The riot

                        One video.  A short message, with an explosive reaction.  How is it that one low quality film…consisting of no more than 10 minutes or so…can send nations into a frenzy?  The opinions of a few people stir up millions into a riot.  A cheaply made video costs many people their lives.  What makes a group of people react in such a way to the expressions of others?  We all have a way of thinking about who we are as a nation…a group of people living together.  Economies…governments…ideals.  We are good with money, or we have an impressive cultural history that stretches back centuries.  We boast in our freedom to disagree with our national identity and have an abundance of opinions, or we see ourselves as strong defenders of our religious and cultural identity.  This is us…this is who we are.  We unite in the way we see ourselves, and when we feel that people are threatening our group, our group gets angry.

            The region of Ephesus had a strong cultural identity.  They were known as “keepers”.  Now usually, “keepers” referred to cities who protected buildings that honored the Emperor.  Ephesus, however, was a special area, because it housed one of the great wonders of the ancient world:  the temple of Artemis.  This temple had about 120 pillars, each 60 feet high, laid with gold and precious jewels.  The centerpiece of the temple housed a 20 foot tall image of Artemis, that supposedly had fallen from the heavens.  At one time, the temple was a powerhouse of religious identity, being the destination for an annual pilgrimage, and hosting a giant party full of wild sex and binge drinking.  Pilgrims would even buy souvenir shrines to bring home to remember their trip…because what happens in Ephesus, stays in Ephesus.

            Over time, the keepers of the temple of Artemis had become so efficient at throwing these parties, that they accumulated a mass of wealth that made them the equivalent of a national bank.  Imagine, throwing parties so wild that you end up at the top of the Dow Jones Industrial index!  Demetrius was the CEO of party central in Ephesus…he was the big businessman who kept the temple’s net worth at an all time high.  Demetrius was the guardian of guardians, who aimed to keep the business machine...the image of Artemis…and subsequently, the identity of Ephesus, straight on course.  Progress.  This nation was well on its way to making history.

            And along came Paul.  Well, not just Paul.  Along came this gang of people who refused the status quo.  This new little faction in society that did things differently, and named themselves some arrogant title.  The Way.  They were somehow performing feats like the fake magicians, and winning people to their group.  This man, Paul, apparently had a way with words, not just with his Jewish people, but even with the Ephesians!  People were refusing the old traditions…refusing the old religion.  They had such nice libraries, full of expensive and rare books…they destroyed them!  What is wrong with people nowadays?  But the last straw…the final tip of the scale…people stopped coming to the party.  Business was down…the market was declining.  People stopped buying souvenirs…they started moving on to something else! 

            Of course, when people stop following the status quo, the “keepers” get angry.  Without the status quo, people are not quite sure what to do…what to think.  Who are we?  Was this ever a good thing…to sell shrines, and hold lavish parties?  Who is doing this to us?  People grab their pitchforks and torches and go look for some comfort in revenge.  They grasp around for reasons to retaliate…to gain back a sense of identity.  They band together, so that they can tear others apart.

            Does this sound familiar?  Isn’t this what is going on overseas right now?  People feel their national identity threatened, and so they retaliate, through violence, through demonstrations and riots, and so on.  But those nations are not alone in their riots and retaliation…do we not do the same thing to each other?  Through social media, we now see our friends frequently dividing over political and religious issues.  Every week, a different issue sends people off in opposite directions, breaking friendships and ending conversations.  We, living in the “civilized world”, are no better off.  And in thousands of years of progress from the ancient near east to our present day, nothing has changed.  Disrupt the status quo, and people fall to pieces.

            But did Paul and the people of the Way intend this disruption?  Did they send out messages insulting the Ephesians, or attempt to ransack and burn the temple at Ephesus?  We catch a glimpse of this provocative community in a letter from Pliny the younger to the Emperor Trajan.  Let’s look at some of the habits of the early Christian community that inspired such rage: “they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food--but ordinary and innocent food.”  So, they met and sang…which might be annoying, depending on their vocal talent.  They encouraged one another to be honest and sincere.  Hmm.  They valued strong marriages, they tried to stay out of debt…what is wrong with these people?!

The Christian community was just strange.  Different.  They weren’t out to spite people, or to make everyone else feel uncomfortable.  They didn’t go insulting their neighbors for getting rowdy-rowdy at those parties, and they didn’t aspire to be the first in a great line of Pit Preachers.  They didn’t make any attacks on local temples like some of the other peculiar religions had done.  The Christians at Ephesus weren’t set out to cause a riot…that wasn’t in their mission statement when the church came together.  They simply wanted to obey.  They were patiently awaiting the return of the Messiah, and they followed the rules of His house.           

For love and obedience go hand in hand.  I always wondered why Jesus drew a connection between love and obedience when He said, “Whoever keeps my commands loves me.”  Isn’t that setting the bar way too high?  If God’s love means God’s forgiveness, then why should we obey?  Isn’t love unconditional?  And yet, the beautiful description of the early Christians gives us an answer.  They obeyed because they loved Christ…not the other way around.  Their obedience was a direct result of the love and trust invested in Christ.  They were waiting.

  We live in an age of suspicion.  We are taught to question…to think for ourselves.  Don’t do what you’re told…take things with a grain of salt.  We are taught not to trust.  It is no surprise, then, that we turn on anything that upsets our status quo…that goes against the grain.  And yet, we are called to obey.  We are called to trust…to be patient, and carry on the torch passed to us through the centuries.  And we do so because we love Christ, and trust that obeying Him will give us something better than the status quo.  We are set apart to wait on Christ.

And so, the Christians lived differently.  They wouldn’t come and eat or drink at the parties, because they preferred to eat food that honored the one God.  They wouldn’t go out of their way to succeed in business, by any means necessary.  They wouldn’t leave behind the wife to have a weekend with the wild girls of Ephesus.  Really, the only interaction they had with the rest of the community was to talk about the man that they worshipped as God, how He had changed their lives, and to help others in His name.  But they added nothing to the status quo.

  We too are called to wait.  We are not called to send out humiliating videos of other cultures, or to make violence against anyone that doesn’t agree with our principles.  And yet, we are also called to reject the norm.  And though some of the details have changed, the heart of the early Church still flies in the face of the status quo.  We are called to be responsible and generous with our money.  We can succeed in business, but not by stepping on other people, using them for our excessive gain.  Likewise, we should not be irresponsible, taking on loans, and stretching ourselves thin to accomplish foolhardy plans.  We should use our money responsibly and generously, ultimately for the sake of helping those who need assistance.

We are called to be responsible in marriage.  I don’t want to speak too much on this topic, as we will be discussing purity in the upcoming weeks.  In the ancient world, marriage was a means for social advancement.  Marriage helped men make alliances, and as soon as they acquired gain, they would move on to another marriage.  One ancient Roman citizen boasted of 27 marriages, and wives would often keep track of the years through their different marriages.  And, as we see from the history of the cult of Artemis, ancient Romans had no qualms about sharing women, even when married.  The Church treated marriage much differently.  They treated adultery seriously, barring adulterers from the community until they proved to be repentant.  As Christians, we are called to model strong, monogamous marriages to a world that sees such a thing as stuffy and outmoded.  In an age where people sleep with each other to judge whether a partner is fit for marriage…where sexual freedom is prized above marital commitment…we are called to run against the status quo.  We are called to confess the joy of monogamy…the thrill of getting to know someone over the course of 20, 30, 40 years and more. 

And most importantly, I see a trend today that people are less willing to listen when their worldview or beliefs are challenged.  Friends part ways when they see that someone feels a certain way about an issue.  Members of churches will hop from church to church until they find their status quo.  Why, I’ve even seen family members erupt to the point of near abandonment over sports rivalries!  (I’m not kidding)  Here, I see two important elements in descriptions of the early Church:  they met together, and they helped others.  They neither abandoned each other, nor did they turn their backs on their community.  For we profess the love of Christ…from which neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us.  This love lives in us…this love binds us to each other, and we owe this debt of love to everyone in the world.

And it is from this love that we obey Christ.  It is in this love that we wait for Him.  This love motivates us to live differently…to abandon the status quo.  And as we live differently…as we wait…we likely will cause dissention.  People don’t like to have their worldviews challenged…they don’t like to have their cultural identities threatened.  And yet, like those early Christians, who did nothing more than wait on their Messiah…caused an upheaval without lifting a finger against their neighbors.  In fact, a member of the community stood up to defend those early Christians, because they hadn’t violated any laws.  This is not a community motivated by hate, but by love.  They were able to live differently…to challenge the status quo.  They could be generous and not contribute to the bank of Artemis…they could honor marriage by not participating in the orgies.  But they didn’t do so to spite the Ephesians…they did so to obey…to obey the Messiah, who had come for their community…and for the Ephesians, and the Romans, and the Jews and the whole world.  They obeyed their Messiah because they trusted Him…they were waiting, because they were in love.  This is why we obey…why we choose to live holy lives, different from the status quo…not to break laws and to spite the rest of the world…we wait because we are in love…and this love will one day come to make holiness our status quo.  But until then, we wait…