PUT ON THE NEW SELF CREATED IN GOD’S WAY

XVIII SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Ephesians 4:17,20-24

In the letter to the Ephesians, we are invited to live according to our call, that is to live according to what we learnt from Jesus. Jesus is presented as the role model. In him, we find direction and meaning for our lives. We must not live “the aimless kind of life that pagans live.” We must not be afraid or ashamed of our difference, that is, we should not conform with the wisdom and the behaviour of the world, which is dominated by lust for pleasure, craving for wealth and struggle for power. All that leads us to a hopeless life in which we battle for things that cannot satisfy our thirst and our hunger for truth, uprightness, justice, love and peace. We may try to inebriate ourselves with pleasure and drown our sorrows in the pride of our useless achievements, but our hearts cannot find rest and peace. That’s why the letter to the Ephesians tells us very clearly:

“You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts” (Ep 4:22).

For the Ephesians, to get rid of the old self, built upon the model of the Greek and Roman way of life was not an easy task. Nowadays, there are many who glorify the Greco-roman world, spreading the idea that all the evils of the world come from Christianity and that we should go back to the model of the classic culture. They forget that the Greco-roman culture glorified violence and got used to the shedding of blood. It was a society built upon slavery and the exploration of the conquered nations. Their gods were bloody gods, never satisfied with the shedding of blood. That’s why, in the letter to the Ephesians, the classic culture is called “corrupt and deluded by its lusts”. The Christian who has Jesus as his role model needs to “be renewed by a spiritual revolution”, in order to “put on the new self that has been created in God’s way, in the goodness and holiness of the truth” (Ep 4:24).

In many ways, our post-modernist culture may be called as well “corrupt and deluded by its lusts”. It is in need of the newness brought by Jesus Christ. We must present Jesus as the role-model and that role-model will be seen as credible if people see in us, the followers of Jesus, the fruits of “goodness, holiness and truth”.