Ephesians 3:1-13 – Growing up in Christ Week 6
The Mystery of God made known
Introduction
Well, we are officially halfway through our Ephesians series. Week 6 of 12. We’ll be taking a short break next week for our 5th Sunday Creative service and feast, but then we’ll be back to it.
Last week Josh walked us through the last half of chapter 2, where the writer, whom we’re calling Paul, insists that the wall, the boundary that had been put up between Jews and non-jews, the things that marked out one group as God’s people and the other as not God’s people, had been smashed down. Completely dismantled.
That, in Christ, God was making one humanity out of the two.
We had a really good discussion about that idea at our Monday discussion group and we could see how just how relevant it was for us today in the issues we face as a church.
The discussion group is for everyone, we’ve all got experiences, insights and feelings to share. God speaks through all of us.
Which, actually leads quite well into shift in tone we see in todays reading.
When you heard the reading this morning, did it feel a little different from previous weeks? Maybe something you can’t quite put your finger on…
This week, we get more of Paul’s voice. We hear a little more directly from him about him and his situation.
We’ve been hearing about all the big ideas of what God has been doing in the universe, throughout time and Israel’s history,
Then we get what feels like a little digression about Paul’s backstory.
This one of the places where some of the debate about who wrote Ephesians gets into its technical nitty gritty. Was it Paul, or a disciple trying to write in Paul’s style or under the authority of his teaching.
But we’re skirting around that and noticing something else about this.
The personal story of the author reminds us that this resurrection life is something to be lived out. In the same way that the fullness of God was incarnated, made personal in Jesus.
This resurrection way of life is something personal, something to be lived in our skin and bone.
In Paul’s thought, if he is the least of all the saints, then he expects everything he’s saying to apply to all of us. You and me. The Church.
The church which, as we are going to find out, makes the mystery of God known.
Jesus was always Plan A
Paul starts talking about the mystery of Christ, using the word mystery four times here.
This mystery, he says, was something hidden, not made known. Not revealed.
Some other translations use the word ‘secret’.
This mystery, he says, is this making of non jews and jews joint members of a body, a new humanity. That the Gentiles, which includes us, are sharers in the promise because of Jesus.
In our day, secret keeping is often something negative.
Often, leaders, either political or managerial, encourage ‘no surprises’ policies. The earlier we know about something the better, particularly if it has the potential for a bad outcome!
We also don’t have a good relationship with mystery in our world. Mysteries are there to be solved, either with science, hard evidence or reason.
I wonder how we feel about the idea of God having a mystery, kept hidden?
It could kind of leave us vulnerable to someone coming along and saying, “well actually, did you know, I’ve got this special revelation, you’ve got it all wrong.”
But this mystery of God’s isn’t like that.
The mystery of the inclusion of all people into God’s family through Jesus had been hinted at all the way along.
The Old Testament tells the story of God’s plan for the world through the lens of God working with Israel’s story.
From the beginning, God’s purpose was to bless all nations through Israel,
Sometimes, how scriptures expect this is subtle; there is the longing and expectation for a coming King, an anointed one – a messiah or christ.
The prophets dreamed of a new creation, a new covenant, and God dwelling with God’s people, and creation flourishing.
Jesus inaugurates this hope in His life, death, and resurrection.
When the New Testament writers are trying to make sense of who Jesus is and the significance of what he has done, they do so by appealing to the Old Testament.
They trace the theme of the story of Old Testament and see that this Jesus story is a continuation of the story, the climax of the story.
There is continuity between the Old and the New Testaments. In fact, the New only makes sense with the Old held alongside it.
It was a mystery, but when it’s unveiled, we see that it is not an about-face, not a change of direction or striking out on a different path.
It’s not that God had a plan in the Old Testament that didn’t work out, so Jesus was the backup.
Rather, Jesus and what he would do were the plan all along.
This finds its fulfilment in Jesus, which brings all nations, all people into close relationship with God.
The OT is not background or optional — It’s not just back story. It is the soil in the garden in which the Good News of Jesus is rooted and springs from.
As every gardener knows, the soil in the garden is just as important as what’s growing in it.
As the gulf between our time and context and the Old Testament’s time and context gets longer and wider, it can seem stranger and more confusing.
But for us, there can be no unhitching of the Old Testament. Because it’s an essential part of the story of this mystery of God being made known in Jesus.
There was no plan B., Jesus was always plan A
Church as the display window of God’s wisdom
Paul goes on to say that God’s intent was to make this mystery plan to everyone, that through the Church, this one new humanity: the rich variety of God’s wisdom is made known to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places.
As he did in chapter 2, Paul again alludes to the cosmic powers, this time to say that the church is a reminder to the evil powers that their power has been broken. That all things are coming under the reign of Christ.
That through ordinary followers of Jesus, like you and me, gathered in churches, in homes, in cafes, even in pigeon clubs, like in Prestons, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the other spiritual beings.
That sounds pretty lofty doesn’t it?
The church is like the display cabinet for what God is doing, we’re the window display for God’s wisdom, not just to those around us we can see, but also to mysterious things we cannot perceive.
I wonder if you could somehow walk along the street and look at the window display of God’s wisdom, what we’d see. I don’t think we’d be looking at freshly cleaned window panes, would we? I think glass would be dusty, dirty, maybe even cracked. Perhaps even a pane or two missing.
I’m not talking here about ourselves as individuals necessarily, we know our brokenness, in need of God’s remaking.
But this window pane, this one new humanity, often doesn’t feel very ‘onelike’, does it?
We know this thing we call church is pretty ordinary; it’s flawed. We scrap amongst ourselves, we give each other labels, sometimes we weaponise those labels, and it becomes a form of name-calling.
We believe, think and do a lot of things differently, sometimes VERY differently from others.
We often don’t get along. There are times when we all try and get along, but there’s always someone, it seems doesn’t want to play the game. Sometimes it’s them, sometimes its us, sometimes its me.
Eugene Peterson writes that the “Church as the body of Christ is not obvious”.
The Church as the body of Christ is not obvious… But neither is Jesus as the Saviour of the world obvious.
And yet, Paul wants us to know that He is. God’s wisdom, this wall-demolishing, boundary-breaking good news is known through the church.
Not what the Church says, not necessarily even by what the church does. But by what it is.
A community in which people of every age, race, colour, social and cultural background come together in worship of the Holy God.
It’s the church’s existence, its presence that displays God’s multifaceted wisdom.
Suffering & Glory
Paul bookends this reading by talking about his suffering as a prisoner for the sake of this mystery made known.
For Paul, this resurrection life of Jesus, this belonging to the multifaceted community of God, isn’t just an add-on.
It’s not an accessory. It’s not a seat upgrade or an upsize meal combo.
Our consumer culture is so pervasive, we often don’t even know its influence, like we forget the air is all around us.
But the church is not something we approach with our consumer glasses on, what its got, how many features does it have, what’s it do, what do I get out of it.
Paul would insist, this mystery of God, involves our total lives. There is not one sphere of our it doesn’t touch. There is no, if you will, secular life and spiritual life, it is a way of being in the world. After all, we are talking about a community of people, growing up in Christ.
As a church, in our corner of creation where God has placed us, we are blessed with good relationships with those in our community. We’ve found common ground with others and work together through initiatives like the Community Centre and our relationships with Tuhia Burnside Primary, to help our communities flourish.
We can forget that God’s people in many other places don’t enjoy such luxuries.
And we shouldn’t let our relative comfort cause us to shy away from being God’s window display when we do encounter injustice.
Last week, you may have seen comments from a senior politician in our government that Churches should stay out of the discussions on referendums on Māori wards, soon to take place in 42 local authorities around the country.
“The Church should stay in its lane” and “get back to God,” they said.
Now, regardless of what you think of them, their politics, or this particular issue, or what the best solution is, there may be a range of responses on all of that.
I believe Paul would say to them: Excuse me, but there are no lanes here, and God is not over there hiding away in a cupboard with the communion silverware.
God is here. God is very much concerned with this issue and all issues.
Because God is concerned with all of who we are, and with who we are in community with each other, with our world and with God.
For all those who wish to sail their own ship and remake the world in their image, who wish to set up walls and only look out for their tribe, the Church is an unwelcome presence.
It’s existence reminds us that we cannot compartmentalise our lives. Life in community with God and others takes all of ourselves.
To be sure, at many points in church history we’ve invited scorn on ourselves through poor choices and actions, through failing to live out the resurrection life of Christ, ourselves contributing to evil and death.
But Paul can say his suffering is the glory of the Ephesians, because it indicates his way of life in this multifaceted God-Filled community, what it represents, challenges and confronts the power of evil in the human heart and at work in the world.
We don’t want to be churches or Christians that go around trying to attract persecution as some misplaced badge of honour.
But we should expect our God-Filled presence, illuminating injustice, to elicit a reaction from those who set themselves against God’s healing and restoring plans.
Closing
In Jesus, the covers have been pulled back, and the mystery that was planned and hinted at all along has been revealed.
It was always God’s plan to bring the promises to fulfilment in Jesus, that the presence of this church, this new humanity, is a pledge of the coming healing of all division and disruption, that God is bringing about, that the cosmos will be restored to harmony in Jesus.
Amen.