Sermon Tone Analysis

Good and Evil in Aisle 7

/Ephesians 5:8-14/   |   3~/10~/2002

*Paul calls us to look beyond the righting of retailer wrongs -- real or imagined -- and to focus on being children of light in a world of darkness.*

Prices are not the only things falling at Wal-Mart.

\\ \\ Could be a toaster or a Veg-a-matic.

\\ Take Phil Scharrel, for example.

An ice auger fell 19 feet before hitting him on the head, leaving him with brain damage.

He and his wife sued and were awarded $2.8 million.

\\ \\ Then there's Barbara Trujillo, whose back was injured when boxes from a push cart toppled on her.

She sued and won $435,000.

\\ \\ Kathleen Mills, fired after her own father was "attacked" by a wayward box while shopping at Wal-Mart, insists that signs should be posted at all entries declaring that "shopping in this store may be hazardous to your health."

\\ \\ According to Wal-Mart's very own Claims Management Department, tumbling merchandise fell on top of more than 25,000 human beings over a recent four-year period.

In another legal case, experts testified that an average of 150 shoppers a day, nationwide, are injured due to falling merchandise or merchandise dropped by employees onto unsuspecting shoppers pushing carts down the aisles.

\\ \\ This is not to knock Wal-Mart.

The nationwide chain has developed enormous good will with its smiley face commercials and friendly and helpful clerks.

It's just that Wal-Mart is apparently such an easy target.

Victims' rights group abound.

Check out walmartsurvivor.com in the event that you ventured innocently into a Wal-Mart hoping to land a good deal on a box of Tide and found yourself beaned by a wayward can of Campbell's chicken noodle soup.

\\ \\ So many individuals file suit against the discount giant that there are law firms that specialize only in suing Wal-Mart.

The Wal-Mart Litigation Project, an organization that exists to assist these lawyers, has identified more than 100 different types of lawsuits against the company.

It's been estimated that Wal-Mart is hit with more than 50 lawsuits every day.

\\ \\ It's bad enough to have to live in fear after the events of 9~/11, but now it appears that we can't even walk down aisle 7 without fearing for life and limb! \\ \\ Danger is pervasive.

We can't be too careful.

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" Or at Wal-Mart, K-Mart, the back-yard or the schoolyard, the playground or the work place?

If the sky isn't falling, who knows?

A blender might be on its way down.

\\ \\ It is against this background of fear and darkness that the apostle Paul steps in to offer light and hope as a remedy for those in danger of becoming Chicken Little Christians.

\\ \\ He describes our condition without Christ as one of darkness.

But when the light of Christ shines on us, we are able to live without fear, and to walk in the light (v.

14).

It's a psychological thing: We feel safer in light as opposed to darkness.

After a week of rain, we're delighted when the sun is shining again.

That's why Paul says that the secret to living without fear is to step out of the darkness.

\\ \\ Here's what it means to live as children of light: \\ ~* Pursue what is good and right and true, v. 9. \\ ~* Try to find out what pleases God, v. 10. \\ ~* Don't waste your time on worthless pursuits.

In fact, expose them for what they are, v. 11. \\ ~* Wake up, become aware, v. 14. \\ [NOTE: You may want to spend some time developing the meaning of each of these four suggestions before proceeding.]

\\ \\ When we find ourselves implementing this 4-step program for fearless living, we'll feel like we've finally seen the light.

\\ \\ Sam Walton established the practice of hiring elderly members of the community and assigning them the simple task of greeting shoppers with a smile and a welcoming word as they entered his stores.

He believed it brightened the days of world-weary shoppers.

\\ \\ Paul would say that the world needs more cheery faces.

He urges us not only to make our own world a cheerful place, but to widen the circle of light to include others: "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them."

\\ \\ In his novel, The Street Lawyer, author John Grisham describes the reaction of someone helping the helpless: \\ \\ I was in no hurry to leave the [legal clinic for the homeless] at the end of my first day.

Home was an empty attic, not much larger than any three of the cubbyholes at the Samaritan House.

Home was a bedroom with no bed, a living room with cableless TV, a kitchen with a card table and no fridge... .

\\ \\ "So what do you think?" [a fellow lawyer] asked, pausing by the door on the way out.

\\ \\ "I think it's fascinating work.

The human contact is inspiring."

\\ \\ "It'll break your heart at times."

\\ \\ "It already has."

\\ \\ "That's good.

If you reach the point where it doesn't hurt, then it's time to quit." \\ \\ Children of light don't quit.

Jesus himself modeled what it means to walk in the light.

He had a heart for "the least of these."

He took up a cross.

He resisted the powers of oppression and evil.

His plan included working with a "Helper" who would partner with us forever.

His goals involved nothing short of establishing the kingdom of the highest heaven on earth.

\\ \\ Take Bea Gaddy.

She was called the Mother Teresa of Baltimore because she fed the hungry and housed the homeless.

Former president George Bush anointed her America's 695th "point of light."

Family Circle magazine named her woman of the year.

\\ \\ She survived poverty, hunger and homelessness -- "I know what it's like to hunt for food in a garbage can and eat out of a dumpster," she wrote -- to become, in her later years, the premier advocate for the down and out.

\\ \\ Bea Gaddy was a tiny, white-haired woman who was also larger than life.

\\ \\ When word came that the 68-year-old had succumbed to breast cancer, Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley ordered that flags be flown at half-staff.

Maryland Gov. Parris N. Glendening lauded Gaddy as "the beacon of hope for those who felt hopeless."

\\ \\ Gaddy's annual Thanksgiving dinner fed the city.

It required 80 tons of food, 30,000 paper plates, 50 cases of aluminum foil, 2,000 pumpkin pies and 100 cases of sweet potatoes.

More than 3,500 volunteers fed 20,000 people.

\\ \\ She converted her East Baltimore house into the headquarters of her Patterson Park Emergency Food Center, and she lived in the basement.

She founded the Bea Gaddy Family Center for women and children, and no matter who called, or when, she had a bed or a cot, made up and ready.

\\ \\ "'Just send 'em over,'" social services worker Sarah Matthews remembers Gaddy telling her, again and again.

"'Just send 'em on over.'

She never told me no." \\ \\ What are the chances that Bea Gaddy lived in fear, worrying about the dangers in Aisle 7. Slim to none.

She pursued what is "good, right and true."

She had learned what is "pleasing to the Lord."

She didn't waste her time on worthless pursuits.

She was "awake," she had "risen" to cast her light on the plight -- of others.

\\ \\ When we partner-up with Jesus, we can stop worrying about falling toaster ovens, or the dangers that lurk in Aisle 7 or anywhere else.

We can get on with the business of transforming a world of darkness into a world of light.

\\ \\ And when that is our business, "Christ will shine on [us]!" (v.

14.) \\ Sources: \\ Grisham, John.

The Street Lawyer.

\\ New York: Random House, 1998, 217.

\\ Johnson, Darragh.

"Baltimore loses a \\ ÔBeacon of Hope.'"

The Washington Post, \\ October 4, 2001, B1. \\ Olgeirson, Ian.

"Wal-Mart's headaches make \\ law firm's fortune."

The Denver Business \\ Journal, November 21, 1997.

----

*Commentary*

The Pauline author begins the pericope by introducing a light vs. darkness dualism to illustrate the "that was then -- this is now" character of a Christian's new life.

"For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light" (v.

8).

The implication here is weighty.

A human is not a morally neutral being who happens to reside "in" a particular locus: first "in" the darkness before Christ came, and then "in" the light after Christ.

One is described as being of either one element or another.

Before Christ there was only darkness.

After Christ, some become children of light, others not.

\\ \\ There is a sense of spiritual natural selection at work.

Christ is the variable factor which allows some to be fruitful.

Good trees, after all, bear good fruit.

Likewise bad trees bear bad fruit (Matthew 7:17-20).

One's elemental being is manifested in "the fruit of the light" (v.

9).

Those who are darkness, who do things in secret, are fruitless (v.