Elect. Chosen. Saved.
To me, these sound like “someone else’s words”
to describe those of us who have chosen to follow Jesus Christ. These three words are from another generation,
when Christians felt it was their duty to save the heathens from the
devastating power of ignorance. They are
words from a whole different worldview, a world which is separated into the
safely saved, and the inevitably doomed.
To any number of people outside the Church – or
even more so, people who once were part of a Church but no longer choose to
declare any religious affiliation – these three words underline why they want
nothing to do with Christianity. Elect.
Chosen. Saved: these are words that feed
into a societal caricature of Christians as privileged, smug, judgmental, out
of touch. If we’re lucky, people who
have no direct experience of Church will have heard that Christians have a good
sense of community, and tend to be engaged in good works for the
underprivileged; but more frequently, those with no personal Church experience
will quite happily point to these 3 words as indicators of Christian
cluelessness.
It was with no small amount of trepidation that
I read today’s lesson from Ephesians chapter One. Partly because it is such a dense piece of
writing, a Readers Digest condensed version of the remainder of the book,
crammed into twelve complex verses… but mostly because of its focus on such
themes as election and its close cousin, predestination. As someone who believes in a loving God and
the power of human choice, the notion that some people have been pre-selected
for salvation and others basically left to their own devices does not ring
true. In the words of Markus Barth, (Barth, 105) “if no wise human father would
treat his children according to a schedule fixed before their birth, how much
less would the [heavenly] Father?”
Rather than going down a dreary road about the difficulty
of embracing a traditional version of this doctrine, and then revealing the
Good News at the end of the Sermon, I’m going to leap right out of the rut
before I get stuck in it, and share the punch line right now! The Good News of
Ephesians chapter one is that God chooses to use Love beyond comprehension to
bring us near, closer than we could possibly come by our own efforts.
Now, even as Good News goes, that’s pretty good
news, isn’t it? God chooses to use
Love beyond comprehension to bring us near, closer than we could possibly come by
our own efforts. It’s a HUGE love,
the love that calls the universe into being, the love that creates the beauty
of nature and the beauty of human compassion; and that energetic, boundless
love saves us from being tripped up by our own halting efforts to live a life
that is worthy.
In order to underline the joy of this passage,
I’d like to re-read it for you from Eugene Peterson’s lively Bible version, The
Message. This translation does a
terrific job of conveying what the original Greek had in mind: that any
pre-planning done by God, was in order to make sure that we would live a life
of complete and unencumbered love: [The Message, p.402]
I love some of those phrases: God settling on
us as the focus of his love; God’s pleasure at bringing us into the family; the
abundance of our freedom in Christ; the glorious living that God is working out
in everyone and everything; and this sentence, which should really be turned
into a wall poster or a bumper-sticker: “it’s in Christ that we find out who we
are and what we are living for.” You
see, what Eugene Peterson grasped, is what is already there in scripture:
election is a big, welcoming, expansive YES from God, a YES specifically
expressed in and through Christ. Far
from being God’s version of picking only the best and brightest for success,
and discarding those who are less impressive, everything that God has done in Christ Jesus
is designed to make life bigger and brighter on the big stage. God has taken care of all the details, all we
need to do is have enough trust to step toward it. Hallelujah!
A Presbyterian seminary professor (at Columbia Seminary in Georgia)
named George W. Stroup offers us some key insights on election as found in this
passage.
First, election is “a statement about the wonder of God’s grace in Jesus
Christ…It is above all else an affirmation that the God Christians know in
Jesus Christ is gracious beyond the wildest reaches of their imaginations.”
Although the imbalance is less now than it used to be, over the years my
faith has been very practical-minded,
focusing more on the human “love your neighbour as yourself” side of Christ’s
great commandment, more so than the divine “love God with all your heart, soul,
mind and strength” aspect. But that emphasis
on being a busy Christian seldom brings me closer to a sense of awe and wonder
at how freeing it is to be embraced by God’s grace. Imagine yourself going about your daily
business, with your eyes focused on the task at hand or the next step on the
sidewalk. Now imagine yourself stopping,
and looking up in any direction, and seeing the Mountains again as if for the
first time. That’s what this scripture gives
us a chance to do: look beyond the deeds of Christian living, and see again the
wonders of Christ, the source of forgiveness and abundance and life.
Second, election is about God’s sovereign will, not our actions—in
verses 5, 9, and 11 it says that “God’s choosing or election is rooted in the
good pleasure and mystery of God’s counsel and will.”
At first that may sound pretty arbitrary, but think of the freedom that
comes with this. I don’t know about you,
but my whole life I have thought “if only I were a bit better person”, “if only
I were better prepared”, “if only I could stop doing those things that always
make me stumble,” then I will be worthy to present myself to God. To this,
Ephesians says Pfffft! The first chapter
of Ephesians challenges me to move away from my old life mantra, “be good and
get rewarded” to God’s own life-statement: “you are already loved beyond measure.” I’m not being marked on how well I’ve done in
order to earn a place in heaven, I’m invited to embrace the love that has
already been poured out for me.
Is there the possibility that someone will under-estimate the importance
of accepting God’s gracious gift, and will keep living a life separate from
God? Yes, there is always that
possibility. God can’t make us accept
the gift, but we can be confident that the gift has been given and is
COMPLETELY sufficient in and of itself.
Third, election “reminds Christians that they are adopted children of
God;” and this adoption is a gift, not a right. This isn’t the time or place to enter into a
discussion of adoption, particularly since it is such a different phenomenon in
our 21st century northern
context, compared with 20 centuries ago in the lands around the Mediterranean,
but I do want to share a quick story.
Many years ago, a friend of mine adopted a girl who was about 6 years
old. That’s a hard age to find adoptive families, and this girl had been in a
number of foster homes and perhaps even a failed adoption. Her first day at my friend’s house, the girl
was running around the yard, shouting and throwing things and kicking the
plants, just raising an absolute stink.
My friend went out on the back step, got the girl to settle down long
enough to listen, then said her piece: “If you’re trying to get sent away, it’s
not going to work. You are my daughter and I love you. Nothing is going to change that.“ And with that, the hell-raising in the back
yard turned to spirited, joyous play. There
is something very powerful about that combination of parental love, and
specific choice, which is found in the reading from Ephesians as well: we have been brought into God’s family,
permanently, through God’s intentional outreach to us.
And finally, we must be mindful that God’s election “does not make
Christians ‘special’ in relation to other people, but calls them to specific
tasks of serving God and neighbor.”
This is so very important. Conservative Christian author Ed Gungor
offers this perspective: “Maybe truth
would be more applauded if those who know it would be nicer about it… [not
attempting] to place self above others, to appear better than others. Historically , Christians have been notorious
for pushing Christ down people’s throats in antagonistic, hostile, and even
violent ways that are contrary to the love of Christ. How we assumed we could communicate the love
of Jesus in non-loving ways is beyond anyone’s ability to explain. Yet, Christ’s church is guilty as charged.”
(Gungor, 86).
There’s not much I can add to this. Our job as a congregation is to celebrate
God’s goodness and express Christ’s own welcome to those around us, without
judgement and without reserve. If any
pridefulness sneaks into our practice, it needs to go. If we make even one person feel unwelcome or
unimportant, we need to be re-set by Christ so that we can get it right the
next time.
I am so very tempted to launch into other
aspects of this topic – like, “what about other faiths”, or, “how specific is
God’s plan for my life” - but sometimes
less is more, and I do have a whole
bunch of Sundays with you. So after all
is said and done, what do I hope you will take away from this message? It’s the
“Good News” part from page one: God chooses to use Love beyond comprehension
to bring us near, closer than we could possibly come by our own efforts. Our efforts to be good, our efforts to do
better, our hopes to have a fresh start, have already been looked after by an
attentive God whose embrace is like the best Mom-hug ever. We are called, we are precious, we are loved. Thanks be to God!!!
Works cited:
Barth, Markus.
Ephesians 1-3 (Anchor Bible, v.34)
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974.
Gungor, Ed. What bothers me most about Christianity. NYC: Simon and Schuster, 2009.
Peterson, Eugene. The Message. Colorado Springs:
Navpress, 1993.
Stroup, George W., “Theological Perspective: Ephesians 1:3-14,” in David
L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting
on the Word, Year B, Vol. 3, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009),
230-234. Cited by Elizabeth Smith in http://jointhefeast.blogspot.ca/2009/06/july-12-2009-ephesians-13-14-elizabeth.html
© 2012 Rev Greg Wooley, Ralph Connor Memorial United
Church, Canmore AB
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