October 4, 2024 was my Mother, Jean Thyren's 100th Birthday.  That day the good folks who host her in Assisted Living in the Health Center of Cranes Mill Retirement Community threw a wonderful party for her.  The West Caldwell Borough Council President was on hand to present her with an 

official proclamation, as a resident of the community since 1950.

The party included the presentation of a Crown, a Queen's Robe and Scepter, music by Hunter Hayes, and cake and sparkling cider.  

Jan and I, my sister Nancy and brother-in-law Tom, our niece Kristin, our daughter, Carrie were able to represent the family and enjoy the festivities.

Later that afternoon and evening, our daughter Katie and granddaughters, Addie and Elise arrived from

Washington State, and niece Lauren, husband Chris, and their children, Abby and Declan arrived to join us at our block of rooms in Fairfield. Katie's husband, Chris, arrived on the red-eye Saturday morning.

(Carrie's hubby, Dane was taking care of canines Bullet and Zelda back in Illinois).

Saturday morning the out-of-towners dropped in to surprise and render the 100-year-old speechless, as the rest of us prepared a gathering in the "Country Kitchen" in the Assisted Living wing of Cranes Mill.

Richard and Susan Conners, lifelong friends who have been Mom's most frequent visitors, (and our go-to team to meet Mom's needs for tissues, batteries or other necessities) joined us.  Kristin Paterson 

organized a wonderful meal catered by the folks at Shop-Rite.

After the meal, we circled up for a time to celebrate the guest of honor.  What appears below is some-thing I wrote to precede a Champaign Toast to the Birthday Girl and a time when those around the 

circle shared memories of cherished moments with Jean.  (The pictures that follow have been added

as illustrations, here and there.)

One Hundred Years of Giving 

We gather to give thanks

for all the gifts we have received

in the form of Jean Maynard Ackerman Thyren

whose days we celebrate today.

We give thanks for a lifetime of giving

despite early setbacks wrought

by the Great Depression,

the Second World War,

and the untimely death of her father.

 

Some are stories of long-ago memories which speak of happy times:

a family gathered near the Shrewsbury in the summer

in a house with a circular grate bringing heat from the basement,

the men of the family arriving by train

in time for a quick dip before dinner.

Our love of “the shore” is surely in our genes from those early days.

Then there’s the mental picture conjured from the story

of two sisters walking home from their grandfather’s market,

abandoning the fish they carried

to the dog that robbed what was supposed to be dinner.

And who hasn’t heard of the nights

when the Ackerman sisters and the Hyde boys

were marched off to bed by Aunt Grace at the piano

after an evening of singing?

 

Fast forward, (if you know what the means)

past the high school years

which included helping a girlfriend change a tire

on her brother’s car

(to the horror of that friend’s mother.)

Skip over the mysterious “dance card”

found among the treasures in her scrap book,

and her days as a working girl at “the Pru.”

Recall the happy faces on the October night

she married the one who some of you know

as the second in the line of Thyren PopPops.

Wedded bliss began with some gifts that to this day

can be found on the walls and floors of Paddleberry…

and a memorable first dinner of boiled beef

quickly replaced by creamed eggs.

Though the sequence is fuzzy to one as yet unborn at the time,

Mom’s giving just as quickly included

caring for her new husband amid illnesses, ailments and surgeries.

And then came Nancy

and lots of cute pictures in cozy snowsuits amid a blizzard-

and six years later, yours truly arrived

in time for one of the hottest summers ever.

In between,

the beloved bungalow on Thrumont Road

where so many of our memories still reside,

and so many of our gifts were first bestowed:

dresses, pajamas, baptismal suits, blouses and shirts sewn

on a machine paid for in weekly installments.

Hand knit mittens and hats.

Repurposed toys and furniture from neighbors

who had outgrown them.

Train sets and first radios, barbells and other treasures long forgotten.

 

Sunday dinners with Aunt Doris telling stories

of her cruise on the Queen of Bermuda or trip with the Ski Club.

Christmas breakfast with Nana and PopPop.

Clearing out the furniture for Doris and Dave’s Wedding Reception.

Sunday dinners with PopPop and Uncle Albin and Gandy.

Desserts tested on us before served to Bridge Club on Tuesday night:

Prune Whip

or a cake made of minty chocolate cookies glued together and iced.

 

Into that house she welcomed the next generation,

first Kristin, when not visiting her on Westville Avenue.

From it she took an endless bus ride to Unadilla

to cook and provide care after Katie arrived on a July night.

Lauren took up residence around the corner and Grandma

helped get her into her sox before nursery school.

Carrie came next and was relieved when Casey

and Holly took her place as the first one to be

put out of the play space in the guest bedroom.

Memories of holiday visits abound!

We’ll let you tell us about them.

 

For those with eyes to see,

the woman of the house taught us about caring for others,

and making a difference in the larger world:

Sunday School Teacher and Elder in charge of Communion,

Circle leader, lifetime member of Presbyterian Women,

making the RCA Book to pay off the Christian Ed wing of church,

Treasurer of the Serrv Shop, worker at the Thrift Shop,

and in later years VFW Auxiliary Memorial Day Marcher.

 

More importantly,

we observed caring in action, giving in meaningful ways:

the devoted daughter visiting at Green Hill,

the rock of a sister and aunt during Dave’s cancer battle,

the stalwart friend of bridge club cronies facing struggles,

the confidant and helper for Alice and Betty,

and the courageous companion of her husband,

our father and grandfather,

as they faced their final illnesses.

 

In each of our homes

there are little reminders

of 100 years of giving and caring

by the woman we honor today:

Ornaments for the Christmas tree

and cross-stitch pictures,

items of jewelry chosen after a sweaty soccer match,

or fine art pottery from the Cranes Mill collection.

 

Yet the ones that count the most

are the memories we hold dear

and the ones we are making today

as we say

Happy Birthday Mom

Happy Birthday Grandma

Happy Birthday Ggma!

 

 

 

True Greatness – A Sermon preached on September 22, 2024 at The Presbyterian Church of Dunmore, PA.  Text: Mark 9. 30-37 
Photo Credit, James E. Thyren, Stained Glass Window, The Presbyterian Church of Dunmore

 

It was one of those clear your calendar, shut-off your cell phone, gather ‘round and listen up moments. It was a turn off the TV, come into the kitchen, grab a cup of something and sit around the table, we have to talk gathering.  It was a close the door behind you, write this down so you’ll remember it later occasion.

            We’ve all been there.  There is important information to be shared: a job lost or found; a relationship beginning or coming to an end; a health challenge to be faced rather than avoided; a problem in search of a solution; an opportunity in need of an agreed upon strategy. Could be a circle of siblings concerned about an aging parent.  Might be a corporate retreat to roll out a new product.  Often it is a church Session or a community advisory board trying to discern how to adapt to changing times. Or it could be a leader trying to prepare followers for the future. We’ve all been there.

“They went on from there and passed through Galilee.

He did not want anyone to know it 

for he was teaching his disciples…”[i]

            Way up north where the headwaters of the Jordan bubbled out of the ground at the Banyas Springs near Caesarea Philippi, the private instruction had begun with questions asked and answered; with Jesus’ identity as the Messiah revealed; with that title and roll redefined by suffering, the predic-tion of his arrest and rejection and death, all preceding something about rising again “after three days.”

            That they understood none of it was demonstrated by Peter, who gave Jesus a good talking to about not saying such foolish things.  Jesus, in turn, let Peter know in no uncertain terms that he was out of line because he was looking at things from the human side and had not yet discovered how God sees things.

            Their inability to understand led to a short burst of instruction indicating that the Way of Jesus was not the way of the world.  It was hard to grasp then, and still is today.

“If any want to become my followers,

let them deny themselves

and take up their cross and follow me.

For those who want to save their life will lose it,

and those who lose their life for my sake,
and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”[ii]

            Self-denial instead of self-promotion?  Losing one’s life on behalf of Jesus instead of saving one’s life on behalf of the self?  These are concepts that don’t make sense to those who live by “me first” and for whom taking care of others sounds like being played for a sucker. From the sandbox to foreign relations the Way of Jesus is a very tough sell.

            So the Teacher kept at it. He took his three brightest pupils, Peter, James and John, and treated them to a private lesson. While pondering in their hearts what sort of Messiah Jesus was turning out to be, they found themselves on a mountaintop swept up in a vision of Jesus having a little chat with Moses and Elijah.

            Moses was the one through whom God’s instructions for living had first been delivered. Elijah was one of the prophets who reminded the people of those instructions whenever they forgot or ignored them.  To see Jesus standing with those two sent a signal that he knew what he was talking about.  That message was confirmed when God’s spoke:

“This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him.”[iii]

Any lingering doubt was dispelled when the cloud lifted and the disciples saw Jesus standing there alone.  Still, it was not something they could share down in the valley, at least not yet. Jesus told them to keep quiet “until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.”

            Once down the mountain, they were reunited with the rest of the disciples, who were in a brouhaha with some of the scribes. A crowd had gathered to watch the fight. Jesus asked what was going on.  A man stepped up to say that he had brought his son in the hope that Jesus might cure his son of the epileptic seizures that often imperiled his life.  Since Jesus hadn’t been around, the man had asked his disciples to effect the cure, which they had been unable to accomplish.

            Mark breathlessly describes the scene as it continues to unfold. The boy is convulsed by a seizure.  Jesus asks how long these things have been happening. The father explains they’ve been coming on him since childhood and describes the horror of it all and the added danger when a seizure struck while the boy was near a body of water or a cooking fire. The father ends his answer with a plea:

“…you are able to do anything for us,

have pity on us and help us.”

Jesus said to him,

“If you are able!---

All things can be done for the one who believes.

Immediately the father of the child cried out,
‘I believe; help my unbelief.’[iv]

            Long story short, Jesus calls the spirit out, the boy goes limp, observers conclude that he is dead, but Jesus takes him by the hand and he stands up.  Puzzled, the disciples ask why they had not been able to help the boy. Jesus says “This kind can come out only through prayer.”  The disciples, and we who hear the tale told, are left scratching our heads.  If there was a prayer, Mark failed to mention it or record its content.  Unless he is talking about the prayer lifted up by the boy’s father, one of the most honest prayers we will ever hear…or take upon our lips:

“I believe; help my unbelief!”

            When asked his favorite verse from the Bible, one of the college chaplains I hung around with answered, “I believe; help my unbelief.” I think it was because those words capture a truth we don’t often admit to. I’m skeptical of anyone who says their faith has never wavered, that their belief system has never been shaken.

It is reassuring that Jesus responded to the father’s honest words. It is comforting to realize God doesn’t expect us to have it all together all the time. It is helpful to know, that in those moments when something in life has thrown us for a loop or someone we love to the ground, there is an acceptable prayer to offer:

“I believe; help my unbelief.”

            It is from the foot of the mountain after the boy has been restored to health, that Jesus and his disciples make their way to Galilee and to the next bit of instruction. Leaving the crowds behind once more the teacher gets to work, telling them for the second time what lies ahead:

“The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands,

and they will kill him,

and three days after being killed,
he will rise again.”[v]

            Even though they had heard this before, they didn’t get it.  It was a lot to take in.  It didn’t make sense that he had to die.  Even more baffling was the bit about rising again after three days.  Mark tells us two things at this point:

“…they didn’t understand what he was saying
and were afraid to ask him.”[vi]

            Jill Duffield cuts the disciples some slack as she reflects on the moment. She asks: “How many times have we been afraid to ask – even when we knew we didn’t under-stand? How often has our fear of revealing our ignorance prevented us from a revelation, from a new way of seeing, from a deepened relationship? We know the saying ‘There are no stupid questions,’ and yet we do not ever want to appear stupid. It takes courage to raise our hand, stop the lecture, risk the annoyance of the teacher, face the eye rolls of our fellow students and say: ‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’[vii]

            Maybe the disciples were afraid to ask such a question because they remembered what happened the last time he spoke about this.  When Peter objected, Jesus called him Satan.  Look-ing stupid is one thing, making Jesus mad is another.  So they decided to keep their mouths shut.

            Sort of.  The journey toward Jerusalem is paused when they come to Capernaum, which had been their headquarters in Galilee from the beginning. Behind closed doors, perhaps in Peter’s house where they had gathered before, Jesus asks what they have been talking about as they followed along behind him.

            For the second time, they choose to remain silent. You can imagine them looking down at their dusty sandals, avoiding eye contact at all costs. Retired professor Harry Adams explains, and then brings the story into our living space:

            “This time the disciples seem to have been silent because they are ashamed to answer. ‘But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest,”[viii] (writes Mark) It is hard to imagine that the disciples had so little understanding of what Jesus had been saying to them that they would be arguing about which of them was the greatest. It is hard to imagine that, at least, until we realize how often we would be silent if Jesus were to confront us and ask us what we have been talking and fretting about. Some of us spend a lot of time worrying about our status, trying to get the symbols of prestige, and seeking to maneuver so that we get the acclaim.” Says Adams: “Many of us would fall silent if we were asked to explain how what we are doing and saying accords with the way of life Jesus sets before us.”[ix]

            That’s when Jesus called another family meeting. When Mark tells us “he sat down,” and “called the twelve,” it is a signal not to be missed.  In their culture, when a rabbi or a teacher declared class in session, he sat down to speak and called his students to gather around. Educator and activist Ched Myers notes that, the message we are meant to hear is clear and simple: “Pay attention to the teaching that follows.”[x]

            Jesus offers two sayings. The first turns each disciple’s wish to be the greatest on its head:

“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all
and servant of all.”[xi]

          The second saying explains the first, using a child as an illustration.

“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name

welcomes me,

and whoever welcomes me

welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”[xii]

            That first saying challenges so much of what we hear about greatness. Conventional wisdom encourages us to strive to be the lead dog pulling the sled because the view of all  the others is the same and none too pleasant. We are told that being number one means everyone else ought to serve us, march to our drumbeat, dance to our tune, fulfill our desires and demands. 

            Jesus begs to differ.  True greatness is not what the world at the time of Jesus thought it was, nor
is it now. Sinatra sang about being “king of the hill, A number one, the top of the heap,”[xiii] and that’s the kind of song the Roman Emperor thought said it all. Jesus sings a different song, lived different lyrics. The greatness Jesus places before us is not measured by the size of one’s house, the price of one’s car, or the ability to boss people around. The greatness Jesus teaches is shown in how low we will go in the very best way.

            The saying about welcoming a child is meant to drive that point home.  In order for us to grasp how shocking it was for Jesus to suggest welcoming a child had anything to do with greatness, we must leave behind our culture’s elevation of the child as a symbol of innocence and limit-less potential. Ched Myers tells us where children stood:

            “Children represented the bottom of the social and economic scale in terms of status and rights in the ancient Mediterranean world.”[xiv] William Placher amplifies the point: “The distinctive thing about children was their lack of any rights. A father could put a newborn outside to starve to death if he had wanted a boy and got a girl or if a baby seemed weak or handicapped. Children existed for the benefit of their parents—really their fathers.”[xv]

            In contrast, the Letter of James states that “Religion that is pure and undefiled by God…is to care for orphans and widows in their distress.” Turns out James was on the same page as Jesus…for a child, orphan or first born and future inheritor of the father’s fortunes, were as low as you could get. They were the most vulnerable and the least valued.

            Lest we confuse this passage with things Jesus said elsewhere, this is not the place where he urges disciples to be childlike in their ability to trust.  Here he is advocating a radical level of care.

            New Testament professor Sharon Ringe sharpens the Point when she writes: “This passage, then, is far from a saccharine scene in which Jesus cuddles sweet little children and welcomes them to Sun-day School. Instead, it is a powerful and even shocking depiction of the paradoxical values of God’s will and reign, which confront the dominant values of human societies and assign worth and importance to every person.”[xvi]

            William Placher sums it up well, with a challenge to us all this morning. He said:    “Welcoming children means helping the most vulnerable. Jesus is thus not urging childishness in any form on his disciples but telling them to stop competing about who will make the top and make sure they care for those on the bottom.”[xvii]

            Today, among those at the bottom, the most vulnerable in need of care, are Haitian immigrants living in Springfield, Ohio.  In the face of threats generated by claims proven false of eating cats and dogs, the churches of Springfield have followed the teachings of Jesus in standing up for their newest neighbors. The Presbyterian News Service reports that “The Rev. Jody Noble, pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Springfield…has taken on…organizing and offering a press conference featuring her colleagues in ministry” to speak out in defense of their maligned neighbors. “…After two years of serving Covenant, Noble has baptized children of the Haitian families attending the church, who are present in worship nearly every Sunday. ‘If they’re not here, I get a text to say they are work-ing,’ Noble said. ‘They are beautiful people.’  She added, ‘To a person, employers will tell you that Haitian migrants “are fabulous to employ. They show up on time with good attitudes.” Covenant Presbyterians have cared for Haitian families with rides to church, car seats, bedding, food and other household items.” Reflecting on the recent need to speak out on their behalf Noble said: “This is how we responded, and this is how you can be ready for psycho-logical terrorism if it comes to your community.”[xviii]

            What Jesus said to the disciples about being servants of all, he says to us.  He calls us to serve those on the bottom, no matter what those at the top try to tell us about them.

 

[i] Mark 9. 30-31a
[ii] Mark 8. 34b-35
[iii] Mark 9. 7c
[iv] Mark 9. 14-24
[v] Mark 9. 31
[vi] Mark 9.32
[vii] Jill Duffield, The Presbyterian Outlook, “Looking into the Lectionary – Are you afraid to ask? Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2018.
[viii] Mark 9. 34
[ix] Harry B. Adams, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 4, Pastoral Perspective, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), p. 94
[x] Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988), p. 260
[xi] Mark 9. 35
[xii] Mark 9. 37
[xiii] a phrase from the song, “New York, New York.”
[xiv] ibid, Myers, p. 260-1
[xv] William C. Placher, Mark – Belief – A Theological Commentary on the Bible, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), p. 134-5
[xvi] Sharon H. Ringe, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 4, Exegetical Perspective, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), p. 97
[xvii] ibid., Placher p. 135
[xviii] Mike Ferguson, “Covenant Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Ohio ministers to its community, including its

Haitian siblings.” Presbyterian News Service, September 19, 2024

Growing Up – A sermon based on Ephesians 4. 1-6 (CEV). Preached at Valley United Presbyterian Church, Waverly, New York on Sunday, August 4, 2024

     Growing up is not all it is cracked up to be.  Growing up is not as easy as letting the number of circuits around the sun accumulate to reach some number that equates to maturity. Growing up involves letting go and leaving be-hind, grabbing hold and moving forward.  Growing up means growing out of things and growing into others.  Growing up requires a transition from being a taker to becoming a giver. Growing up builds on the appreciation of all that was and honest assessment of what is, while ex-pending effort to contribute to what will be.  In short, growing up is hard work.

            In his book, Practice Resurrection, the late Eugene Peterson wrote of growing up while reflecting on maturity, which is one of the outcomes the Ephesian letter.  He noted that he was turned onto the writings of Baron Friedrich von Hugel by one of the trusted mentors he had met along the way, a Quaker named Douglas Steere.

            Peterson recalled that “Much of von Hugel’s deeply and extensively pondered experience as a Christian layperson, rooted and grounded in the life of Christ and at the same time in the earthly and domestic realities of wife, three daughters, and a dog (named) Puck, comes to us via letters written in his own hand to an astonishing number of correspondents. A constant note in his counsel, insistent-ly sounded, is that the road to a life of maturity is not a ‘yellow brick road,’ but involves considerable difficulties that cannot be bulldozed away.”[i] Peterson then added a quote from a letter von Hugel wrote to his niece:

            “When at eighteen, I made up my mind to go into moral and religious training, the great soul and mind who took me in hand—a noble Dominican—warned me—‘You want to grow in virtue, to serve God, to love Christ? Well, you will grow in and attain these things if you make them a slow and sure, an utterly real, mountain step-plod and ascent, willing to have to camp for weeks or months in spiritual desolation, darkness and emptiness at different stages in your march and growth. All de-mand for constant light…all attempts at eliminating or minimizing the cross and trial, is so much folly and puerile trifling.”[ii]

            Let me pause there to share my reaction to that. First, I heard the echo of John Lacy, who was a seminary student assigned to teach our Senior High Sunday School Class and guide our Youth Group at my home church.  Speaking to us of one’s life as a follower of Christ, he said time and again: “No one ever said it would be easy.” 

Several years later, I was working for John as summer Youth Director at the church he pastored along the Oregon coast.  Each time I complained about a rough time I was having with the senior high fellowship, or the unreliability of “Betsy,” the 1955 church bus used for our elementary aged Adventurer’s Club, guess what he said to me?. 

“No one ever said it would be easy.”  It wasn’t.  It isn’t. It probably never will be!

            Yet, along the way there are those moments when something happens to make you smile. Back to that quote from Baron von Hugel. Realizing that it was written somewhere between 1896 and 1924 accounts for some of the archaic vocabulary.  At first pass the last phrase, “puerile trifling,” had me wondering. Then my three years of Junior High Latin kicked in. Puerile comes from the root word “puer,” which means, “boy.” “Puerile” means boyish or more inclusively, “childish.” So the old Baron was saying that expecting life to be all sweetness and light is nothing more than a childish fantasy.  The smile came to my face as I heard the echo of that long dead Latin teacher, who told us studying a dead language would one day help to figure out what a strange word meant! Old vocabulary contributing to a new insight! Nice!

            Woven through these last few paragraphs are threads illustrating how lessons of life grown from experience are passed along. Peterson spoke of a mentor, who turned him on to the writings of someone wise, who in sharing a tip with a relative, recalled a powerful lesson learned from someone who had guided him.  To that, I added memories of bits of wisdom that have helped me make sense of life now and then.

            The author of the Letter to the Ephesians employed this same, matter-of-fact, let-me-share-what’s-worked-for-me method when training up those children of God in the way they should go.  The old master biblical interpreter William Barclay prepares us to hear what is coming:

            “With this chapter the second part of the letter begins. In the first three chapters Paul has dealt with the great and eternal truths of the Christian faith, and with the function of the Church in the plan and design of God. Now he begins to sketch what each member of the Church must be if the Church is to carry out her part in the plan and the purpose of God.”[iii]

            I found it fascinating to read what Barclay wrote about the importance of Paul’s words.  What you are about to hear was probably written in the year I was born, yet despite some non-inclusive language, it is spot on in describing the world in which we live today, and God’s plan and purpose. To lift up the central thought of the Ephesian letter, Barclay said:

            “In this world there is nothing but discord, disharmony and disunity. Nation is divided against nation, and man against man; class is divided against class, and in man himself there goes on an inner and unceasing battle between the higher and lower part of his nature.  It is God’s design and God’s purpose that all this disunity and disharmony should be resolved in Christ, that all men and nations should become one in Christ, that in Christ the differences should be abolished and the separating walls torn down.  It is God’s aim that in Christ there should enter into the world… ‘a sacred oneness.’ and what we would call in modern language ‘a new togetherness.’ Jesus Christ supplies the one center around whom and in whom all men can be gathered into one.”[iv]

            It is in pursuit of that ‘sacred oneness’ and ‘new togetherness’ that the author of Ephesians urges those who hear his words to grow up into Christ. The urgency of his message emerges in the words used to translate these opening words of Ephesians 4. The “prisoner for the Lord put it this way in today’s reading: “…I encourage you to live as people worthy of the call you received from God.”[v] 

Other translations use words like “beg or “urge.” instead of “encourage.” Commentator Pheme Perkins explains: “We all know the difference between begging or pleading with someone whom we doubt will follow our advice, and encouraging someone to continue an effort already begun. Let us assume,” suggests Perkins, “that the author is encouraging Christians in a way of life already well begun.”[vi]

            Such encouragement would be familiar to the people to whom the author was writing. They were non-Jewish converts to the way of Christ, living in Asia Minor. Perkins explains: “Ancient moralists held that people should be reminded of what they know so that they will act accord-ingly.”^[vii] 

            The Contemporary English Version of the Bible describes the life to which we have been called with words like humility, gentleness and patience. It uses images of building up, growing up and maturity, all in order to equip one another for the work we have been given to do.  Listen now as I read the passage again, this time using Eugene Peterson’s translation from The Message:

            In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I am locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.

            You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all.  Everything you are and think is to be permeated with Oneness.

            But that doesn’t mean you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift.  The text for this is,

                        He climbed the high mountain,

                        He captured the enemy and seized the booty,

                        He handed it all out in gifts to the people.

It’s true, is it not, that the One who climbed up also climbed down, down to the valley of earth?  And the One who climbed down is the One who climbed back up, up to the highest heaven.  He handed out gifts above and below, filled heaven with his gifts, filled earth with his gifts. He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christians in skilled servant work, working within Christ’s body, the church, until we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.

            No prolonged infancies among us, please. We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are an easy mark for imposters. God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.”[viii]

            To grow up “healthy in God;” to grow up “robust in love;” is what we are called to do and be.  That the world needs such love expressed in healthy ways is an understatement.  That the world, and particularly our nation now, needs to regain the kind of health that builds up instead of tearing down is obvious.  With humility and gentleness, we are called to build up.

“No one ever said it would be easy!”  Still, though we hear mostly about the divisions and the disharmony, there are stories that provide us the encouragement, to live a life worthy of our calling. Pheme Perkins tells one of them.  She teaches at Boston College.  She writes:

            “God has distributed gifts to all members of the church so that it can be built up. At our college, the most popular spring break activity is not getting drunk on Florida beaches. It is the volunteer option, spending the week in some poor area of the East Coast, from Maine to North Carolina, building housing, cleaning out old houses, painting houses for the poor, fixing parks for children, and the like. Even students faced with twenty-hour bus rides, rusty cold showers, rats, bats, and garbage come back encouraging their friends to sign up. What did they discover that made such an impact? A spirit binding people together in a common effort to build up the human and church community.  Those who have never used tools before discover some gifts they never knew they had.”[ix]

            Growing up in Christ is all it is cracked up to be.

            Growing up in Christ is not easy.

Growing up in Christ is worth it. 

Growing up in Christ is what we are urged to do!    

Growing up in Christ is made possible by the gifts of God, freely given, which we are about to experience once more as we come to the Table of the Lord where we are nourished and strengthened to be “healthy in God” and “robust in love.”

---

[i] Eugene H. Peterson, Practice Resurrection – a conversation on growing up in Christ, (Grand Rapids,  MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010), p. 182-4

[ii] Friedrich von Hugel, Selected Letters 1896-1924, ed. Bernard Holland (New York: E.P. Putnam  & Co., 1933), p. 266

[iii] William Barclay, The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians – The Daily Study Bible, (Philadelphia, The  Westmin-ster Press, 1958), p. 157

[iv] ibid.

[v] Ephesians 4. 1b

[vi] Pheme Perkins, The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. XI, (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2000), p. 424

[vii] ibid., p. 419

[viii] Ephesians 4. 1-16, The Message, p. 2130-2131

[ix] ibid., Perkins, p. 424-425