Ephesians 5:8-14<\/p>\n\n\n\n
April 6, 2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only two days ago, I along with 32 others returned from Italy\u2014viewing and learning from the religious art created during the medieval, renaissance and post-reformation times. Before we left, our passports were checked that we were from the US. Before we were allowed to enter Italy, the Italian authorities verified that we were US citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where are you from? It\u2019s a common question asked when you want to travel outside of your home country. It\u2019s a common question asked at parties or anytime strangers get together. For us Asian Americans, we are often asked that question when people are uninformed that Americans are not just Anglo-Saxon Caucasians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a world that\u2019s increasingly mobile and increasingly global, it\u2019s a question that is a lot more complex than it used to be. While our Italy group had people who were white and African American, most of us were Asian Americans. Probably the Italians thought that we were really Chinese from the economic powerhouse of affluent China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to a Pew Research study, 6 out of 10 Americans have moved to a new community at least once in their lives, and the definition of where one\u2019s \u201chome\u201d is has become more fluid. We have moved 4 times and \u201chome\u201d could be New York, Boston, Philadelphia or San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
38% of Americans do not consider the place they are now living to be \u201chome.\u201d Some consider \u201chome\u201d to be where they were born and raised. Others say it\u2019s where they lived the longest, where their family comes from or where they went to high school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And if there\u2019s domestic confusion about \u201chome,\u201d it\u2019s even more apparent in the highly globalized world where international travel and living abroad is now quite common. My cousin\u2019s daughter lives in Scotland. Pauline Tom\u2019s daughter lives in Canada. Dick and Anna Wong\u2019s daughter Karina lives in Italy and we met her and their baby Matteo in Florence. Whereas previous generations tended to stay put unless someone was in the military, the foreign service or on the mission field, emerging generations are now increasingly more likely to spend at least part of their lives living in a completely different culture in another country. The children growing up in these cultures are being observed to have different characteristics from any past generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Third Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sociologists and anthropologists call these young nomads, \u201cThird Culture Kids.\u201d These kids are people who have spent significant parts of their developmental years outside of their parents\u2019 culture. They are able to frequently build relationships to all of the cultures while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture may be assimilated into these Third Culture kids, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background. That\u2019s why Karina brought along her friend, Christine to help her travel to Florence because there are only 3 Americans in Cinque Terre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the \u201cfirst culture\u201d is the parent\u2019s home culture, and the \u201csecond culture\u201d is the new culture in which they are now living, then the \u201cthird culture\u201d is a kind of hybrid of the two, leading these children to pause a minute or two when asked the question, \u201cWhere are you from?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n These \u201cThird Culture Kids\u201d often don\u2019t call any place \u201chome,\u201d they call it their \u201cpassport country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Apostle Paul<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When we read the letters by Paul, you get the sense that he is like a \u201cthird culture guy.\u201d He was born in Tarsus in Cilicia, a Roman center for trade, and educated in Jerusalem, a thoroughly Jewish culture. After his conversion on the road to Damascus, Paul winds up traveling throughout the Mediterranean world to a myriad of other cultures from Asia Minor, to Greece, to Rome. We were there just three days ago! In each place, he learns how to communicate using the symbols and conventions of that particular culture in order to bring the good news about Jesus to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul\u2019s passport would certainly have looked like it had been stamped with many visas and probably including some blood-stained and torn pages from all of the beatings, water damage from shipwrecks and maybe a few government notations to put him on a watch list as a potential troublemaker. Paul never had TSA Pre-Check.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But even as he moved from place to place, Paul recognized that the three cultures he was dealing with weren\u2019t really about where one was born, what borders one crossed or what accent one used. Instead Paul was looking at culture through the lens of Christ and the kingdom of God, which gave him a very clear sense of home as well as a way of relating to whatever culture he found himself in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As he wrote to the Ephesians, Paul gave them a lesson on what it means to be Christ-followers who live in the world but aren\u2019t actually from it. He gives us a look at the three cultures in which every follower of Jesus lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1st<\/sup> Culture\u2014Relationship<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For those who follow Christ, the first culture, our \u201chome,\u201d isn\u2019t as much about location as it is about relationship. In Ephesians 3:14, Paul reminds his readers that it is God the Father \u201cfrom whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name.\u201d From Genesis we learn that we are created in God\u2019s image, to be in relationship with God and reflect his glory through our life and work. As such, Paul says, we are made to be \u201cchildren of light\u201d (v. 7).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our home is in God, and wherever we find ourselves we recognize that God is already there. For Paul, being at \u201chome\u201d is to be \u201cfilled with the Spirit\u201d of God. It\u2019s a place where the custom is to sing songs of praise and thanksgiving to God (vv. 19-20). It\u2019s this \u201chome\u201d that produces in us the \u201cfruit of the light\u201d\u2014all that is \u201cgood and right and true\u201d (v. 9) and \u201cpleasing to the Lord\u201d (v. 10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the way we were meant to live\u2014at home with God. Notice that Paul doesn\u2019t say here that heaven is our permanent home and that we are just passing through this world to get to heaven. We were created to live with God within creation\u2014a home that\u2019s both our past and our future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2nd<\/sup> Culture\u2014Darkness<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n But the problem is that from the beginning, human have wanted to move away from home and away from God. The rebellious nature of sin invites us to look elsewhere for a home where we can be autonomous and create a name for ourselves. When that happens we become \u201cdarkened in our understanding, alienated from the life of God because of our ignorance and hardness of heart\u201d (4:18).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sin moves us from \u201clight\u201d to \u201cdarkness\u201d and to a culture that is really a form of exile from home. The second culture of sin has its own language and customs as well. Paul calls them the \u201cunfruitful works of darkness\u201d (v.11) and lists some of the accents they take on: fornication, impurity, obscene, silly and vulgar talk, drunkenness, and debauchery (vv. 3-4, 18).<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s pretty easy for us to pick up the way of life in this second culture. We can begin to make our home there to the point that we forget from where it is we came and to what family we belong. We can become confused and muddled to the point that we no longer know who we are. Like the Ephesians, we can become so much \u201cin darkness\u201d that we forget that we are actually children of light (v. 8).<\/p>\n\n\n\n But here\u2019s another thing: these two cultures are so delineated or different from each other that it\u2019s possible to be so entrenched in one that we never engage the other. Take the first culture when those who only stay spiritually at home. If all I\u2019m focused on is my personal home with God, for example, then I\u2019ll never reach out to those in the second culture who need to hear the good news and need a new life. We can wind up having a worldview that\u2019s all about our own isolationist, stay-at-home, Jesus-and-me way of life. This is the purpose of the Reception Ministry that will take place this afternoon\u2014to reach out to the people who may be in the second culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, we need to live in a third culture that\u2019s more like the one that Jesus describes for his disciples\u2014a culture that is always on the go into the world. One of the great misquotes of Jesus concerns what he said about the relationship of his kingdom of light to the present world of darkness. Most often, Jesus gets quoted as saying to Pontius Pilate, \u201cMy kingdom is not of this world\u201d (John 18:36). The Greek, however, clearly has Jesus saying, \u201cMy kingdom is not from this world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not that Jesus is focused on a heavenly kingdom somewhere far away that\u2019s our permanent home address. Instead, Jesus says his kingdom isn\u2019t the kind of second culture kingdom that the present world or Pontius Pilate makes its home in\u2014it\u2019s not from this world\u2014but it is a kingdom that is certainly for this world. Otherwise, he wouldn\u2019t have taught us to pray, \u201cyour kingdom come, you will be done on earth as it is in heaven\u201d (Matt. 6:10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3rd<\/sup> Culture\u2014Engagement<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n So, according to Jesus and Paul, we need to become \u201cThird Culture Christians.\u201d Our citizenship, our passport country, may be heavenly in nature, but our job is to colonize a dark world with the light of Christ, the Savior who is coming into the world to dwell with us forever and to finally make all cultures one in his kingdom (Phil. 3:20). It\u2019s the light of his kingdom that makes everything \u201cvisible, for everything that becomes visible is light\u201d (Eph. 5:13), a kingdom where those who were dead in darkness will be raised again because the light of Christ shines on them (V. 14).<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSounds good, pastor,\u201d you might be saying but how do we do it? You say, \u201cWe have \u2018culture shock\u2019.\u201d Culture shock is \u201ca state of bewilderment and distress experienced by an individual who is suddenly exposed to a new, strange or foreign social and cultural environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before we traveled to Italy, we had three orientation sessions followed by an Italian dinner at Stinking Rose in North Beach. We read about Italy and the places we\u2019ll be visiting. We went online to see what is the weather like. We exchanged dollars for Euros and tried to figure out what the exchange rate is. For us to enjoy Italy, we went through a series of discoveries and orientations in order for us to survive the culture of Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the first culture is the way we are meant to be as children of light at home with God and the second culture is the place we can\u2019t seem to resist to live where there\u2019s the sin of darkness, then it\u2019s this third culture that requires us to live with a foot in both worlds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul cautions the Ephesians not to associate with people in the second culture, to not be like them, but that doesn\u2019t mean we don\u2019t engage second culture people with the good news (v. 7). We identify with second culture sinners because we\u2019ve been there ourselves, but we also remember where we\u2019ve come from and that our real home is with God in God\u2019s new creation, a home made possible by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We aren\u2019t from the world of darkness, but we are certainly made to do Christ\u2019s work for that world\u2014a world that Christ loves enough to die for\u2014For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that whosoever believes in him shall never die but have everlasting life (John 3:16).<\/p>\n\n\n\n What does living in that third culture mean for us? We take our accents of love, compassion and forgiveness rather than condemnation to people in the second culture. We expand our circle of friends to not just include other Christians, but to those who may come to know Christ through us. We take our passports going anywhere God sends us with the possibilities that our passports will become worn out, blood-stained, tattered and torn because God has sent us out. We go out to places like Italy, Thailand, being visible as light because Christ has shined on us. And after we have come home we know that God is already here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The phrase, \u201cThere\u2019s no place like home,\u201d has been made famous by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz<\/em>, but it originally came from the song, \u201cHome! Sweet Home! written 180 years ago. When we landed in SFO on Friday, we said, \u201cThere\u2019s no place like home!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a big, wide, wonderful world in which we live, created by God for us to dwell with him. May we be Third Culture Christians who live and work in the world for God\u2019s Glory and light within it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is no place like home with the Lord!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you, God for granting us the invitation to live at home with you in Christ and the mercy and forgiveness when we fall into temptation and live in darkness. But may even these times provide us with the capacity to become \u201cThird-Culture Christians\u201d to reach out and proclaim Good New for the whole world. We pray for that day when heaven and earth are one. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ephesians 5:8-14 April 6, 2014 Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco. Only two days ago, I along with 32 others returned