A Life Worthy

A Life Worthy--October 3, 2018

“I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Ephesians 4:1-3)

This is one of those Saving Private Ryan moments… until it’s not.

There is a climactic scene at the end of the 1998 Steven Spielberg movie where Tom Hanks’ character, Captain John Miller, has been shot and is breathing out his final moments in the midst of combat.  Miller has been on a mission to rescue Matt Damon’s character, the title’s “Private Ryan,” so he can go back safely home, since all his brothers have already been killed in the war.  After great losses and great bravery to finally track Ryan down, and after finally finding him and getting him headed toward a safe homecoming, Tom Hanks’ character knows that he is dying and forfeiting his life while Ryan gets to go home.  As his dying words, Hanks’ Captain Miller pulls Private Ryan in close and says, barely whispering, “Earn this.”

In a minute or so, the scene fades from a close-up of the young Private Ryan to his present-day, fifty-years-older self, visiting the graves in Normandy with his wife.  Ryan, now an old man, finds the grave marked Captain John Miller and begs his wife, “Tell me I have led a good life.  Tell me I am a good man.”  The two-word commission, “Earn this,” has driven him and haunted him his whole life long. 

So… Ephesians.  The fourth chapter.  In a sense, there’s a parallel between Paul’s words and Captain Miller’s.  “Lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called,” says the apostle in chains.  When Captain Miller charges Private Ryan to “Earn this,” he is talking about a gift that has already been granted to him—the trip home out of combat so Ryan can live his life.  Ryan has received this apart from his earning it; in that sense, it is a gift.  And that gift comes at a price—others die so that he can be spared.  Those sacrifices are made first, with the risk that Ryan could end up being a real jerk and not earning the life he was given back.  You could say that, so far, this feels like a parallel of the Christian story, too.

When the apostle tells the Ephesians—and us—to lead lives worthy of our calling, there is the same sense of grace and “already-given-ness” as in the movie.  We have been given an amazing gift in Christ—rescue, forgiveness, freedom, life, all of which usually gets summed up in the word “salvation.”  And that gift is already given.  It is ours, before we have done a thing.  It came at a price—Christ’s death so that we could be spared—and Jesus made that sacrifice running the risk that we might not appreciate it or waste it or miss the point.  And for that matter, Paul, too, has made an awful lot of sacrifices to bring the saving news of Jesus to the Ephesians.  He writes this letter under house arrest waiting for a trial in Rome that will most likely end with his execution.  So… yeah, there are prices paid for the gift that the Ephesians, and we, too, have received.

“Lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called” is sort of Paul’s way of saying, “The gift is already there, already in your lap; don’t waste it or forget its preciousness.  Don’t forget the cost others paid—and indeed, that God paid—for you to have it.”  That is enough to give us pause.

But then there’s the rest of the scene, and the rest of Paul’s train of thought in these verses.  And at this point, it seems to me that Paul and Captain Miller (or Steven Spielberg) begin to part company.  In the movie, the two word commission, “Earn this” has clearly haunted Private Ryan all his life, leaving him to wonder whether he has been good enough or lived an acceptable enough life to be worthy of having had the chance to live it.  He got to live his life, but it seems he is still wracked with survivor’s guilt and troubled by the ambiguity of Captain Miller’s words.  “Earn this”?  But… how?  What will count?  What makes for a good enough life?  Is there a way you can pay back the value of a life given up so that you could have a job, a family, a career, and grandkids?  Ryan has the impossible task of living with the maddeningly vague command “Earn this,” and no way of ever really knowing if he has satisfied that order.  The best he can do is to plead with his wife to tell him what he wants to hear. 

I don’t hear that same edge of guilt and ambiguity in Paul’s words.  Instead of haunting us with the only impossibly ambiguous command “Live a worthy life,” and leaving us to wonder what that looks like, Paul describes it.  It looks like love.  Do you want to know what makes for a life “worthy” of what Christ has already done for us and given to us?  Make less of yourself (humility and gentleness), and make less of the frustrations that others bring (patience, bearing with one another), and make more of love.  Love people, because that is exactly what Christ did for you first, before you had earned it. 

There is no further talk about how to quantify that love—whether you have done "enough" loving deeds in a day or in a lifetime, how large a sacrifice you have to make in order to be considered worthy, or anything like that.  Paul doesn’t mean to leave us with endless guilt or fear that we haven’t measured up or done enough.  He simply wants us to realize what we have been given by Christ, and to let that make a difference in how we live these lives we have been given.  It’s not about doing something daring or heroic.   It’s not about going to far-off places necessarily.  It’s not about giving a vast fortune to the church or becoming the resident martyr of your family, taking every opportunity to let everyone else know how rough your life is.  It’s simply about love.

Of course it is.  Love the people around you—people you know, and people you don’t; people whom you like to be around, and people you can barely stand;  people who can do something for you, and people who will never pay you back; people who name the name of Jesus, and people who only know that word as a curse. Love them—that’s how to live a life worthy of your calling—because that is what Jesus, who called you, has done for you as a free gift.  Since we have been loved freely by grace, you and I will do the same. 

We don’t have to be haunted by this verse and kept up at night with the fear that we haven’t done enough.  It is enough just to be dared to love as we have already been loved first.

Lord Jesus, let us be so full of your love that we cannot help but spill over with it today for all.