In an essay in the New
York Times, (3/31/1997), Marty Kaplan, a screenwriter commented, "The
boomers wrestling with their interfaith marriages, children's questions
about the Creator, friends cancers, their own mortality—where
are the troubled wise-acres turning now? Too stable to be seduced
by cults, too secular to be born again, too pained to ignore our
unease; we have become a generation of seekers, searching for something
transcendent to fill the hole where God was."
It isn't just the boomer generation that today is seeking to
find meaning beyond itself. Many people of various ages are engaged
in this quest. Some have landed in fundamentalism while others
have settled for secularism. Many in the middle are dropping
out of church but not out of their quest for spiritual experience
and meaning. Their excuse or reason is the Church is not relevant
to their lives but rather is caught in battles most of them don't
see as important to them. Perhaps their sentiments are described
in this rather terse quote from Mohandis Gandhi as used by Brennan
Manning on pg. 100 of his book, The Wisdom
of Tenderness. Gandhi
states, "We like your Christ but not your Christians,
because they are so unlike your Christ."
When one becomes a disciple of Jesus, the idea is to learn
from the master teacher so that the student reflects the image
of the teacher. To put it quiet directly, we are to be like Jesus
in our thinking, our speaking and our doing. A complaint often
heard today from inside and outside the Church is that it is
often very difficult to distinguish Christians from non-Christians.
One must ask if we are ashamed of being Christ's followers or
if it is the case that we have either never learned how to be
one or we have forgotten how to be one?
The apostle Paul struggled with this problem in the early Christian
church. Many of the new Christians had strong Jewish roots and
were used to a practice of following the Law and making sacrifices.
Many others had come from a variety of pagan backgrounds which
practiced a wide spectrum of religious practices.
Paul wanted Christians to know God loved them, that God had
forgiven their sins and that they were called to a life of loving
God and loving and helping others. Paul wanted Christians to
understand and accept the role of freely choosing to be servants.
Paul, or others using his name, wrote letters to many of the
new congregations. Today we read from the beginning of the letter
to the Ephesians. It has close parallels to what is written in
the second chapter of Colossians. Today's Gospel text in the
original language is one sentence. Interpreters and translators
have rendered it into 12 numbered verses to help our understanding
but it is still difficult. You may want to turn to pg. 192 in
the N.T. and follow as I try to unravel the message.
In verse 3, we are told God has come close to us in a special
way as a loving parent relates to his or her beloved child. As
God has loved Jesus, God now also loves us in the same manner.
How do children normally respond to being loved very well? That's
how we are to respond to God—loving God and others as God loves
us.
In verses 4 and 5, we are told God's love for us is more powerful
than our disobedience and God's love will triumph. We have been
created to be holy and blameless before God in love and it is
God's pleasure to call us God's own. How does it feel to belong
to a family where you are accepted, affirmed, cherished and loved?
Don't we humans long for these things? Ought not we to offer
these things to others who also want them? The way you can tell
who real Christians are is by how well we love one another. Are
we merely passing acquaintances or is there depth to our relationships?
In
verse 6, Paul tells us those who know they are truly saved by
God respond to it by seeing life as a dance and not a duty. One
of the primary characteristics of Christians is a deep sense
of joy even and especially in the face of all that is wrong in
the world. It is not a "Pollyannaish" attitude. Rather
it is belief in a positive final outcome.
Verse 7 is the key to the passage and to history as a whole.
The cross of Jesus is the absolute central point of Christianity.
What God accomplished in Jesus makes all the difference for the
world and our individual lives. Our life as Christians including
all of our worship is an indication of how we understand and
respond to what is meant by this key event. Everything we do
in the Church depends upon our understanding of the implications
of this event. What does the cross of Christ mean for you? Does
your living reflect the degree of importance this event has for
your life?
Verse 8 continues the idea that God's forgiving us is like
having a costly gift bestowed upon us with nothing being spared
or held back from us. In other words, God has given us everything
God has to give. If we follow the example of Jesus who gave His
life for us we need to accept that genuine Christian living involves
giving. This giving is not relegated to a percentage or formula
other than we are freely to return to God and others what God
has freely in love given to us. What God has given us is life
that lasts forever. How does our giving measure up to what God
has done and continues to do?
What we fail to experience when we fall behind in our loving,
forgiving and giving to others is the fullness of life God desires
for us within God's Kingdom. One can only know this after one
lives this way and discovers firsthand all its meanings and implications.
It is a radical lifestyle compared to the lifestyle of the world.
The problem and temptation is that the world's lifestyle seems
so good that we cannot imagine something better. One thing to
think about, however, is why so many people living a rich worldly
lifestyle seem so unfulfilled and dissatisfied. Paul asks us
if our present lifestyle is really all there is for us to experience.
He had had a very rich worldly life before he met Jesus. Afterwards,
he referred to his former life as nothing but garbage.
In verses 9 and 10, we are reminded that God's eternal plan
has been revealed but not completed. It is a plan we can enter
at this very moment but it requires faith, a total shift in thinking
and doing and a willingness to not be like the rest of the world.
It is so radical that we dismiss it as ludicrous or impossible.
Finally, in verses 11-14, we are once again informed that the
life God has given us in Christ is meant to be celebrated. Jesus
is truly the Lord of the dance and according to Emphasis magazine
(July/August 2004, p. 24) the Holy Spirit of God is the band
leader who orchestrates the wonderful and powerful music of life.
We need to ask ourselves how well we are dancing. We are not
turning our backs on the need and pain of the world or of our
lives. We are simply showing our belief that God's love for us
ultimately means we are victorious.
This sounds exaggerated and too good to be true. It is the
stuff people who look through rose-colored glasses say. I would
like to close with this story from the July 2006 issue of Homiletics magazine, p. 30.
Ray Stedman, pastor of Peninsula Bible Church, California,
tells about an elderly Native American who became rich because
oil was found on his property. He put all of his wealth in
a bank. Every so often he would come to the bank and tell the
bank president, "My grass is all gone. My sheep are all sick
and my wells are all dry." The banker would take the old
gentleman to the vault; bring out several bags of silver dollars
and say, "These are all
yours." The man would look at his blessings and count them.
Then he would come out and say, "My grass is green, the
sheep are well and the wells are full.
In Ephesians 1:3-14, Paul is simply telling us to look at our
blessings and to be encouraged by God's great love for us. Then
we are invited to live each day knowing our grass is green, our
sheep are well and our wells of living water are overflowing.
Maybe we need to spend more time in the vault where we can
see God's riches stored for us. |
