In the name of the Holy ☩ Trinity. Amen.
Beginning today, the lectionary gives us seven weeks in a row in which we’ll read from Ephesians. Though we don’t pay as much attention to the Epistles of the New Testament as we might, they are wonderful letters that still contain much truth, wisdom, instruction, and inspiration for us today.
The key to reading the Epistles is to approach them as occasional writings – that is, they were written in a specific context. I’ve often thought that we read both the Gospels and Epistles backwards. The Gospels really are theological treatises about the nature of God in Christ, but we often read them as narratives that are bound to a historical setting. In doing so, we often miss the larger purpose of the Gospel. And on the other hand, we read the Epistles as theological documents, when in reality they are highly contextual letters written for a very specific purpose. And in treating the letters of the New Testament as theoretical advice, we also overlook their power.
So as we prepare to enter into hearing from Ephesians for seven Sundays, I’d like to spend the rest of this sermon considering how it is that St. Paul might introduce this letter to us, reminding us that there is a story behind this letter.
Here I, St. Paul, am, in Rome in the year 62, sitting in a dark and damp prison cell. I often sit here, thinking of my years in Ephesus and of the beloved in Christ there. It’s a city that I remember fondly, as much good work was done there in the name of Jesus Christ. Due to it being a coastal city with a population of nearly 150,000, making it one of the largest cities in what you might call “Turkey,” I was resolved to go there and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Though, I was not the first evangelist to visit them and teach them about our Lord, I still hold them dear in my heart. They were so unlike many other congregations that I’ve known. The members were not mostly wealthy aristocrats, but rather the common person. These Ephesian believers were tradesmen, slaves, and their number included many women. The vast majority of them were Gentiles, that is, they were not Jews. So we did have some conflicts that arose between us and the synagogue. Though I began my ministry of preaching there, I soon had to move to a public lecture hall. Gentiles thought they were better than Jews since they were not obliged to the Laws of Moses and the Jewish thought themselves holier than those with pagan roots. This rift between Jewish followers of Jesus and those who previously were pagan is their most significant obstacle and I do pray that my letter to them leads to their unity in Christ.
One of the things that struck me about being with the Ephesians was when I arrived, I asked them in the synagogue if they had been baptized in the Holy Spirit. And they hadn’t even heard of the Holy Spirit yet! Some evangelist that had gone on ahead of me! They had been baptized into the baptism of John the Baptist. And though John was a wonderful prophet, he is not our Lord. So we remedied this by baptizing them all into the name of Jesus and the Holy Spirit fell on them all. There is one Lord, one faith, one Baptism – this must serve as the foundation for all churches, but especially for the one in Ephesus.
When I first arrived in Ephesus in the year 52, I remember seeing that stunning Temple of Artemis. The grand columns and white marble were certainly a captivating sight. It’s no wonder that so many pilgrims often flocked to Ephesus to see this great wonder of the world.
Of course, I paid no respect to the goddess Artemis, or Diana, as the Romans call her. They claim that she is the goddess of the moon, archery, hunting, and forests. But we know that it is God who is sovereign over all things. But for the Ephesians, this grand temple was an important site in their city. Not only did the cult of Artemis shape the way they viewed the world, the Temple was also central to the economy of the city. Pilgrims came from all over the region to visit this place. This meant the markets and inns were always bustling with out of town guests. They had come to this city to visit the Temple, and they brought with them their money.
When I began preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ and of his lordship over all of Creation, I was seen as a threat to not only the religion of Ephesus, but perhaps more so as a threat to the Ephesian economy. This is what led to Demetrius, the silversmith, to lead the charge against me. He met with other artisans of the city who profited from making little trinkets of Artemis and such to sell at the Temple. Since my preaching there was successful, people were starting to worship only the one and living God and they weren’t buying so many souvenirs. By July of 54 they had enough of me and imprisoned me. When I was released, I again visited the Corinthians, but did return to Ephesus for one last visit.
If the first issue facing the Ephesians was the internal one of unity and fighting over who is superior, the Jewish or Gentile followers of Jesus, then the second issue was an external one of power. This was at the core of my struggle with Demetrius and others like him. In Ephesus, due to the cult of Artemis, they had all sorts of philosophies that were contrary to the Gospel. Jesus Christ is not one lord among many, he is the Lord of Lords. There is no power outside of the grace of God to save us. My preaching of this was disruptive in Ephesus, as it has been nearly everywhere. I suppose that I shouldn’t always be surprised to find myself in prison so often, as the Gospel of Jesus Christ challenges and subverts the very order of human empires, economies, and personal preferences.
Other citizens of Ephesus had a gnostic belief system in which they thought salvation is about having special knowledge. They have a dualistic approach to everything, but our faith proclaims that there are not two sides that have power, but rather the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is the foundation of all things and no darkness can stand against his light. Other than preaching unity, this has been my second goal in writing to the Ephesians, to remind them that since they are now, by the grace of God, in Christ, they are a new people who are caught up in God’s story of salvation.
As I began to write this letter to Ephesians, this is the point that I was desiring to make – that we are brought into the story of God by Christ Jesus. This not only unites us one to another, but also orients our lives around the only truth and power worth living by. When you consider these opening words of my letter, I hope that you hear, as the Ephesians did, the abundance of God’s grace that I desire them to know. Blessings overflow from God, and this is what I sought to convey.
I’ll confess that sometimes my pen moves faster than my mind – but I cannot help the exuberance with which I write when it comes to telling people about God’s goodness and love towards them. How grand it is that God brings us into the story of redemption through the blood of Christ, forgiving us our sins, that we might know the abundance of God’s intended glory for us!
Whether it is the Ephesians or, if some other people happen to pick up this letter years later, I want all people to know of the glorious inheritance that we have been given. Now, I realize that we often tend to think of inheritances in terms of possessions or wealth, but in Christ we are given so much more than that – we are given a story. Sometimes we think that we have no story but the story that we have chosen for ourselves. We delude ourselves by calling this “freedom.” We think we can determine the meaning and course of our own lives. But this is preposterous. We control so little of our lives, we do not determine the story of our lives.
Many people wander aimlessly looking for a story. They might live with the story of Artemis, or Caesar, or wealth, or popularity as what motivates them. But in the hour of their deaths, what good are those stories? When we are weak, those stories offer no salvation to us. Rather, God’s gracious love is seen in that God adopts us into the divine story. This is why when I opened my letter to the Ephesians I use only verbs with God as the subject and why all of the verbs are in the past tense. It is not that we have to do anything to receive this gracious inheritance, but God has already given it to us. Our destiny is linked to the destiny of the Almighty. How blessedly grand this is! So you can see why I write so effusively about this – it changes everything about our lives. This is a treasure beyond value that we receive in our Baptism, that we are inheritors of God’s gracious story.
I wrote to the Ephesians from this prison cell in Rome because I want to remind them of their inheritance. I want them to know and discover this story. Sometimes, we have to do a lot of excavation in our lives to find this story of our foundation. Sometimes we build other things on top of our Baptismal foundation and we forget what is under there. So we have to remove things like our devotion to Artemis, or wealth, or prestige, or power to find our part in God’s story of redemption and new creation.
I, St. Paul, pray that this great gift of being given a story when we had no story is a story that unites us to each other, that gives true direction to our lives, and gives us hope in trusting that all shall be redeemed by the story of God’s love. This is what I mean when I say that we are “in Christ.” It means that are a part of God’s story of salvation, that our lives are meant to revolve around the transforming and redeeming love of God. So I urge you, brothers and sisters, as you read my letter to the Ephesians, that my words might remind you that are you are always “in Christ.” Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has redeemed us in Christ by adopting us into the story of grace.
