helping others, going to Bible studies, participating in so many other spiritual activities. The way to beat the evil in our lives is with the good, maximizing and not minimizing it. If we only chase away the bad, we can actually be captivated by the crazy; maybe we’ll become a little crazy too. God wants more for us. In the words of St. Paul, put off the old by putting on the new, Jesus Christ. Amen.