16. “Serving Christ” (Ephesians 6)

 

Serving Christ

Ephesians 6:5-9

 

In John’s vision in the book of Revelation, there comes this moment where God, seated on his throne as he brings history to a close, declares to John one of the most beautiful statements in all of Scripture: “Behold! I am making everything new.” All that was corrupted and ugly, all that was broken and stained, all that was disappointing and frustrating is being purified, made whole, made beautiful. Every tear will be wiped away as our mourning is turned into dancing when we see with perfect clarity, God has made all things new.

And this is really what Ephesians is about. It is itself a revelation, a pulling back of the curtain to help us to see how in Jesus, God is right now making all things new. That’s what we’ve been shown in these past months. It began by inviting us to see how God’s once mysterious plan has now become clear through the coming of Jesus. This plan is all about God choosing to bless us—yes, us, to bless this world through Jesus, to make all things right and beautiful under Christ’s redemptive rule. This is happening, chapters 2 and 3 tell us, as all people, Jews and Gentiles together, experience salvation by his grace and are brought together into a new community, the new temple, the church, which shows forth the greatness of Jesus to the world and draws people to himself. 

Then in chapter 4, Ephesians makes this theological vision very practical. It says, “Now, do you see this? Do you see what God is doing? You have a part to play in it. As you have come to know Jesus and now live together in this new community, you have the opportunity to take hold of this new life. You need to actively allow Jesus to work in and among you to make all things new. This involves walking carefully, making thoughtful choices—so that the power of his resurrection leads you into the way of light, so that all things in your life are made new.

And in the last couple of weeks Paul has made clear that this light of the resurrection really does transform ALL things. Jesus doesn’t just change our hearts, he also transforms our relationships. And not just the relationships we have at church on Sunday; Jesus also transforms the relationships we have Monday through Saturday. If we allow him to, Christ will transform our marriages from self-protection into mutual self-giving. If we let him, He will transform the parent-child relationship, growing in us mutual trust and honoring of each other so that the child grows up into godly maturity. And, if we take hold of this, Jesus also brings renewal to those relationships that are—well, that are not the way they should be.

My guess is that when you heard this passage read, you experienced a kind of dissonance. “Bondservants,” Paul says, “obey your earthly masters.” Wait, we might ask, “if Jesus is changing all things and making all things right, why would Paul tell slaves to obey their masters?”

In answering that question, we need first to understand how the situation in Paul’s day was significantly different from the slavery in America in past centuries. Slavery in the Roman empire had very little to do with race—it was almost completely economic. For example, people who could not make enough money on their own would often sell themselves into slavery. They did this in part because it was understood that masters had a responsibility to care for their slaves and also, perhaps mainly, because there wasn’t a great alternative. There was no welfare system; sometimes your only choice was between choosing to become a slave and allowing your family to starve.

Which explains why Paul when writing this letter doesn’t just say, “Masters, everyone, release your slaves.” Now, in his letter to Corinth he does tell slaves that if they have the financial means to gain their freedom, they should do so. But can you see why here he doesn’t just tell every master to release their slaves? People who could not otherwise provide for themselves would suddenly have no means of getting food and shelter; they would be cast into a life of poverty with no protections. Paul understands that in the very broken and sinful society in which he lived—in that historical moment when he was writing there was no simple way to make this right.

Paul here is not endorsing slavery. Unlike with husbands and wives, or children and parents, Paul does not anchor these instructions in the way God created the world or the 10 commandments. No, Paul is providing guidance for how people should  handle a bad situation. As long as this world remains a broken and sinful world in which we live, there will always be some situations that are not how they should be and that also are not easily fixed. There are some things about this world that are wrong that are so entrenched in systemic and societal norms that any movement toward what is right and justice will take not just days or years but generations. Which means that sometimes people are just stuck in a bad situation with others with no clear way out. When that happens, what do you do?

See, Paul is dealing with a really practical issue. Haven’t you ever found yourself in a situation where you go, “This isn’t right. This isn’t fair. This doesn’t seem healthy,” and yet there doesn’t seem to be an immediate solution? 

• You’re in a bad work environment where your supervisor doesn’t treat you with respect, the pay doesn’t match the work you do, and the whole culture just feels broken. And yet, at least for the moment, you need the job and there aren’t really any good alternatives. You’re stuck. How do you navigate that?
• Maybe as a student you’re in a class that you have to take, and your instructor is just bad—maybe he plays favorites, maybe he has entirely unrealistic expectations, maybe he’s phoning it in, doing a terrible job teaching, and yet you’re required to do the work. You’re stuck. What do you do?
• Or maybe you’re in a caretaking situation, caring for a parent, and it’s not going well. There have always been challenging relationship dynamics between you and your parent that you’ve managed by maintaining distance, but now your parent needs you, and you feel an obligation to them. But the expectations placed upon you, the lack of gratitude or boundaries or even simple human consideration are becoming overwhelming. You’re stuck. What do you do?

If you know the kind of situation I’m talking about, you know how emotionally draining it can be to have to keep going back, day after day, to something that just is not a good situation. It can feel really hopeless.

And yet, what we are meant to see in these verses is that even in situations just like this, fractured and sin-stained situations in which people are clearly stuck, there is still reason for enormous hope. Because even here, Jesus is making all things new.

Even in broken and flawed and demeaning situations, such as a slave having to serve a master, Jesus provides for us a way to work with dignity and even joy. Because—and here’s the idea woven throughout the first four verses—whenever we serve anyone with our work, no matter who that person is, the person we are serving above all is Jesus.

When you look for it, you’ll find that idea in every line of our passage. Notice first of all what he calls the masters: they are “earthly” masters, literally “masters according to the flesh.” This is Paul’s way of doing air quotes: your “masters.” And then notice what’s repeated: you are to serve them, “as unto Christ,” not as those trying to please people—which of course would include trying to please your “earthly master,” but as bondservants of Christ; and then again, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, in the knowledge that the reward you are seeking comes from the Lord! “Earthly masters” of whatever form are just the situation you find yourself in. Your calling, your opportunity in that situation is to serve Jesus, your Lord. 

There’s something quite profound here. Why can Paul say that when you’re serving your master, you’re actually serving Jesus? It’s because whenever you or I seek to do good to another human being, whenever you love another human, you are serving someone Christ cares about. And in that, you are serving Christ himself.

Jesus says that at the end of time everyone from all the nations will  appear before his throne. And to those who have believed in Jesus and have followed his instructions such as this passage, Jesus will say, “Come, inherit my kingdom. For I was hungry and thirsty, and you gave me food and drink; I was a stranger and you welcomed me; I was sick and you visited me.” And the people who hear this will be surprised and as they are looking at the King on the throne ask, “Lord, when did we do that for you?” And Jesus will say, “Whatever you did for the least of these my brothers, you did for me.” 

When you are serving someone Christ cares about, you are serving Christ. Whatever energy we give, however much time it takes, however much it costs us emotionally—when we seek to do good to someone else, it is Jesus we are serving.

Think of the implications! If someone says that they’ve decided to give their lives to serving Christ, what do we assume they mean? They’ll be a pastor or a missionary or something like that, right? And yes, those are important ways of serving Jesus. But here we see that even a slave in a bad situation is capable of devoting his life to serving Jesus. In serving his master well, he is serving Christ. 

Think of how that can change how we think of work. In our society, the prestige and importance of work usually is connected to how much that person earns. But if you’re trying to figure out what work you want to do—maybe you’re in high school or college–let me encourage you to think in different terms. Pursue work that serves others. Because when you are serving others, you’re serving Christ.

Which means there are so many ways of serving Christ! We serve Christ as we teach, and we also serve Christ as we study in school and train ourselves for a life of service. We serve Christ as we help people to heal physically or mentally, and we also serve Christ as we fix people’s toilets or their fusebox. We serve Christ as we help stock the shelves so that people can buy their food, and we also serve Christ by overseeing those stores’ finances and helping them stay financially strong. We serve Christ by being at home and helping our children grow into adulthood, and we serve Christ  by bringing criminals to justice. Because when we serve people Jesus cares about, we are serving Jesus.

And here’s the thing: This isn’t just profound. It’s also profoundly practical, in at least three ways.

First: this allows you to be joyful in your work. When you’re only able to see the “earthly master” you are serving, whether it’s a boss or an unreasonable client or a demanding relative, you’re going to regularly struggle with feelings of resentfulness, bitterness, frustration. Because your “earthly master” will always be sinful and sometimes simply undeserving of the work that you’re doing for them. You still have to do the work, but your heart will complain. And it is pretty much impossible to be joyful with a complaining heart. It only makes you miserable.  

But when you realize you’re serving Christ, that changes your disposition toward your work. When Paul speaks about serving “with fear and trembling” those are words that the Bible uses for when a person realizes they are in the presence of God. Because even the smallest thing you do for another person is rendering service to the Son of God, the one who loves you and died for you. Once you see this, you can suddenly work with your head lifted high and with what Paul calls a “sincere,” heart—with wholeheartedness. You don’t need to complain; your work is no longer incompatible with joy, because you are serving the Savior you love, the King who is supremely worth it.

Second, this makes your work meaningful. 

If you’re only thinking of work in terms of your “earthly master,” you will be incentivized to empty your work of all meaning. Have you ever been in a work situation where you could tell that a coworker just knew how to play the game? He knew just how to flatter the boss, how to always look busy, how to somehow always get the credit for a win, whether he really did anything or not? And here’s the thing. If the human boss is all that matters, that’s entirely rational behavior. Your job really is just to look good in the eyes of your supervisor. But if that’s actually how you live, it will be awful. Because it all will mean nothing. You might be working hard to look good, but you’ll know that in your work, you’re not really doing good. It’s empty.     

But now, Paul says in verse 6, really, you are a bondservant of Christ. You answer to Jesus. When you understand that, your focus changes from doing what pleases people to doing what pleases God, what is his will. And that’s way better. To begin with, it’s far more satisfying, because everything that is pleasing to God is good. He sees what really matters, and what is pleasing to him is always meaningful. He sees all and is not impressed by show. And in addition to that, seeking to be a God-pleaser instead of a people-pleaser will always make your work more humane. Your earthly masters often will be unreasonable, so that trying to please them can devour you. But God’s call always recognizes who you are, who you are created to be. In serving him we never lose ourselves; we find ourselves.   

Finally, recognizing that you are serving Jesus offers you hope in your work. If you think about it, work is usually forward-looking. We spend our energy, we make sacrifices in the hope that our efforts will pay off. That in the end we will feel that however much the work cost us, it was worth it. And if you’re only working for earthly masters, there are no guarantees it will be. You can be taken for granted, used. You might do a great job and get no compensation at all, no awareness, no credit, so that it feels completely unjust, not worth it. And so it’s really easy to become cynical.

But notice what Paul tells us in verse 8: you and I can KNOW something really important: “that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord.” This is one of a number of places in the New Testament that teaches that we will experience a reward for the good we do in service to Jesus. The Bible doesn’t really ever give us details about what that means, probably because our minds can’t even conceive of what reward might be like in a world where all is made right. But what we are meant to understand is that, unlike earthly masters, our true King sees every good effort you make; he sees the good you do when hidden, your prayers, your behind the scenes kindnesses. And he promises that when the end comes, everything you’ve done, all the sacrifices you have made on behalf of Jesus—you will know with complete certainty that it’s all been worth it. You will rejoice over all you gave in service to Jesus. Nothing will seem wasted.

Even the most broken of situations is changed by the fact that when you are serving people Christ cares about, you are serving Christ. Do you see that? It means every task you find yourself in, no matter how thankless or unfair, is something you can do with dignity, with joy, with hope; for you are serving the King. Jesus is making all things new.

Now, in the final verse of our passage Paul briefly also addresses the masters. And he says something that would have caused everyone listening to do a double-take. “Masters, do the same to them.” Wait, what? “Do the same to them.” What does that mean? He goes on to explain, “Knowing that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.” 

Here’s what I think Paul is saying, “Guys, contrary to how things feel, no matter how society ascribes status, you and your slaves are equals. Despite this temporary situation in which you find yourself having responsibility for them, the reality is that you both serve the same heavenly master.”

One clear implication to that is that you need to treat them as human beings. “Stop your threatening,” he says to the masters. In other words, yes, you might sometimes need to instruct your slaves. But never dehumanize them. Never manipulate or try to control through fear as if they are less than you. Lead them in such a way that helps them to serve wholeheartedly. 

For us as well: whether we’re talking about people we’ve hired to work for us, or we’re talking about the person who checks out our groceries, or the people who make our clothes whose face we will never see—we are called to remember they are our equals, deserving to be treated with respect and dignity. “Whatever you do for the least of these my brothers, you do unto me.”

But I want us to notice one other implication to what Paul is saying here. We said earlier that Paul is a realist: he understands there are some situations that instructions can’t immediately fix, and so in these verses he gives practical guidance on how to make the best of a bad situation. And yet, there’s actually more going on here than that. Because, again, Jesus is making all things new—and that includes even the broken structures of society. What Paul here is saying about Jesus: how all are made equal before him—has the power to transform the world.  

See, anthropologists will tell you that in every age throughout history, in pretty much every culture throughout the world, there have always been slaves. It’s almost a universal rule that human beings in power make slaves of others. Except, of course, for recent human history. Though throughout the past 2 thousand years there have been people who have spoken against slavery, it was especially beginning in the 17th century that a growing conviction developed that slavery in any form was wrong. And this culminated in the abolishing of slavery in the mid 19th century.

So, after all these centuries of slavery across the world, what suddenly made things different? Historians are in basic agreement: it was the Quakers and some Roman Catholics, and, perhaps especially the evangelicals. In other words, it was Christianity. It was the conviction that all are made in God’s image—that all, before Christ, are equal. Because it really is the case that Jesus is making all things new. Over time, the light and the life he brings began doing its deep work, changing individuals, and church communities and society. At some point the Holy Spirit opened the eyes of one person and then another, and then a church and then many churches, helping them to see the implications of all of this upon how we treat others. Over time, governments changed, working conditions changed, laws changed—societal opinions changed—so much, in fact that now when we read this passage, something happens that almost never happened until recently. We are bothered. We are bothered because it seems so obvious to us now that slavery is wrong. We are bothered precisely because of the radical truths we find Paul teaching here. We are bothered because Jesus is making all things new.  

Of course, everything is still far from perfect and will be until Christ returns to bring all things to their conclusion. But here’s something to consider: if Jesus is able to take something so deep and widespread as slavery and bring an end to it, well, doesn’t that mean there’s hope wherever you look? Doesn’t that mean that whether we are talking about massive cultural problems around us or we are talking about really hard stuff in our lives with others, we don’t need to despair?  Because we believe in the resurrection. We believe that Jesus is making all things new.