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Feb 26, 2023

Wisdom for the Dance

Wisdom for the Dance

Passage: Ephesians 5:15-21

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Song & Dance - The Gospel Melody that Moves in Ephesians

Keywords: wisdom, psalms, hymns, thanks, will, wise, submitting, addressing

In a so-called secular world where a good life is to be found in what can be observed, quantified, and improved, two words you still hear, both as aspects of a good life, are “mindfulness” and “spirituality.” Though sharply contrasting with their contemporary use, Paul continues his letter by speaking of a life full of wisdom as both mindful and spiritual. We want to know what those are and how they offer a life–a dance–in the way of the wisdom of the Gospel.

Readings & Scripture

PREPARATION: Psalm 90:1-4, 10, 12, 14, 17
LEADER: Lord, you have been our dwelling place
in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

You return man to dust
and say, “Return, O children of man!”
For a thousand years in your sight
are but as yesterday when it is past,
or as a watch in the night.

PEOPLE: The years of our life are seventy,
or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.

So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.

LEADER: Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

ALL: Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands!

CENTRAL TEXT: Ephesians 5:15-21
Eph. 5:15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

BENEDICTION: Revelation 7:12
LEADER: Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!
ALL: Amen.

RELATED SCRIPTURES:

Proverbs 9:10
Acts 16:25-34
Romans 8:28
Colossians 3:16
Revelation 5:9

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Wisest person you know? Why them? Got an example of that wisdom in action? How, from their life perhaps, would you define wisdom?
  2. “Making the most of time, for the days are evil”: how would you paraphrase that aspect of walking in wisdom? Sometimes we get at the heart of an idea by identifying first what it isn’t? What would be the opposite of following Paul’s idea here? Now what would it look like to manifest that inner and outer posture?
  3. How does one learn to understand what “the will of the Lord” is? That is–how what is true applies in a given situation? What place does the community serve in that pursuit?
  4. Refresh your memory from what Paul cites as marks, or consequences, of being filled by the Holy Spirit. What follows from such a “filling”? 
  5. What’s your take on what has happened at Asbury University over the last few weeks? What are all the possibilities? Do you see in what’s transpired there anything that resembles what Paul speaks of here as being filled by the Spirit? No matter how it began, what was necessary for them to maintain a posture of receptivity? Your circumstances might not afford you a similar opportunity, but how might one assume that posture in any circumstance?

QUOTES:

  • I don’t think it would have all got me quite so down if just once in a while—just once in a while—there was at least some polite little perfunctory implication that knowledge should lead to wisdom, and that if it doesn't, it's just a disgusting waste of time! But there never is! You never even hear any hints dropped on a campus that wisdom is supposed to be the goal of knowledge. You hardly ever even hear the word 'wisdom' mentioned!
    -From J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey

  • Keep death daily before your eyes. - St. Benedict

  • I deliver a lecture on God every six-to-eight weeks
    to a group of addicts who find themselves in rehab.
    The rehab is a house hidden behind a grocery store
    in the farthest corner of a strip mall parking lot.
    No one is here by accident. I wear my clergy collar —
    white plastic stark against black shirt.

    I tell my story of that first drink at sixteen that brought
    with it that first blackout that felt just like heaven.
    My lecture is not a lecture. It is a story about the god
    I worshipped, the spirits that promised relief.

    That god is only ever ego and death and never enough.
    A lecture is about facts and theories. My story is about
    a presence and a peace. I found the Most Holy God
    hidden under my feet at rock bottom.

    When I tell my story I tell my fellow addicts that I hope
    their Higher Power has for them nothing but grace.
    For nothing but grace can save the damned who
    chisle out their own hell with their own bare hands,
    who trap themselves with choices they can’t choose
    until even nothing left to lose is gone too.

    Powerless is a holy place to be I say under fluorescent
    halo glow as the barely dry patients sit and some drift
    and some shift and some haven’t blinked since I said God.
    When my time is up no one asks for my parish address
    but one tells me powerless feels more like failure than faith.
    He hasn’t yet learned they are the same thing.

    Most ignore me to go smoke or journey to the grocery store
    to catch a glimpse of the gods in the alcohol aisle that stand
    at attention before they buy their trail mix and file home
    drenched in divinity to the holy ground back corner rehab.
    - “I Deliver A Lecture On God Every Six to Eight Weeks” Conor Gwin

  • “It is not possible to think when you’re drunk. For drunkenness is extremely prone to error and people are really talkative over wine… Stobaeus

  • Christianity is not a system you work – it is a Person who works you. You don’t get it; he gets you. Jesus said, “I am…the life” (John 14:6). Now life isn’t something you try out for a while and then exchange for something else if it doesn’t prove practical. You either have it or you don’t. And if your Christianity is the kind that has to be “worked,” you don’t have the real thing. For when you look long and deeply into the face of Jesus, that compulsion of love falls on you, and you find yourself vowing that you would follow him and serve him – practical or impractical, wise or foolish, for better or worse – unto the death.
    - Clarence Jordan

  • But they declared that the sum of their guilt or their error only amounted to this, that on a stated day they had been accustomed to meet before daybreak and to recite a hymn among themselves to Christ, as though he were a god, and that so far from binding themselves by oath to commit any crime, their oath was to abstain from theft, robbery, adultery. . . . When this ceremony was concluded, it had been their custom to depart and meet again to take food, but it was of no special character and quite harmless, and they had ceased this practice after the edict in which, in accordance with your orders, I had forbidden all secret societies. I thought it the more necessary, therefore, to find out what truth there was in these statements by submitting two women, who were called deaconesses, to the torture, but I found nothing but a debased superstition carried to great lengths.
    - A letter by the Roman magistrate Pliny to then Emperor Trajan

  • I saw you just the other day
    I watched you walk a little way
    You vanished 'round the corner
    When I got there you were gone
    You might of heard me if I'd called
    We could have spoken but I stalled
    And let the moment slip
    And in a moment it was gone
    I saw, you see
    But you did not see me
    You were going somewhere
    I saw you driving down the road
    I waved at you, you never slowed
    I watched you as the distance
    Made you small
    And you were gone
    A haze of dust rose on the air
    Suspended for a moment there
    It settled to the road again
    It didn't last too long
    I saw, you see
    But you did not see me
    You were going somewhere
    Time was all I had
    But the timing was bad
    When I looked your way
    You neglected to stay
    You were going somewhere
    My timing's bad
    Your time's been sold
    You're looking young
    You're feeling old
    You're looking straight ahead of you
    I'm standing on the side
    Your silver spoon is tarnished old
    But still you'll turn it into gold
    Ambition's going to get you there
    I hope you like the ride
    You were going somewhere
    You were going somewhere
    You were going somewhere
    You were going somewhere
    You were going somewhere
    -David Wilcox, “You were going somewhere”

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