Some of you may be familiar with this movie, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. In the film, Bill and Ted are two high school students in danger of failing their history class, and thereby not graduating. With the help of a phone booth that is a time machine, they travel both into the past and into the future, meeting a variety of historical characters that they plan to bring with them when they deliver their oral report to the class.
The clip you just saw showed Bill and Ted in the future, and because of changes that they have made in history, the folks of the future recognize them, and they gather because they want to know what these icons have to say to them. Bill and Ted give them very simple advice; Be Excellent to Each Other.
I think that the writers of this Bill and Ted movie might have been reading Paul’s letter to the Ephesians when they came up with this line. I think that it really takes what Paul has to say and condenses into a few words that could really be a mantra for every one of us. Be Excellent to Each Other. Let’s just say it, Be Excellent to Each Other. Such simple words, but they require so much from us.
In our text, the apostle Paul is writing to the church at Ephesus. I mentioned before that Ephesus was a boomtown. It was a huge port city, and people from all over the known world came there to trade. There was a large community of folks who had converted to Christianity from the Jewish faith, and a large community of gentile Christians was there as well. Now the gentile Christians did not have the religious history that the Jewish Christians had. They didn’t have a foundation for being a community of faith, and so problems arose, and Paul writes a letter instructing them and setting expectations for them
Paul sets expectations about how the people of Ephesus are to live their daily lives in community. Paul tells them, no lying, no stealing, no gossip or slander, take care in how and where you direct your anger. He tells them to be kind and tender-hearted, to forgive others and to love God. All these things are good advice, good instruction even now.
Paul is teaching the Jewish and gentile Christians, and us, how to create a loving, life affirming community with each other. He is telling them how to act, what to do and what not to do; very much the way that we teach our young children. And the cornerstone of Paul’s teaching is that like Jesus, we speak the truth in love.
We know how difficult it is to speak the truth in love, to admit our anger and our hurts, but to not allow our words and actions to damage our relationships. We also know there are times when we don’t act like we are the body of Christ. Sometimes this is out of fear, or neglect. Sometimes, for whatever reason, we choose not to witness to our faith.
I was speaking to a friend a couple of weeks ago, and she mentioned that her company had recently hired their first black vice president, and she was saying that it was sad that the office gossip was about a black vice-president, and how she did not see color. My friend is white. And I mentioned to her that people do need to see color, if they don’t see color, then the abuses that have gone on in the past against people of color will continue to go on.
I asked my friend if she remembered several months ago when she and I were shopping in a big department store, and there were lines at the checkout counter. My friend had already checked out, and I was in line behind a woman who was getting waited on, and behind me was an Asian gentleman, and behind him a tall man who was white. There was another black person behind him.
Another counter opened up, and the clerk came from behind the counter to the line I was in and walked past me, past the Asian person behind me, and directly up to the tall white guy and said I can help you over here.
Now there are a lot of ways in which that situation could have played out. I don’t know if the clerk lacked common sense, or training or just sensitivity, or just preferred waiting on the tall guy, I don’t know. But, I do know that it would have been great if someone had stepped up and said to the clerk, do you realize that you just ignored two people, not to mention two people of color. I told my friend that people like me, people of color need people like her, to see color so that she can step up when those types of things happen, and they happen all the time.
These types of things were happening in the community at Ephesus. There were episodes of unfairness. There was a bias toward Jewish Christians which was oppressive to gentile Christians. Paul is speaking to a community that would very much have desired to segregate itself into those who are in and those who are out. And Paul speaks the truth in love and says No, that is not the way.
He explains to them that as followers of Christ, they no longer live solely for themselves but are now members of each other, one body. He tells them that when they say or do something that hurts another person, they are in fact hurting themselves. He says that we have to speak up when people do and say things that don’t build up the body of Christ.
Paul tells them to always speak and to behave in ways that leave them with no regrets and no feelings of shame. What we say, how we say it and what we do; all these things matter if we are to speak the truth in love. The world cannot be redeemed unless we speak our truths in love, embed our truths in our lives, and then put our truths into action. This is the future that Paul lays out for the church at Ephesus, and this is the future that Christ calls us to.
Be excellent to each other. Embody a compassionate spirit and a heart that forgives and has been forgiven.
Our future depends on our ability and willingness to be excellent to each other; to make our words and our actions instruments of peace. We can live lives of love and compassion and generosity as Jesus models and teaches us.
Nothing we do is unnoticed or insignificant, and sometimes we all falter. We all sin. However, Paul instructs us how to live together in a loving community that forgives and encourages. We live in a community directed by the Holy Spirit to do that which builds up the body, not that which tears it apart.
Paul tells the faith community at Ephesus, “be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
Our lives are a response to God’s steadfast love and faithfulness, not only in what we say, or how we say it, but in what we do, how we live every day. We are people of the word made flesh. We are members of the body of Christ, living, breathing, loving, seeking to discern and do God’s will in the world, together. In our togetherness, may we Be excellent to each other. May it be so. Amen.
Queen Anne 
