Lectionary Readings
The Word became flesh and lived among us: O come, let us adore him. Alleluia.
My
name is not Father Tom Carter. Tom is doing fine, but he had to be admitted to
the hospital as a precaution after some chest discomfort on Friday evening. So
our prayers with him and Pati for his full and speedy recovery.
You all have known me long enough to know that I have an organized routine for, well, everything, but certainly for sermon preparation. And Saturday afternoon and evening sermon writing is never a part of that routine. So, when I took a look at these Scriptural texts yesterday, I was looking for something that would lead to a sermon on a short timeline. As the saying goes, “God is good all the time and all the time God is good.” If you’re going to accuse my preaching of sounding like a broken record, you’re going to use as evidence either me talking about love as the grain of the universe, the Eucharist, or the grace of God. Well, grace is on full display in today’s passage from Ephesians and it’s a track worth listening to over and over again.
This
opening section of Ephesians is a blessing that St. Paul writes, modeling it on
the tradition of Jewish blessings as a way of praising God. It’s an
introduction that is full of excitement and breathless in praise. The lectionary
this morning cut off part of the passage and the translators, in the name of a
more grammatical rendering, end up toning down the exuberance of St. Paul. Verses
3-14 are actually all one sentence in the Greek of the New Testament – full of
interconnected clauses that are trying to capture the fullness and the grandeur
of the grace of God.
Here
are those 12 verses as translated by Eugene Peterson in The Message
translation: How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He’s the Father of
our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him.
Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on
us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long
ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure
he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his
lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son. Because of the sacrifice of
the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free
people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And
not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided
for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such
delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in
which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in
deepest heaven, everything on planet earth. It’s in Christ that we find out who
we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got
our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part
of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone. It’s in
Christ that you, once you heard the truth and believed it (this Message of your
salvation), found yourselves home free—signed, sealed, and delivered by the
Holy Spirit. This signet from God is the first installment on what’s coming, a
reminder that we’ll get everything God has planned for us, a praising and
glorious life.
It’s
a fitting passage to read in Christmastide because it describes the glorious
gift that we have been given in the birth of Jesus Christ. The sentence begins
by extolling God who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. St.
Jerome has commented on this verse, “Now God has blessed us not with this or
that blessing but with every blessing.” In other words, God doesn’t hold back. God
is a God of blessing – this is what God does, bestow gifts.
Of
course, a blessing doesn’t mean that we get whatever want. Blessings are not
having nice things, those are luxuries, or even indulgences, not blessings. Now,
this isn’t to say that having nice things is bad, but God does not operate like
Santa Claus – doling out gifts to deserving people. God’s mind is not
influenced by anything other than the love of Jesus. Things are not blessings.
No, blessings are faith, hope, and love. And this is what St. Paul is after
when he clarifies that the blessings of God are “in the heavenly places.”
One
way of viewing this is that these blessings are inaccessible to us now. But
that wouldn’t be the right way to understand these blessings being spiritual or
in the heavenly places. Instead of those qualifiers making these blessings
off-limits, they are actually made secure. Things, whether they be car, a nice
wardrobe, a collection of some sort – these can all be lost. They are not
secure. They are subject to accidents, to being lost, or devaluation. What God
blesses us with though, blessings like grace, mercy, and peace, these things
cannot be lost. They can’t become worthless. They cannot go missing. They are
held secure by the very God who created all things.
And
because Jesus Christ is God incarnate, these blessings are not locked away in
the heavenly places, they now are available on earth as it is in heaven because
God has brought them to us in Jesus. No, we may not have the fullness of truth,
or joy, or peace at every moment of our lives, but these blessings are still
ours even in the midst of life. These blessings come in the Sacraments, in acts
of generosity, in acts of love, in moments of forgiveness, in those moments
when we are able to trust that all shall be well. These sorts of blessings are
the ones that make life worth living, the sort of things that we all know that
we yearn for – friendship, laughter, joy, meaning, purpose – and God has bestowed
these blessings upon us lavishly.
These
blessings are ours not because we’ve asked for them or earned them, but because
God “has chosen us before the foundation of the world.” Even the oldest members
of this parish are nowhere near as old as the foundation of the world. Yet even
before the oceans were filled, we were chosen to be holy and blameless before
God in love. And what God chooses is what is. Yes, on Christmas we remember and
celebrate that God became Incarnate, which happened at a historical moment. But
the purpose and significance of the Incarnation are eternal. It has always been
true that God loved, always true that unto us a child is born, always true that
unto us a Son is given. This is the message of grace: before the foundation of
the world, God chose you in love.
And
having chosen us, St. Paul further notes that we were destined for adoption.
Just as it is today, adoption in the time of the Roman Empire was transforming.
To be adopted in St. Paul’s time mean that all ties to the biological father
were severed, all the control that the old family had was relinquished. What is
in our past need not dictate our future. The mistakes that we made do not determine
what kind of person we will be. Our sins do not get the final word of judgment
against us. Because once the former life is severed, the child then comes under
the full control, protection, provision, and inheritance of the adoptive father.
God’s
gracious and eternal love is for us all. And, yes, I mean that collectively,
God loves all of us – no matter how badly we mess up the world. But I also mean
it individually: God has chosen and adopted you. No matter what, you are not alone,
you are not disconnected from someone who loves you, you are not forgotten, you
are not overlooked, you are not meaningless, you are not helpless. You are a
child of God, and nothing can take that away – not your sins, not your beliefs,
not your doubts, not even death can rob you of God’s love for you.
One
of the great preachers in the Episcopal Church is the Reverend Fleming Rutledge,
who has said that “American Christians, for the most part, do not think
theologically. To think theologically means to think from God’s point of view.
We think sociologically, politically, economically, psychologically,
experientially, nationalistically, spirituality, even religiously, but not
theologically,” she says. Well, this grand sentence from St. Paul helps us to
think theologically, to see things from God’s perspective. And from God’s perspective,
we are chosen and we are loved.
The grandeur of
God’s love for us is more than we ask for or imagine, more than we can fathom. St.
Paul says that we are adopted through Jesus Christ according to the good
pleasure of the Father’s will “to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely
bestows on us in the Beloved.” This chosenness is for praise and glory. At the
end of Morning and Evening Prayer each day, we pray what is called “The General
Thanksgiving,” which includes, echoing this passage from Ephesians, the
following line: “We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the
blessings of this life; but above all for your inestimable love in the
redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ for the means of grace, and
for the hope of glory.”
For the means of
grace and the hope of glory. God’s graciousness towards us is evidence that God
is a God of grace. And so the means of grace show up throughout our lives. God’s
grace comes through Scripture, Sacraments, and Beloved Community. Grace
counters the lies that we tell ourselves and live by – the lies that we’re
worthless, that we’re not as good as that other person, that we would be better
if we just made and kept our resolutions in this new year. But just imagine
what our lives would be like if we trusted that we are chosen and loved.
Imagine what our world could look like if we didn’t compete with one another,
but simply enjoyed our salvation that does not need to be earned, protected, or
fought over. It would be the abundant life that God intends for us. This is the
means of grace that God intends for us and is glorified by – Creatures being
what they were created to be. As our Collect this morning put it – God wonderfully
created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature.
And
this inheritance that we received as the chosen and adopted children is for the
hope of glory. To be clear, it is not our glory that is being promoted, but the
glory of God. All that God has done for us, it all points to the glory of God who
of grace and love, created all that is, was born among us as the child of the
lowly Mary, who taught us his way of love, who died on the Cross, who rose from
the grave, who ascended to the throne of God, who gifted us with his very Spirit
that we might continue his works of love and mercy – all of this is for the hope
of glory when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the
Lord as the waters cover the sea, the hope of glory when all shall be well. You
and I can rest in this hope because of the glorious things that God has done
and continues to do.
As
we know from that seminal Christmas text that we heard last Sunday, John 1, “And
the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory
as of a father’s only son… From his fullness we have all received, grace upon
grace.” My brothers and sisters, I have no idea what 2021 will be like; if it
will be better than last year or worse. But I promise you that because of the
God who has blessed us in every way through Jesus Christ, who has adopted us as
his children for the means of grace and for the hope of glory, that 2021 will
be a year full of grace upon grace. I pray that you will know that grace in
your hearts and minds and cherish this gift of Christmas forever. Amen.
