Ephesians 1:15-23 Growing up in Christ #3
We come to week three of Ephesians, our last in chapter one. We’re working through the letter over a total of 12 weeks, so after today, we’re a quarter of the way through.
By the way, if you want to read through the whole letter in advance, you’re not going to spoil the series. Reading through the whole book in one sitting can be fruitful if you have the time. Surprisingly, it’s only around 3000 words. So there you go.
So far, we’ve discovered this letter is growing up in Christ, living out the Resurrection life. We’re in the first half of the letter, where the Author, whom we’re calling Paul, explores the story of the Good News, how all history came to its climax in Jesus, and his creation of a multiethnic community of followers.
Paul had sketched out our identity as children chosen by God, that we are blessed with receiving the gift of God’s ever-presence. A presence that we do nothing for, but simply receive and come home to.
Last week was a prayer blessing God for God’s work. This week, Paul is still praying, but turns his prayer thoughts to his audience, to the people in Ephesus, and by extension, to us, who, two thousand years later, are reading their mail!
His prayer of adoration or blessing God turns to his prayer for others, a movement we still reflect today in our liturgies.
In his prayer today, we find out the truth of God’s extraordinary church. A community of powerful, praying saints.
Growing up is learning to pray
Paul gives thanks in prayer for the faith of his readers. He also remembers them in his prayers.
It’s funny how this is all written down. He is describing what he has already prayed for them, and in telling them what he has already prayed for, he is also praying for them.
It’s as if the lines blur between what was prayed, what was written, what is being read, and what is being prayed for. It leaves us wondering if he is practising something that he will talk about again right at the end of the letter, the practice of praying without ceasing.
Maybe it sounds strange, but growing up in Jesus is learning to pray.
Learning to live lives of prayer, open to this God that blesses with presence and calls us children, is our primary way of living and working out this resurrection life.
We often have a language for prayer. We pray prayers of approach, adoration or praise, confession, but we don’t always like that one.
Petition asking for help, depending on how desperate our situation these words can come more easily.
We pray prayers of thanks, intercession – bringing the needs of others before God.
Like Paul, we pray a blessing on others; in fact, we sing a prayer of blessing to each other most Sundays.
Another one we have an uncomfortable relationship with is imprecation, which often appears in the psalms and prophets as prayers that look like the opposite of blessing… curses. That may sound “unchristian”, but they are cries of people expressing their pain to God and on behalf of people experiencing gross injustice who need God to do something about it.
Much of our human experience is covered by these categories, or types of prayer. But there is also much that is left out, because generally, they involve our words. We don’t always have words, do we?
Elsewhere, Paul talks about the Spirit taking our groans, noises of grief and frustration and turns them into prayers.
What about other things we do?
This morning, we lit our Candle to indicate our openness to God’s presence.
Was that prayer?
Would it be prayer if we didn’t say the words that went with it?
What do you think???
We’re kind of used to candles
What about other actions?
I’ve got a glass and a pitcher of water here.
What if, as we poured this water out as expression about the lines of the 23rd Psalm, you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.
Is that prayer?
What about this? filling my drink bottle?
[Fills drink bottle]
That looks pretty mundane, normal, doesn’t it? Is this prayer?
It could be, couldn’t it?
Everything we do. Everything we do, from dragging ourselves out of bed in the morning to closing our eyes and surrendering our sleeping selves to God’s care, everything in between, is fertile ground for prayer.
We pray when we read scripture and recentre our distracted minds on its words.
We pray when weeding the garden, walking the dog, and talking to a friend. We pray when we are in a sacred, or thin place, or when we are in the most mundane and ordinary place we can imagine.
Everything we do can be prayer, both consciously and perhaps more mysteriously, even unconsciously.
I don’t think we’d say that everything we do IS prayer.
To say that prayer is everything is, perhaps, also to say that prayer is nothing.
We are not saying that.
Remember that the blessing and the gift of God’s presence Paul talked about last week?
Prayer then, is keeping company with God, who is always present.
It could be helpful to think of Prayer as swimming in this presence.
We can actively swim a stroke, float at rest in the current, or even thrash against the flow. All of it is swimming in this presence. All of it is prayer. But we have to get into the water.
Our growing up in Christ is worked out in our living lives of prayer.
Christ power in us
Perhaps what is helpful then in this life soaked in the river of prayer are the gifts Paul says he has been asking God to bestow on the Ephesian church.
He asks for Wisdom and revelation, an enlightened heart, hope and immeasurable greatness of God’s power.
As we grow in this practice of keeping company with God, the Spirit is at work, revealing, illuminating, and drawing us deeper into our knowing of God, of who we really are, and what God is doing in the universe.
The power that accomplishes these things in us, that draws us into wisdom, that gives insight, lifts our hearts, is the same power of God’s at work in Christ.
Through this same power, we participate in everything that Christ does.
It’s not that we try harder, and dig deep, or think more positively. It’s not what we are doing, but what Christ has done that we share in.
Paul wants us to realise that this great power that was at work in Christ is also at work in those who love Jesus and keep company in his presence.
A couple of years ago, we bought our electric car, a little Nissan Leaf.
When Teresa was test-driving it, she wasn’t very impressed with how it drove. She was concerned that it was pretty sluggish and wasn’t sure it had enough get-up-and-go.
So I suggested she turn off the Eco mode.
All of a sudden, the car sprang into life, and away it went.
Now she could see clearly how much power that little electric motor really had.
Paul wants the Ephesian church to find how to turn off Eco mode in their understanding of the Gospel and have the same moment of revelation of the true power of God that is present in them.
The same power that raised Christ will also raise us on the last day, nurturing our hope that this is not all there is, or the way things will always be.
That same power that brought God near to us brings us together in community. People of all different walks of life, interests, cultures and theologies. We’re all adopted into God’s family and heirs to his rich promises.
The same power that enabled Jesus to die and rise again is in us, renewing us, healing our brokeness and dispelling our rebellion, giving rise again to our new life lived in Christ.
As we grow in Christ, we learn how to turn off the eco button, discovering that the power driving our lives of prayer is the same power as Christ’s. Jesus in us.
Saint who? – Christ as the Fullness of the Church
Maybe that’s why in last week’s reading and this week’s, Paul calls the Ephesians: Saints.
Saint means ‘Holy One’.
To all the ‘Holy ones’…
In the early days, instead of Christian’s, saints were what people called others who practised keeping company with this God of Grace.
But after a while, this term, saint, became increasingly reserved for people who displayed an exceptional level of holiness.
We may be able to name a few saints. There are plenty of them in Church history.
St Augustine, St Francis of Assisi, St Teresa of Avila, St Teresa of Calcutta, there’s got to be a St Luke, St Giles and St Stephen in there somewhere, and one of my favourites, St Gertrude the Great.
But what about the Saints at the Village Church in Christchurch?
What would it feel like if you were addressed by the title of saint?
Maybe a little weird for us, we Kiwis can find ourselves a bit too grounded, a bit too realistic for that nonsense.
If we went around owning the label of saint, it wouldn’t be long before one of those tall poppy mowers would find us and cut us down to size, would it?
Saint. Holy one, is not a title we would pick for ourselves.
Not because we are not good people. But because we know our shortcomings, we know our brokenness. As much as we try to hide it sometimes, we know others himknow, or we live in fear of them finding out.
But in calling the Ephesians Saints, in calling us Saints, Paul wants to recalibrate our imaginations, from thinking in terms of how we or others feel about or see us, to how God feels about us. To how God sees us.
Next time, you look in the mirror, what inner conversation do you have with yourself if you address your reflection as ‘Saint’? What prayer might that invoke? Looking at yourself in the mirror and addressing yourself before God, as Saint, could even be an act of prayer in itself.
Paul names us saints not because we’ve done anything particularly ‘holy’. We are saints because of the company we keep.
Saints are those who keep company with the Holy God, and with the others who keep company with the Sacred Three.
People who allow the fullness of Jesus to fill them in unison with others
And so become the body of Christ, the Church.
Which Paul describes as “the fullness of him who fills everything in every way”.
Eugene Peterson puts it like this in the Message translation:
The church is Christ’s body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence. [Repeat]
We are not holy ones because of who we are in ourselves, but because of who we are in God.
Because we are filled with Christ, and Christ expresses himself to the world through us. Through people relating to people. Through the church, the company of people keeping company with God.
I wonder if it’s like watching or listening to a great musician lost in playing their instrument.
The greatness of the master artist makes the instrument, even a flawed instrument, what it is
Joan Jett, an American rock singer, guitarist and songwriter, once said: “My guitar is not a thing, it is an extension of myself. It is who I am.”
This collection of saints is an extension of Christ. The Body of Christ, “in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.”
Many look at the church as just another service organisation. There are similarities to be sure, we’re deeply involved in our communities. We work for human flourishing. We have a mission statement, and we’re organised. We have members, we have buildings.
But the Church is different. Not necessarily because of what we do. But it is a special community because Christ is its head, and his presence fills it.
It is special because it is holy. A community of saints keeping company with God and with others.
Despite what we may think or feel about ourselves or the church. God calls you ‘saint’, calling you closer and closer to Godself and into this company of others who express God to the world, the God who wants to fill everything and everyone with divine Love and mercy.
Closing
So Paul concludes his prayer. Or does he?
His prayer is a prayer that keeps going on through all times and spaces, for us to grow in this life of prayer, this keeping company with God, knowing the power of God that is in Jesus is in us. That we are saints in the eyes of God, and a community that is to be the fullness of Christ and his intent to fill all of creation with his goodness and love. AMEN