Sermon 8th September 2013

This week, our Vicar, Cameron Barker, begins a new study series looking at the book of Ephesians. Today's reading is from Ephesians 1 verses 1 to 14.

Before we leap right into what is clearly going to be solid, and meaty, stuff, here is something rather more light-hearted, to take us back into the summer that’s just ending ...

OK, so it is a Bible quiz - but it’s one with a difference. Not only will it show who’s on the ball, it should also make you smile (or groan!). So, fingers on those metaphorical buzzers, please; and tell me (if you can):

Which Bible character had no parents?

(Joshua, son of Nun).

What explanation did Adam give to his children as to why they no longer lived in the Garden of Eden?

(Your mother ate us out of house and home.)

Who’s the best-known female financier in the Bible?

(Pharaoh’s daughter. She went down to the bank of the Nile and drew out a little prophet.)

Who’s the best-known male financier in the Bible?

(Noah. He was floating his stock while everyone else was in liquidation).

Which area of Palestine was especially wealthy?

(The area around Jordan: the banks were always overflowing.)

Which servant of God was the most flagrant lawbreaker in the Bible?

(Moses. He broke all 10 commandments at once.)

What kind of man was Boaz before he got married?

(Ruthless)

And to end, it’s not biblical, I know: but what are pastors in Berlin usually called?

(German Shepherds).

All of which leads seamlessly right into our new series – of course! Well the idea was to get you all on the ball enough to spot that I didn’t call this “Paul’s letter to the Ephesians”. The fact is, and as usual, I am with our favourite Bible scholar, Tom Wright here. I too am convinced by the evidence that Paul wrote this letter, in +- 60 AD, while he was in prison, in Rome. I’m just as sure that the ancient city of Ephesus was indeed one of the places that these words went to, on their journey around the churches of Asia Minor. Of course you are very welcome to spend hours reading all the scholarly debates about such matters for yourselves. Or you can choose instead just to know that they exist; and then to focus instead on the intent, and content, of one of the most comprehensive, inspiring, well -written, and amazing books in the entire New Testament!

Bold claims, it’s true; but by the time we get to Advent I am sure that Ephesians will have climbed to the top of many a Herne Hill favourite-Bible-book list. Again it’s Tom Wright who likens reading it to taking a trip on the London Eye. Now I’ve not gone on it myself; but I have walked beneath its 450-foot span. I can well imagine what the view is like for those who are brave enough to ride it. I’m sure that you will get a very different perspective on the street that you’re used to walking along, and the buildings that usually tower above you. They will doubtless fit together in a whole new way, after you have seen the bigger picture. And that is what the different elements of New Testament will do, once we have worked our way through all of Ephesians.

Now it is true to say that Ephesians often reads rather more like a sermon than a letter. It is quite different in style to the letters we have that Paul usually wrote. We’re more used to him dealing with specific pressing issues, and difficult people, in particular challenging situations. But this is part of the evidence for ‘Ephesians’ (as we’ll keep on calling it) being a circular letter, one that was sent to a group of churches – because it is more general. Again, it’s also true that Paul probably knew most of the churches in that area and their leaders, very well. He had been instrumental in shaping the church there by, introducing them to the Holy Spirit for the first time. That was on his 3^rd missionary journey, when Paul kept the promise that he’d made on a brief previous visit. He went back, and had spent over two years living and preaching there, and overseeing the setting up of churches throughout that region.

Again this was all very typically Paul-like. He deliberately (or, as we might say, intentionally) spent his time and energy on the key citys of the Roman Empire. Ephesus was then the 4^th largest, and was gateway into the province of Asia Minor, in modern-day Turkey. As is still the case today, people came to and through such centres: whatever happened in them soon spread far and wide. And that was exactly Paul’s aim for the Good News about Jesus, of course. Paul never made any secret about that – as we can see from the very start of this letter. He called himself an ‘apostle’: literally in Greek meaning someone who has been sent. Paul had no doubt Who had sent him, or exactly why either – which again he declared outright here, at the start.

I’m sure that it won’t have escaped your notice who Paul said he was writing to as well. The NIV is quite right to use the word ‘saints’, because that is exactly what Paul meant! We might have a rather different picture in our heads today, after a long history of people (including Paul himself) being beatified. In Paul’s day people weren’t made saints in that way, though. In that sense the GNB is better, by using the phrase ‘God’s people’ – because that is who Paul meant! For him, anyone and everyone who was a Christian was a saint. That Greek word also means ‘holy’, or someone who has been set aside for God’s work. And of course anyone who calls themselves Christian today is meant to know that is who and what we are: “faithful in Christ”.

There is a fine Pauline phrase, that comes up time and again throughout this letter. One writer has gone as far as to put it like this: “Birds belong in the air; fish belong in the water; people belong ‘in Christ’. It’s who, and what, we are; what we have been made for; how we’re designed to live: all of us! Yes, Paul talks here about those whom God has chosen. [And there is a full sermon to be preached in its own right (though not today) on the subject of predestination.] But our eyes are instead meant to be drawn on, I believe; to God’s ultimate purpose ‘in Christ’. Again, it’s all set out here, just in these first few verses. Solid and meaty stuff it is; of the mind-blowing kind, when we realise our God-intended place in His plan. God’s plan is to bring all of creation, everything in heaven and on earth together, Paul says, with Christ as its head; and this has been God’s plan for us to be part of since before He made world?!

Now you may have worked out from the fact that we’re more than half-way through that there’s no way that we can even get close to unpacking all there is in here. As ever, that’s fine: our job as preachers is to encourage us to work out for ourselves what this means for how we are to live: in Christ indeed. Lots of the small groups that meet through the week do that in the sort of depth that it often takes. There is always room for others to join those, so speak to Gill if you’d be interested in doing that. Either way, in groups or on our own, there are enough starters in here to keep anyone going for quite some time, just with how Paul begins this letter. It’s almost like from the (relatively!) relaxed perspective of his prison cell he was able to step back, and to view that wider, London-Eye-type, picture.

Now one other key feature of this letter that needs mentioning at this introduction stage is this. It has many themes and ideas in common with Paul’s letter to the Colossians. Scholars, like Tom Wright, who believe that Paul did write both, think that the two letters were written very close together in time. Paul first dealt with the issues in Colossae, in response to to a visitor who’d come to ask for his help. Then he wrote a more general letter to this group of churches that weren’t so very far away from Colossae, to send back with the same messenger. It’s no surprise that some of same themes would have been at the forefront of his mind as he wrote the 2^nd letter, then. There are universal truths that apply in particular ways to specific circumstances, which also then apply just as well in more general ways; to encourage churches, for example.

That was essentially why Paul wrote this particular letter, to this group of churches it seems. There weren’t any pressing issues, or people to be dealt with – which made a pleasant change from what he so often had to face. Rather, it was a matter of encouraging them to be, and do, what God wanted from them. Paul wanted them to do that even better than they were already doing it; and to be even more united in doing it. So he began in only proper place: with worship. Having reminded them of who he was and who they were, in Christ, the next 12 verses of his letter are one long sentence: an excited, unstoppable outpouring of praise and worship of God and His Son Jesus. And the scope of it is truly amazing.

Set out in the rest of the letter is the entire landscape of the Christian faith: it starts with God, of course; it includes the world that He made; the work and person of His Son, Jesus; the church; the means of salvation; what proper Christian behaviour looks like; how marriage and family life are to be ordered before God; and how believers must engage battle in the spiritual warfare that our faith in reality is. That all lies ahead, waiting for us to explore in glorious detail through the rest of the year. But here is the sole basis on which we can and must do so. In Christ: God has blessed us; He has chosen us; He has foreordained us; He has poured out His grace on us; He has given us redemption; He has set out His plan, for us and for His creation; He has given us an eternal inheritance, and an eternal hope; and He sealed us with His Spirit who is a deposit to guarantee what is yet to come!

Each and all of those are ‘in Christ’. Each is also worthy of a sermon in itself – also not today! For today what is to note particularly is the refrain that punctuates these verses: everything is to be for “the praise and glory of God in Christ”. It is God who’s taken the initiative; it is God who has done what was necessary, at great cost to Himself; it is God who is now working His plans out in and through us; it is God who guarantees our inheritance; and it is God who will bring it all to completion at the right time, in the right way. How can we not respond to that and to Him with praise and worship – and by wanting to tell others what God has done, and is doing, in Christ? That is the essence of living to the praise and glory of God in Christ, Paul says; and it should be ringing some bells for us too.

At our church AGMs back in May this year I said the two key tasks for us this year are: to be united in what we’re doing; and to make sure that it is all about Jesus. It’s not that we face any pressing issues or people. We certainly are entering into a whole new phase of this parish’s life, particularly as the St Paul’s building project starts. What flows from that, and from the on-going Discovery process, has got to be focused on Jesus, to the praise and glory of God. We have also got to stay united in whatever we then choose to do, in response to what God is saying to us. Our study of Ephesians this autumn can, should, and must, keep all of that right at the very forefront of our minds: week in and week out. And so may “God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give us [all the] grace and peace” that we need, as we work out how to respond to Him: in Christ; united; to His praise and glory. And so now let’s pray ...