Fr. Gene’s Trinity XVI Sermon

Between weeks 16 and 22 in Trinitytide, there are five readings from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. This epistle was not specifically written to the Ephesian church; the earliest manuscripts don’t have that designation in the introduction. It does not resemble the letters to the Corinthians which were meant to address the problems of a particular congregation. Instead, it was a circular letter for all the churches in Asia (= Asia Minor/modern Turkey). Maybe this letter is the one to “the Laodiceans” mentioned in Paul’s epistle to the church at Colossae.

Instead of specific advice, St. Paul gives these churches a vision of their vocation. The picture he presents shows the Church of Christ at the center of the Cosmos. The house churches to which he was relating this grand panorama each comprised maybe a dozen households in several communities in Asia Minor. Ephesus had been founded over 1000 years earlier and was the largest, consisting of more than 40,000 people.

Paul tells them that God is doing a new thing in them, but one that has been foreshadowed in the Prophets and the Psalms. His plan started, of course, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He saved their many descendants from bondage in Egypt and thereby purchased to Himself a peculiar people. Under the Old Covenant, the Tabernacle and, later, the Temple was the place where Heaven and Earth came together, and atonement was made. The sacrifice of animals released the life-giving blood to drive away Death. God comforted His people this way.

Jesus the Messiah replaces the Temple. Through His sacrifice—by the Blood He sheds—the power of Death is broken. And His Body, the Church, is the new Heaven-and-Earth community. In the lives of His people, Heaven and Earth are brought together.

The Israelites as the People of God were meant to be a city shining on the hill to show the glory of God. The Church is that and more. The Church is a small working model of God’s new creation and its Purpose is that of its Head—namely to cleanse and perfect the natural order so that God’s knowledge and glory fills the entire world (Isaiah 11:9; Hbk 2:14). Have you ever heard that Grace perfects Nature? Well, that is what Jesus is doing and that is what His followers are doing in His Church. The Messiah represents His people. He is our Head. So what is true of Him is true of us. And we are meant to be the Sign to the World (and its Powers) of New Creation. In this letter, He tells the churches of Asia Minor how their collective witness—which is OUR collective witness—advances the Purpose of God: Unity and Holiness.

What unity? Well, in Paul’s day it was the unity between Jews and Gentiles. This is what he tells these churches in Asia Minor:

Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh…That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in His flesh the enmity…for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; (Ephesians 11-19)

That the Gentiles and Jews were worshiping God together, in the same Spirit was, for Paul, a sign that the promises given to the Israelites were being fulfilled and that he was living in the end-times. He was seeing the promises of God coming true. Ethnic and tribal barriers were falling. And this was a witness to the Earthly Powers (and the dark Spiritual Powers that animated them) that their time was up.

I probably don’t have to convince you that there is so much in our conditions, our psychology, and sociology (in the World, from the Flesh, and by the Devil) that make us hard to govern. In our long history as a people Unity has not seemed natural, though it could sometimes be imposed by threats. A sort of unity can be enforced, temporarily, with gulags, and secret police, informers, and guns. But the Unity of the Church is not like that. It is rooted in love and hope and faith.

It is, unfortunately, all too easy to point out the deficiencies of contemporary Christians separations that plague the Church of Jesus Christ. We’ve got linguistic divisions, national divisions, ethnic divisions, bureaucratic divisions. We are not, perhaps: “Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3) as well as we ought. That said, I think if you quizzed the average, ordinary adult Christian, of even modest education, she would acknowledge:

One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. (Ephesians 4:4-5)

I also think if you could quiz the average, ordinary demonic spirit, he would not be happy with the way the world works now compared with how it was 2000 years ago. And the demon would have the vantage of being able to see through time all the positive changes (negative for him) that the Unity of the followers of Jesus have achieved. All that said, though, Christian disharmonies are a genuine mark of shame.

Paul also emphasizes holiness. The letter is written to the hagioi, the set-apart/ the saints/ the holy ones/ the people of God. He tells them that God has chosen and called those in the Messiah, redeemed and marked as His people so that His glory will be revealed in them, NOW. This is the present purpose of the Church.

For by grace are ye saved through Faith; and not of yourselves it is the gift of God; Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10)

We are saved by Grace, so we can do good works! The hagioi are revealing the purpose of God, the knowledge and glory of God, to the World in their good works. We are redeeming the world (and the time) with our actions. Next week I’m going to get more specific about what that looks like in our parish.

I want to mention an error in perception that I think enervates and saps our witness. And it involves what we, the Church, are hoping for. What we’re anticipating as our future.

St. Paul opens the letter (1:3-14) with a long, unbroken (literally unbroken by any hint of punctuation) shout of praise. Paul shows the good things God has done for His people and proclaims His will for their perfection in Christ Jesus. This is shown by His bestowal of the Holy Spirit as an inheritance, as a down-payment, of His promise for us. The Holy Spirit as earnest money for the Promise is a common metaphor of St. Paul and runs through all his letters.

And what is the promise that the gift of the presence of the Holy Spirit is meant to show? (Heaven when we die?)

No. The promise is that we will follow our Savior and that we will be transformed in Resurrection. Having the Spirit in the present is the guarantee that we will be rescued from the evil, corruption, decay, and death that we can still see around us and that we’re working to eliminate by our good works. Judgement follows Resurrection, but Christians are perfected in Resurrection.

Without the Spirit, would get discouraged. We might look around and think we’ve been abandoned by our Ascended King. In reality, His enthronement at the right hand of the Father—the right hand of the Almighty Power of the Universe—means that none of what He promised can fail to occur.

The magnitude of the mopping up operation that remains is considerable. We are engaged in a great labor in which we are opposed by sinister and intelligent spiritual beings who want to break us. (the principalities and powers in heavenly places; Ephesians 3:10.)

Why do they want that? Do they think they can stop God’s plan?

After considering this for a bit, I think they are just hoping for some groovy wars, murders and suicides that they can chalk up on ‘their’ side to feel better about themselves. Their cause is hopeless, but all the demonic legions got at this point is envy, malice, and wishful thinking. And they still have the capacity to delude a lot of people and blunt the Church’s witness to Christ.

Through Unity and Holiness, St. Paul tells us that we are demonstrating to the Powers of the Earth that Be, including the Dark Forces that animate them, that their time is finished. We are recapitulating the Life of our Redeemer, following Jesus through a life of mission and then through the death of these bodies. He was Resurrected. We will be also. And our Resurrection will trigger the renewal of all Creation. St. Paul says more about that in Romans 8 but that’s too much to get into at the end of this sermon. Instead, I’ll finish by summarizing Ephesians.

Jesus has brought us close to Him (atonement) by His sacrifice. We’re unified in His Holy Spirit and we’re called to keep that unity in the bond of peace. The Lord God is filling the world with His Knowledge and Glory by our good works. We are making the prophecies of Isaiah and Habakkuk and the Psalms true right now, and every day. The final transformation perfecting the World will happen when the Father Almighty vindicates His people by Resurrection, following the path first trod by our Lord Jesus.

+ In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.