Marked With a Seal

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

Ordinary 15B

Text: Ephesians 1:3-14

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5 He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight 9 he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 11 In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, 12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14 this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

“Thank you”

Leslie and I stopped and looked at each other and smiled.

“She’s saying ‘thank you!’

Well, to be exact, it was more like ‘dankoo’, and it was very softly spoken, but the timing and inflection were unmistakeable. Leslie ha just placed her plate in front of her. Hannah was maybe a year and a couple of months old at the time - just starting to speak intelligibly. We were sitting down to supper in the dining room in the house we were living in in Norfolk, the house for which Leslie’s grandfather, Claude Kenneth Maccubbin, had served as his own general contractor. The dining room was a later addition to the house, and as such, was small, maybe 8 feet deep by 14 feet long, with dark pine paneling.

From the very beginning of our relationship, Leslie and I have been mindful of the power of words; of how words can build up or tear down, how they can bond two people together or drive them apart. As part of that, we are pretty intentional about saying ‘please‘ and ‘thank you‘ when we ask something of each other.

As Hannah began to speak her first words, a lot of what she was doing, just as other children do, was imitating sounds - the TONE of our voices more than the specific sounds our lips and tongues were making. But that was one that she picked up early, and used often, and it is one that, I hope, we as members of this family of faith, learned early and use often.

In our doxology this morning, not simply the Gloria Patri we sang after the offering was taken up, but in our worship through the singing of hymns, you may have caught something of the general theme running through the hymns: Praising God for our salvation through Jesus Christ.

As we read today’s text, what strikes me is the tone of praise and thanksgiving that permeates nearly every part of it.

Whether Paul is blessing the Lord for what God has done, or for what God has given us, there is a relentless expression of thanks in all this first section of his letter to the church at Ephesus. After reading it I sat back and asked myself, how often do we stop and simply praise God -- and thank God for what he has done for us?

We spent this past week in Vacation Bible School focusing on one country, Malawi. and were made aware of the sometimes harsh conditions that exist there, especially as they relate to the gathering and use of water. I cannot tell you how proud it made us to step back at the end of the week and see that in the space of five days, about 40 children and 40 adults from two small country churches collected $1,400.00 to send to the organization called WateringMalawi, so that they can use that money to purchase and install 7 treadle pumps, which will help irrigate gardens and provide food year-round for the families of those villages!

These last few days have also helped to remind us of the part WE play in God’s action in the world. We are not simply here to receive God’s blessings, though we do. We’re not here to enjoy the benefits of living in a land that is blessed with and abundance of water, though we do that too. We are at the same time blessed and called to BE a blessing. Just as God’s covenant with Israel was to both receive and extend a blessing, we are likewise called to that same task.

As I’ve said before, we do that, and we do that well for a faith family of our size. Through our community involvement, participation in various programs and ministry opportunities on a local level we can humbly say that we are about the work of the kingdom. On a larger scale, through our participation in statewide and national and international efforts, we can lay claim to being a part of the greater outreach to the world on behalf of Virginia Baptists, but more importantly, on behalf of Jesus Christ.

But there is a downside to all that involvement, all that activity. Becoming so busy being about the work, we can sometimes pretty easily forget, as the saying goes, to stop and smell the roses. That is, to stop and appreciate, literally, what God has done for us. And I mean that as much in the universal sense -- what God has done for us as the whole world, as he has for how Paul puts it, for those who “were the first to set our hope on Christ.”

You may have also picked up on some particular phrasing in the text, phrases like “he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world”, or “He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ”, “he has made known to us the mystery of his will”, and “In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things” These are all terms that would be understood in the normal course of events to be terms having to do with election, separation, words that speak of a special place, a special relationship between ‘us‘ and God. I would ask us to consider for a few moments this morning, who is the ‘us‘ Paul is speaking of? In simple, concrete terms, insofar as Paul was probably thinking as the words went down, I feel pretty confident in saying that he was talking about the people he was writing TO and the people he may have been WITH when he was writing them. I’m not sure Paul was really thinking that those same words would still be around nearly two thousand years later, being studied and broken down, compared with his other writings and delved into by scholars across the world and across the ages, but on THAT scale, insofar as he was writing to that larger cloud of witnesses, Paul was including all of us as well.

But even in that, we can read the word ‘us‘ emphatically, as in,

“He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world” or “he destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ”, “he has made known to us the mystery of his will”, and “In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance.”

I would invite us to think a little differently about this subject in this way. We, the people in this room this morning, are for the most part, fairly certain of where we stand in our relationship with God. At least we have a handle on what comes next.

The theologian George W. Stroup offers five insights into this passage and the subject of election:

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.”

Second, election is about God’s sovereign will, not our actions—our text notes in verses 5, 9, and 11 that “God’s choosing or election is rooted in the good pleasure and mystery of God’s counsel and will.”

Third, Christ is to be the “looking glass” in which Christians should consider their election, as God’s election is always through Christ. Stroup points to Jean Calvin and Karl Barth, who claimed that by looking at the life of Christ and seeing the grace and mercy of God, we should be assured that we are included in God’s promises.

Fourth, election “reminds Christians that they are adopted children of God;” this adoption is a gift, not a right.

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.”

It isn’t about ‘us’ and ‘them’ - about exclusion - it is about INclusion -- it is about being called to community - as adopted children - and we are ALL eligible for adoption! No matter our age, our history, our present status, or how we think of ourselves. God welcomes us all -- and calls us all.

And it is in that reference that we would find it in us to speak, sing or pray from the depths of our hearts in praise and thanksgiving to God for what he has made available – not JUST to us, but to all of humanity through Jesus Christ.

Let’s pray.

Content with Weaknesses

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

Ordinary 14B

Text: 2 Corinthians 12:2-10

Theme: Accepting our limitations so that we may rely on the Lord

2 I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. 3 And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows— 4 was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. 5 On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. 6 But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, 7 even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. 8 Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, 9 but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10 Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”

When is weakness a virtue? In a world that is established on the exercise of power, the predominance of might -- military, industrial and economic -- we are hard pressed to find anyone who would say something to the effect that, “Weakness is a good thing.”

The meaning of virtue was one of the prominent ethical discussions in the writings of ancient intellectuals. So-called "virtue lists" abound in classical literature; they typically commend such traits as piety, reverence, excellence, practical knowledge and patience. One quality of character, however, that one never finds in the Greco-Roman "virtue lists" is the trait of weakness.

You may have noticed how often this quality was mentioned by Paul in his Corinthian letters. We are weak... Who is weak and I do not feel weak? If I boast, I will boast about the things that show my weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest upon me. Not only does Paul champion weakness in himself, he extols the weakness of Christ. For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness... And then he says about us all, Likewise, we are weak in him... The point is this: true holiness is not a matter of personal power—it is a matter of God’s power in the midst of personal weakness.

The city of Corinth, like many ancient cities, was filled with the images of power. The impressive temple of Apollo under the brow of the acropolis greeted all visitors to the city. The biennial Isthmian Games featured contests of athleticism and feats of power. Corinth, the “master” of two harbors, Lechaeum on the North and Cenchrea on the South, was an economic trade center and power-broker for much of the Mediterranean world. Hence, it is not surprising that the cult of power was alive and well among Corinth’s citizenry and even among the Christians who responded to Paul’s preaching. Sometimes the exaltation of power infiltrated even their understanding of the graces and gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Because of what he wrote, we can be almost certain that Paul’s critics in Corinth boasted of superior ecstatic experiences, since Paul chose such an experience for his own climactic “boast.” His words, “I will go on to visions and revelations,” indicate as much, and we know from 1 Corinthians that the Corinthian church valued highly the more sensational kinds of spiritual experiences. The ecstatic experience that Paul chose to recount in 2 Corinthians 12 occurred some fourteen years prior, and it happened to someone Paul does not name but says he knew. It becomes clear that the person of whom Paul speaks is Paul himself, since, still in the same context, he shifts from “the man” to “me.”

There is no way to directly identify this experience with any known occasion recorded in the book of Acts or in Paul’s correspondence. Some have suggested his vision on the Damascus Road as a possibility, others his trance in the Jerusalem temple, and still others his near death in Lystra. They are all possibilities, but none is definitively ‘the one’.

In this experience, Paul was caught up to the “third heaven,” to “Paradise.” Both of these terms are known from Jewish and Christian Pseudepigrapha -- religious writings of the time. Heaven, the abode of God, was depicted as multi-layered, usually in a sevenfold way. By entering the third heaven one could stand near the Lord. Paradise was a Persian loanword meaning “garden,” and in Jewish apocalyptic literature it represented the home of the departed righteous.

The irony of this ecstatic experience is that in it Paul heard things that were not possible to describe nor permissible to repeat. It is a further irony for Paul to say, “I will boast about a man like that, but not about myself,” since that man was, in fact, Paul. Instead, Paul contents himself to boast of his weaknesses. If he wished to follow the lead of his opponents in boasting of transcendent experiences, he could do so truthfully. But he chooses not to.

Paul saw an inner connection between the ecstatic experience he had just recounted and another personal situation, this time a debilitating one. Paul suffered from some deep personal affliction, so deep that he compares it to a skolops, which means a thorn, or splinter. While Paul obviously uses a metaphor, the reference is ambiguous. Tertullian, an early Christian Author and historian, thought it was a physical affliction, St. Augustine and Martin Luther thought it was a temptation. Scholars have argued that it might have been migraines, epilepsy, convulsions, ophthalmia, malaria, a speech impediment, rheumatism, fever, and even leprosy.

Whatever the case, Paul certainly understands his experience in a Job-like context. Just as Job’s affliction was dealt by Satan but permitted by God, so Paul understands his own affliction to be a blow from his archenemy, yet at the same time, allowed by God in order to prevent any conceit on his part. If ecstatic experiences might tend toward conceit, the direct refusal by God to answer Paul’s prayer for healing drove him toward humility. Three times he prayed for deliverance, but God declined, only letting Paul know that saving grace was enough and that divine power is brought to perfection in human weakness.

In that divine “no,” Paul understood more clearly the nature of God’s power. If his opponents boasted of spectacular things, Paul was forced to boast of his weaknesses, not because weakness itself was glorious, but because it was the place in which Christ’s power was most clearly displayed. “Therefore,” Paul says, “I delight in sickness, insult, pressing needs, persecution, and distress.” His final declaration is one of the most quotable quotes in the Bible: “When I am weak (in myself), then I am strong (in the Lord)!” Can you imagine how that sounded against his opponents’ misguided philosophy, “When I am strong (in personal power), then I am strong (in spiritual things).”

Holiness often is confused with personal power. A holy person is construed as one who is disciplined. He or she is a person with a rigorous code of conduct. Holiness is believed to be the expression of religious fervor, the measuring of oneself and others by a demanding litany of religious criteria. The problem with this way of seeing holiness is that it misses the very heart of what holiness is all about in the first place.

Perhaps that is why Paul says so much about weakness when writing to the Corinthians. As Greeks, the Corinthians took great pride in their intellectual and cultural history. They were especially proud of the classical virtues of wisdom and power. In their approach to the Christian life, they championed all the ancient Greek virtues that were part of their heritage.

Paul, to the contrary, knew that the message of the cross put all virtues in a very different light. To the Greco-Roman world, the cross was shameful and humiliating - and ONLY that. To the Jew it was the symbol of God’s curse. To the Greek, it was the shame of public disgrace. To the Roman, it was the death of traitors and rebels.

Nothing in the whole structure of ancient culture, either Jewish, Greek or Roman, prepared anyone for the preaching of the cross. It was a stumbling block to Jews and absurd to the Greeks. But to those whom God had called, it was Christ—the wisdom of God and the power of God.

In a contemporary culture that stresses individual freedom and social advancement—even in a Christian sub-culture that at times succumbs to the appeal of political clout—we would do well to more directly conform our minds to the gospel of our weakness.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

We may need to ask ourselves, do we worship power? That we live in a culture that worships power is, I think, understood. The bigger, the better. Anyone from a captain of industry to a politically persuasive leader, to a militarily powerful leader is considered someone to be admired ... or feared by virtue of the fact that they CAN command anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands to millions to do their bidding.

But are we at risk of bringing that same mindset into the practice of our faith here within our family of faith? Even now, nearly two thousand years after Paul wrote his letter to the church at Corinth, we are still swayed not by stories of weakness, but of strength. We would rather hear about victories than struggles, triumphs rather than defeats. And that goes with our human nature, doesn’t it? we are expected to be ‘strong’. We encourage each other to be strong, we pray for strength, we don’t pray for weakness ... it seems ... out of PLACE to pray for anything else ... so how SHOULD we pray?

First, I think we acknowledge our weaknesses. We accept that we are not doing this under our own strength, we consciously make the decision to be PRIMARILY reliant on God’s strength and God’s wisdom, God’s movement in our life as a community of faith. And we set aside anything that we would like to control. Power, and strength are translated into control. And we do like to control things, don’t we? From the temperature around us to how level the ground is, to how soft our seats are, to how much light we have ... it is a subtle thing, isn’t it?

We pray for grace.

We pray for peace, we pray for acceptance. We pray for Christ to be manifested in us, over and above anything that might draw people to US, we pray that it would be more and more to HIM.

Let’s pray.

With deep gratitude to Dan Lewis, Senior Pastor of Troy Christian Chapel, Troy, Michigan, and guest essayist on journeywithjesus.net.