Sermon - Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Service at St. Luke, Rensselaer
Amos 7:7-15
Ephesians 1:3-14
Mark 6:14-29
When I was a child in school, we often did team sports during gym class. The instructor would choose two captains. The captains took turns choosing teammates. Sometimes, the choice was based on friendship, but most often it had to do with skill and ability. No one wants to be the captain of a team that loses because he picked people with no skill or ability. Your first picks are the most athletic. You save the uncoordinated and less proficient for last.
As we go through life, we realize that we are often chosen because of certain skills, insights, characteristics that get us noticed. Merit, skill, accreditation, and relationships have a lot to do with our lives. It is very easy to transfer our worldly experiences into our spiritual life. We can think, consciously or unconsciously, some version of “I am a Christian because it is my decision; or, God looked into the future and sees all the good I will do and makes sure I end up a Christian; or, God wants me to go to heaven because of what I have done; or, Jesus loves me because, well, I’m worth it!, I’m so nice and loveable and I love to help everybody.”
The Apostle Paul was in Ephesus for over two years. He was in Ephesus longer than any of his other missionary stops. Acts 18 and 19 tell us a little bit about what happened during his time there.
The letter that is in the New Testament was written around AD60 while he was in Rome, a prisoner. From his chains, he is compelled to write a letter to the church in Ephesus about the profound and mysterious grace of God and how we can live with this grace.
What is the first thing that he does after his greeting? The Apostle reminds the church, then and now, that faith in Christ is not your decision, nor is it based on your merit, character, ability, handiness, winsomeness, organizational or people skills, who you are related to, or anything else. God does not look into the future and see what a grand person you are and say to the Son and the Spirit, “Aye, now that’s a fine one coming up. Let’s get em’ on board. That one will make the church grow!”
Nope! Nada! Nein! Nyet! All the ways I know to say “no.” In the very first sentence beyond the greeting, the Apostle gives us, from verse 3 through verse 14, one very long sentence in the Greek original that is as Prof. Jeffrey Gibbs has declared, a ‘grammatical monster.” There is “no explicit verb, one comparative clause, three infinitive constructions, seven relative clauses, nine participles, and thirty prepositional phrases.” At the very beginning of his letter to the church that he was with for over two years, he overwhelms the reader and listeners in order to draw attention to God and what He has accomplished for us. God is the subject of all the verbs. The few instances where humans are the active agent, the passive voice is used to indicate that we are actually receiving the action. The end result of Paul’s mile long sentence is the inescapable theological truth that all that we are, or will be, is solely the work of God, who chose us in Christ from before the beginning of time.” Before the LORD ever said, “Let there be light,” He chose you. Before anything was yet created, He chose you. As our Bible translation says it, “he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.”
Simply because he can, he did. The Apostle Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, declares that the LORD’s motivation is love. Out of love he creates. Out of love he predestines us to be Christians. God has already decided that you are going to be baptized. You are going to have an encounter with God making it plain that He calls you His child. When you are baptized, the Holy Spirit seals the deal, and He serves as the guarantee of the inheritance of grace.
From before the creation of the universe, the LORD does not look into the future with rose colored glasses, oblivious to the rebellion that Adam will bring into paradise, and oblivious to the fact that every single one of us is born a sinner, already from the get-go when we are cute and helpless, we are already in need of redemption. As Paul explains, “In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will.” Already, the Son is invoked. Not only as the Son, but as the Christ. The Christ is the Savior who saves us through the shedding of his blood on the cross. Because of Jesus’ merit, we are predestined for adoption as sons.
The word son is used deliberately. In the ancient world, the son is the one who inherits what the Father has worked so hard for. In verse 11, we are told that an inheritance is coming to us. But, we do not want to be just any son, we want to be the first born son because the first born son receives the lion share of the inheritance. Because of Jesus, the Son of God, and his sacrifice for us on the cross, we will receive an inheritance that is as if there are no other sons to share with. Every man, woman, and child will be blessed with the riches of God’s grace that comes through Christ, and it will be the fullness of the inheritance for everyone.
On account of the Son, we will have the same amount of redemption and the same inexhaustible amount of forgiveness. We are promised that the same amount of grace will be lavished upon each of us, and we will dwell with the same depth of hope.
You cannot help but notice that the Apostle repeatedly uses the words “bless and praise” a lot. A blessing is a gift that is conferred upon someone who cannot pay it back. The greater gives to the lesser what the lesser cannot possibly achieve on his own. The lesser receives the gift with gratitude. The only thing that the lesser can possibly offer is praise.
As we are overwhelmed by the onslaught of this opening statement of God’s mysterious grace, we are moved to praise for the LORD’s inexplicable benevolence. Given that we are sinners, and that we regularly will need to return the font and altar to confess our sins and receive God’s forgiveness, shouldn’t God at least hold a grudge or be a bit annoyed or a little bit angry with us? At the least, shouldn’t he reserve judgment and cast a “wait and see” attitude upon us?
The grace of it is that God chooses not to. Through the words of the Apostle Paul and the actions of Jesus, we are greeted with a love that we can barely begin to comprehend. But that is the blessing for us, we do not have to comprehend. We just trust. We simply receive God’s gifts with faith. In faith, we continue to listen because there is more to come.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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