Our responsibility to the world
Commentary
Object:
The passages for the feast of Christ the King sum up the responsibilities of the people of God to ourselves, our nation, and our world. They begin in the book of Ezekiel where God accuses the leadership of Israel, who have been dragged from their homeland into the exile in Babylon, of deserving what they have gotten through their own fault. They were the people whose responsibility it was to keep the nation on the path that God had laid out for them, but they had failed miserably. They had fed off the people they were supposed to lead and protect, caring only for themselves at the expense of the ordinary people.
If that sounds familiar, we need to take care in our preparation to preach these passages, because the epistle lesson tells us that we have the power to transform the world simply because we are the children of God. God gives his children his own power, through the gift of the Spirit of Wisdom, so that we can do the very things Jesus did in his life on earth. In fact, we have more power than that because we have the power that God showed in resurrecting Jesus at our disposal.
Finally, we are presented again with the last judgment scene where Jesus speaks to those on his left and his right, telling them that what they did in life determines where they will be in death. Are we going to use what we have to transform the world? Or will we look past the problems that surround us so that we can feel safe, secure, and comforted by our things rather than the Spirit?
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
The reading from Ezekiel for today is from a longer passage in which Ezekiel is told to prophesy against the "shepherds of Israel." In fact, most of the book of Ezekiel is a criticism of a country that had come to be rich in its own eyes. They swaggered that they were the chosen people of God "a kingdom of priests" (see Exodus 19:6), rather than attending to what God meant by that: they were to "be a light" to the nations around them, a light that would attract them into the family of God. How were they to do that? By being holy and righteous; meaning, a people who always look to God and seek to do the right thing, not as so many understand that word today, i.e., "self-righteous." The other nations would then see their rich land, fat cattle and sheep, and healthy, robust people for what they were -- a blessing from God to a people who lived by God's word.
But all of that was to come to an abrupt end. In 597 BCE Babylon was on the march, and they had invaded Israel and carried away the leadership into exile. How could this have happened to God's chosen people? It is no surprise that Ezekiel's prophetic ministry begins with eating a scroll on which were written "words of lamentation and mourning and woe." How else could a proud and prosperous people react to their capture and exile? Especially when they received word that Jerusalem and even God's temple were about to be destroyed.
Ezekiel confronts the exiles with their failures and criticizes the leaders of Israel. This includes religious leaders as well as political rulers with particular attention to the temple and how the religious rites were carried out. This passage picks up on all that has gone before in criticizing the way in which the religious leaders ("shepherds") had been taking care of themselves rather than tending to the people ("sheep") they had been appointed to serve. It is a metaphor that particularly spoke to the people of God, who had roots as a nomadic people and whose lives revolved around their flocks of sheep and goats. The image of a shepherd and his flocks was a major metaphor for the people and their leaders down through the ages. King David himself had been a shepherd in his youth, and even when he was clearly a renegade fighting King Saul, he spoke in terms of his leadership as a shepherd for God's people. When he stole Uriah's wife and married her, the prophet Nathan accused him of murder and adultery in the language of a lamb and its owner (see 2 Samuel 12).
So Ezekiel is using a metaphor that had for centuries been Israel's understanding of their relationship with God. He says, "You eat the curds [from milking the flock], clothe yourselves with the wool [sheared each spring from the sheep], and slaughter the choice animals [to eat]." All of which is the prerogative of the shepherd. After all, that's what sheep are for!
But a decent shepherd also tends to his flock. He keeps them from brambles that can catch in their wool and trap them. He provides shelter when storms come. He leads them to tender grasses so they have food they enjoy. He leads them to quiet water, knowing that they are fearful of fast-running streams. He keeps them close to each other to prevent wandering, and so lambs are protected. He looks for signs of something stuck in their hooves or sickness coming on. If a lamb is orphaned, he may carry it along as the flock moves from place to place so it isn't abandoned to predators. He medicates them when they need it and binds up any wounds they suffer so that they don't become infected.
But the shepherds of Israel had not done this. They were only looking for what the sheep could do for them, ignoring the fact that this is a reciprocal relationship. They had the same responsibilities to their people that shepherds have for their flock. Though his accusations are couched in agrarian images, this is a highly political argument. He is addressing the leadership about their responsibilities to the people they govern, saying they need to care for the little people, not just themselves.
This is an interesting perspective from which to look at our world today. We can start with the political questions: What is the responsibility of the governmental officials to the people they govern? In today's world, we think that this is a question of which branch of government ought to have the power to pass laws and enforce them, or a question of whose moral standards ought to be followed. Should the federal government have the power to dictate morality? Or should states be able to ignore federal leaders and pass their own laws regarding right to life issues, such as the death penalty, euthanasia, abortion, and birth control? Ezekiel would not disagree entirely that those are the issues that demand our attention, but his entire ministry is aimed at making those in power listen to the needs of their people: safety, food, shelter, and care for those who have no power to care for themselves, such as widows, orphans, the poor (Leviticus 25:45), and immigrants (Exodus 22:21, 23:9; Leviticus 19:34; Deuteronomy 10:19, 14:29).
Ezekiel would have loved it when the current pope, Francis, chastised and threatened an American Roman Catholic bishop who was in the midst of a $4,000,000 renovation to the mansion the church provided for him. The world was consternated. But this brouhaha was entirely in line with today's reading. What should this bishop have done with that money, rather than renovating the bishop's home? Ezekiel's answer (and the pope's): He should have spent it in strengthening the weak, healing the sick, seeking for those who have left the church or never called any church their home (see v.4). This is only one example in one denomination of the church today. One man in my early days in ministry told me that he would never give a penny to missions because he had been in the office of the person in charge of missions on the national level in our denomination, and it was huge and luxuriously appointed, and he didn't want the money he gave to missions being spent that way rather than on the people in need all over the world.
E. Stanley Jones, an amazingly successful Methodist missionary in India in the days of the Raj, became friends with leaders of the self-determination movement there. He once commented that Gandhi, who had a great respect for Jesus, had been teaching that the English missionaries needed to have more respect for the Indian culture and mindset. He summed up his idea by saying, "Christian missionaries have been in India for nearly 2,000 years. If they had lived their faith as well as preached it, all of India would be Christian now."
In our society today, most of our population is divorced from the farms where our food animals are raised. We don't go out to the barn, as our great-grandparents did, to milk the cows or slaughter an animal so we can eat over the winter. The farmer who doesn't watch out for his cows' health is quickly spending money to have the veterinarian come out, spends hoped-for profits on medicines or loses an animal that might have given twelve gallons of milk a day for many years, not to mention the calves she might have borne to expand the herd. And this is only covering the physical needs of the cow, not the psychological needs, such as how and when to remove a new calf off his mother's udder so the calf will survive. The average American has no such understanding of how one has to care for the animals that supply us with food, so these images from Ezekiel need to be explained or translated into modern, urban metaphors if our parishioners are to understand what the prophet is saying.
What we can understand, hopefully, is that power and wealth are not intended by God to be accumulated for self-aggrandizement, but we are supposed to use that power and wealth to make life better for those around us as well as ourselves. Shouldn't those with the ability to feed others do so? Shouldn't the owner of the company share the profits with the workers?
It was the lack of compassion for the people that put the leadership of Israel into exile, says Ezekiel. They were taken there because they had been exploiting the common people, and this was how God chose to put an end to their evil.
Instead, God is going to put things back the way they were before Israel demanded that they have a king, like the nations around them. God will be the shepherd of his people. He will lead them to new lush pastures. He will see to it that the lost will be found and brought back to the land God gave them. He will judge between "sheep and sheep" -- the rich vs. the poor, not just the leaders, but those who have more than enough and still elbow others out of the way in their stampede to accumulate.
However, God will establish a leader for the people. This will be his servant David, who will feed them and act as a loving shepherd toward them. He will care for all their needs, the way a good shepherd would do. God will oversee what his servant is doing to see to it that the people are properly cared for. This is the basis of the hope for a promised Messiah, who will rule the people with compassion, not greed.
Ephesians 1:15-23
Ephesus was a major city in the first century CE. It was a center for religious pilgrimage, being as it was the home of the main temple of Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt and of wild animals, and in urban areas, the goddess of fertility and childbirth -- even though she was virgin (the Romans renamed her Diana). As such, it was also the home of artisans who created images of Artemis for the tourist trade. This is the scene of Paul's famous confrontation with these artisans, headed by Demetrius, where he is brought to trial and claims his rights as a Roman citizen to a trial before Caesar.
The letter itself does not bear the marks of language we associate with Paul, nor does it jibe with Paul's thought expressed elsewhere. Therefore, there is much debate among scholars as to the authorship (see The Interpreter's Study Bible, p. 2089 for a full discussion). Some believe that it is a compilation of Paul's late teaching preserved by his students. The fact that the text sounds as though the author and the recipients don't know each other tends to support this latter idea, because Paul had spent three years at Ephesus and knew the Christians there quite well.
Despite these questions, the passage for today speaks of the heart of the gospel. The Ephesians, according to verse 15, have learned the Great Commandment that Jesus identified in Matthew 22:37-39: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind... And... Love your neighbor as yourself." Their faith in Jesus and their love "for all the saints" are the proof of this. This fact has made Paul give thanks for them in his daily prayers.
However, he does not just give thanks to God for their faith, he "keeps asking" God to give them a spirit of wisdom (as the NIV translates the phrase; it could be the Spirit of wisdom). We will discuss that difference of translation in a moment. But we need to stop here and contemplate -- when we pray for one another, what do we usually ask for? That they have good health? That they might find a new job? For a loving spouse? All of these things are good things to hope for. Or do we pray that they might win the lottery, get a raise, or find a great car? Are our prayers for ourselves and others for material things? Or are they of a spiritual order, like Paul's prayers?
What is the point of asking for a spirit of wisdom? The author says it's not so we can discern the future or plan well -- those things might come with wisdom, but Paul says that the gift of the Spirit will help them (and us) to know God better. The Spirit (whether we call it the Holy Spirit or the/a spirit of wisdom) draws us closer to God, not by imparting knowledge such as we might get from a Bible study, but an intimate understanding of God. It gives us a sense of the presence of God daily in our lives. It strengthens us in the face of trouble, because we know that God is with us in whatever circumstance we are facing.
This ability to sense God's presence in our lives is called enlightenment. It is the ability to sense the reality that underpins the world and our life in it. The author says that enlightenment allows us to know hope -- that is, to experience the glory of God and the fact that we will inherit that same kind of glory.
There is an interesting biblical meaning to that word "glory." In Hebrew, that word is the same as the word that refers to the robes of the high priest or the royal robes that the king puts on for ceremonial occasions. The implication is that glory is something we can put on, much as a king puts on his ceremonial robes. So the Spirit nudges us to put on God's glory, to use that glory to become more holy, as God is holy. It is literally part of the inheritance we are entitled to as children of God. Just as princes and princesses are entitled to honor simply because they are part of the royal family, so we have honor also. Just as there are special rules of behavior for princes and princesses, there are special rules of behavior for us. Just as princes and princesses have power to make their requests known, so do we.
The author goes even further in verses 19-20: The power we have, simply because we are children of God, is "like the working of his mighty strength" to accomplish things that people generally don't believe they can accomplish. That "mighty strength" of God is seen in the resurrection of Christ from the dead. God had allowed Jesus to go to the cross, to suffer and die, and to be buried. It took strength as only God has to pry him from the clutches of death and not only restore him to life, but to seat him, as the Christ ("Anointed One") in a position of honor and power (the meaning of him sitting "at [God's] right hand in the heavenly realms").
Our first response to these comments may be to say a quiet "wow!" And then we may shake our heads and say, "Well, that's all very well, but no one but God can raise the dead. And I'm no faith healer!" and we may even laugh a little embarrassed laugh. Who am I, after all, compared to Jesus? It's silly to think I might have such powers."
Marianne Williamson, writing in A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles, says, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." (apparently quoted by Nelson Mandala in his inauguration speech)
Perhaps we can better accept this truth about ourselves in children's literature. There are innumerable writers who put this idea in their works, but I most like the way Shel Silverstein says it: "Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be." Probably all those "impossibles" and "mustn'ts" drill the opposite into us. But this passage to the Ephesians tells us that Ms. Williamson and Mr. Silverstein are onto something.
We are modern disciples of that Christ, who had God place "who fills everything in every way." Can we begin, even a little, to ask ourselves and each other what it means that we are children of God, the same God who raised Jesus from the dead and placed everything under his feet? What could we be accomplishing if we took this writing seriously and quit worrying about how others would think of us if we claimed such power? What changes might we make in the world?
Matthew 25:31-46
We have heard this passage so many times, usually aimed at making us change our behavior, that the average person in the pew is most likely to say to herself, "Oh, this one again. Right, right, I'm to be judged on how I care for others. Yawn."
The problem is that the poor are often invisible to the average person in America. One of the trustees in a certain church came to me and said, "I got a call from one of our neighbors about the man who's sleeping behind the chapel in our graveyard. Do you know anything about that?"
Well, in a nutshell, no, I didn't do a tour of the old cemetery each night, or even every week, though I felt guilty that someone could have been sleeping out there every night for weeks. How could I have missed that? Turns out it was easy. He had spread cardboard on the ground between the chapel and a row of bushes, and even when we were only a few feet from his improvised bed there was little evidence of his presence. Sadly, our trustees' solution was to confront the man and tell him to move on.
This fellow was from Bosnia, a country where a poor man like himself might get work from the local priest and be allowed to sleep in the church until other arrangements could be made. How do I know? Well, our custodian found him sleeping on a pew in the sanctuary one night and got that part of the story. The custodian came and got me, and the fellow and I had a short conversation in which I allowed him to sleep there that night, since it was too late to get him into any shelter in the city, and the next morning he was to come to my door for some breakfast. My secretary was horrified that I let him sit at my kitchen table. (My housekeeper had shamed me into that; I would have served him on the back step, out of the same fear that made my secretary react so strongly.)
We are afraid of the poor. Most of us know instinctively that we are one catastrophe away from losing our home, our car, our place in the world. One hurricane, tornado, or earthquake can change not just our lives, but the lives of everyone in our neighborhood or town. In any city one can see the old and the young pushing shopping carts piled with garbage bags that contain everything they own in the world. We could see people in bus station bathrooms, washing their hair in one of the sinks, wringing out a tank top they've just used the last of the soap to wash. Most cities have laws against "panhandling" -- in other words, begging for enough change to eat. Out in the country the poor are better hidden, living in trailers out in the trees, where they park a number of cars from which they can get parts to repair the one or two that they need to get around.
I wasn't long out of seminary when I was posted to a small-town church. I lived in a parsonage where the first floor bathroom had an outside door so that those who needed to use a toilet could come over from the church to do so. They could not afford to build a bathroom in the church. Of course, I put a deadbolt lock on the door into the house and locked it before I went over to lead worship. There were (no surprise) a few shocked parishioners: "Don't you trust us?"
One day, a pregnant young woman and her younger sister came to the door to beg some groceries. As I was packing up some basics from the pantry, the girl couldn't resist stepping further into the house. Her eye fell on the lace tablecloth on the dining table. "You must be rich," she said with awe in her voice. "No, I'm not..." but I stopped. Of course I was. I didn't need to beg. I was one of those who had enough food in the house to feed a family for at least a couple of days. I had the $10 to put a cheap lace tablecloth on the table.
The problem is the poor have no money for the laundromat. If they don't have a house to live in, they have no bathtub in which to soak off the dirt of the street. If they're lucky, we will arrange for them to stay in a motel one night so they can sleep without interruption, take a bath, wash their clothes, and feel safe for a few hours in a room that actually has a lock, unlike the shelters, which often will not or cannot accommodate families. If they're unlucky, they'll wind up in jail for a few days for loitering, panhandling, or some other offense against society. But they'll have a place to shower, food three times a day, and a bed -- no matter how hard to sleep on, in a place where there are no drunks prowling through, looking for those who don't know to sleep on top of their few belongings, as in many shelters. They may gain a social worker in a more enlightened jail system, who will get them enrolled in a GED program or get them into some program that will help them become employable. Whether or not that will lead to a job is another step down the line, because many employers will not hire an ex-convict. This is poverty right here in America.
The problem, as one elderly lady in my first church made me aware, is that the stories of the poor can be so devastating to the hearer that they lose heart. If the lives of the poor are really so awful, so basic, what can the average person possibly do to lift them up? We might think, "Well, if they have nothing, then anything you do to help makes a big difference! But no, we need to break down the problems of those who are destitute so that our parishioners can grasp one problem, one need, and address that so that they can feel some sense of accomplishment in helping. We need to point out that no one wants to be poor, to be dependent, to degrade themselves by begging, especially because there are those who will proclaim loudly that all those people on the street corners could well have a fortune, earned by begging, squirreled away somewhere.
If you want to give your congregation some illustrations that will help them to picture how their giving helps, go to YouTube and look for the AmazingLife247 videos. They are powerful and convincing.
If that sounds familiar, we need to take care in our preparation to preach these passages, because the epistle lesson tells us that we have the power to transform the world simply because we are the children of God. God gives his children his own power, through the gift of the Spirit of Wisdom, so that we can do the very things Jesus did in his life on earth. In fact, we have more power than that because we have the power that God showed in resurrecting Jesus at our disposal.
Finally, we are presented again with the last judgment scene where Jesus speaks to those on his left and his right, telling them that what they did in life determines where they will be in death. Are we going to use what we have to transform the world? Or will we look past the problems that surround us so that we can feel safe, secure, and comforted by our things rather than the Spirit?
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
The reading from Ezekiel for today is from a longer passage in which Ezekiel is told to prophesy against the "shepherds of Israel." In fact, most of the book of Ezekiel is a criticism of a country that had come to be rich in its own eyes. They swaggered that they were the chosen people of God "a kingdom of priests" (see Exodus 19:6), rather than attending to what God meant by that: they were to "be a light" to the nations around them, a light that would attract them into the family of God. How were they to do that? By being holy and righteous; meaning, a people who always look to God and seek to do the right thing, not as so many understand that word today, i.e., "self-righteous." The other nations would then see their rich land, fat cattle and sheep, and healthy, robust people for what they were -- a blessing from God to a people who lived by God's word.
But all of that was to come to an abrupt end. In 597 BCE Babylon was on the march, and they had invaded Israel and carried away the leadership into exile. How could this have happened to God's chosen people? It is no surprise that Ezekiel's prophetic ministry begins with eating a scroll on which were written "words of lamentation and mourning and woe." How else could a proud and prosperous people react to their capture and exile? Especially when they received word that Jerusalem and even God's temple were about to be destroyed.
Ezekiel confronts the exiles with their failures and criticizes the leaders of Israel. This includes religious leaders as well as political rulers with particular attention to the temple and how the religious rites were carried out. This passage picks up on all that has gone before in criticizing the way in which the religious leaders ("shepherds") had been taking care of themselves rather than tending to the people ("sheep") they had been appointed to serve. It is a metaphor that particularly spoke to the people of God, who had roots as a nomadic people and whose lives revolved around their flocks of sheep and goats. The image of a shepherd and his flocks was a major metaphor for the people and their leaders down through the ages. King David himself had been a shepherd in his youth, and even when he was clearly a renegade fighting King Saul, he spoke in terms of his leadership as a shepherd for God's people. When he stole Uriah's wife and married her, the prophet Nathan accused him of murder and adultery in the language of a lamb and its owner (see 2 Samuel 12).
So Ezekiel is using a metaphor that had for centuries been Israel's understanding of their relationship with God. He says, "You eat the curds [from milking the flock], clothe yourselves with the wool [sheared each spring from the sheep], and slaughter the choice animals [to eat]." All of which is the prerogative of the shepherd. After all, that's what sheep are for!
But a decent shepherd also tends to his flock. He keeps them from brambles that can catch in their wool and trap them. He provides shelter when storms come. He leads them to tender grasses so they have food they enjoy. He leads them to quiet water, knowing that they are fearful of fast-running streams. He keeps them close to each other to prevent wandering, and so lambs are protected. He looks for signs of something stuck in their hooves or sickness coming on. If a lamb is orphaned, he may carry it along as the flock moves from place to place so it isn't abandoned to predators. He medicates them when they need it and binds up any wounds they suffer so that they don't become infected.
But the shepherds of Israel had not done this. They were only looking for what the sheep could do for them, ignoring the fact that this is a reciprocal relationship. They had the same responsibilities to their people that shepherds have for their flock. Though his accusations are couched in agrarian images, this is a highly political argument. He is addressing the leadership about their responsibilities to the people they govern, saying they need to care for the little people, not just themselves.
This is an interesting perspective from which to look at our world today. We can start with the political questions: What is the responsibility of the governmental officials to the people they govern? In today's world, we think that this is a question of which branch of government ought to have the power to pass laws and enforce them, or a question of whose moral standards ought to be followed. Should the federal government have the power to dictate morality? Or should states be able to ignore federal leaders and pass their own laws regarding right to life issues, such as the death penalty, euthanasia, abortion, and birth control? Ezekiel would not disagree entirely that those are the issues that demand our attention, but his entire ministry is aimed at making those in power listen to the needs of their people: safety, food, shelter, and care for those who have no power to care for themselves, such as widows, orphans, the poor (Leviticus 25:45), and immigrants (Exodus 22:21, 23:9; Leviticus 19:34; Deuteronomy 10:19, 14:29).
Ezekiel would have loved it when the current pope, Francis, chastised and threatened an American Roman Catholic bishop who was in the midst of a $4,000,000 renovation to the mansion the church provided for him. The world was consternated. But this brouhaha was entirely in line with today's reading. What should this bishop have done with that money, rather than renovating the bishop's home? Ezekiel's answer (and the pope's): He should have spent it in strengthening the weak, healing the sick, seeking for those who have left the church or never called any church their home (see v.4). This is only one example in one denomination of the church today. One man in my early days in ministry told me that he would never give a penny to missions because he had been in the office of the person in charge of missions on the national level in our denomination, and it was huge and luxuriously appointed, and he didn't want the money he gave to missions being spent that way rather than on the people in need all over the world.
E. Stanley Jones, an amazingly successful Methodist missionary in India in the days of the Raj, became friends with leaders of the self-determination movement there. He once commented that Gandhi, who had a great respect for Jesus, had been teaching that the English missionaries needed to have more respect for the Indian culture and mindset. He summed up his idea by saying, "Christian missionaries have been in India for nearly 2,000 years. If they had lived their faith as well as preached it, all of India would be Christian now."
In our society today, most of our population is divorced from the farms where our food animals are raised. We don't go out to the barn, as our great-grandparents did, to milk the cows or slaughter an animal so we can eat over the winter. The farmer who doesn't watch out for his cows' health is quickly spending money to have the veterinarian come out, spends hoped-for profits on medicines or loses an animal that might have given twelve gallons of milk a day for many years, not to mention the calves she might have borne to expand the herd. And this is only covering the physical needs of the cow, not the psychological needs, such as how and when to remove a new calf off his mother's udder so the calf will survive. The average American has no such understanding of how one has to care for the animals that supply us with food, so these images from Ezekiel need to be explained or translated into modern, urban metaphors if our parishioners are to understand what the prophet is saying.
What we can understand, hopefully, is that power and wealth are not intended by God to be accumulated for self-aggrandizement, but we are supposed to use that power and wealth to make life better for those around us as well as ourselves. Shouldn't those with the ability to feed others do so? Shouldn't the owner of the company share the profits with the workers?
It was the lack of compassion for the people that put the leadership of Israel into exile, says Ezekiel. They were taken there because they had been exploiting the common people, and this was how God chose to put an end to their evil.
Instead, God is going to put things back the way they were before Israel demanded that they have a king, like the nations around them. God will be the shepherd of his people. He will lead them to new lush pastures. He will see to it that the lost will be found and brought back to the land God gave them. He will judge between "sheep and sheep" -- the rich vs. the poor, not just the leaders, but those who have more than enough and still elbow others out of the way in their stampede to accumulate.
However, God will establish a leader for the people. This will be his servant David, who will feed them and act as a loving shepherd toward them. He will care for all their needs, the way a good shepherd would do. God will oversee what his servant is doing to see to it that the people are properly cared for. This is the basis of the hope for a promised Messiah, who will rule the people with compassion, not greed.
Ephesians 1:15-23
Ephesus was a major city in the first century CE. It was a center for religious pilgrimage, being as it was the home of the main temple of Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt and of wild animals, and in urban areas, the goddess of fertility and childbirth -- even though she was virgin (the Romans renamed her Diana). As such, it was also the home of artisans who created images of Artemis for the tourist trade. This is the scene of Paul's famous confrontation with these artisans, headed by Demetrius, where he is brought to trial and claims his rights as a Roman citizen to a trial before Caesar.
The letter itself does not bear the marks of language we associate with Paul, nor does it jibe with Paul's thought expressed elsewhere. Therefore, there is much debate among scholars as to the authorship (see The Interpreter's Study Bible, p. 2089 for a full discussion). Some believe that it is a compilation of Paul's late teaching preserved by his students. The fact that the text sounds as though the author and the recipients don't know each other tends to support this latter idea, because Paul had spent three years at Ephesus and knew the Christians there quite well.
Despite these questions, the passage for today speaks of the heart of the gospel. The Ephesians, according to verse 15, have learned the Great Commandment that Jesus identified in Matthew 22:37-39: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind... And... Love your neighbor as yourself." Their faith in Jesus and their love "for all the saints" are the proof of this. This fact has made Paul give thanks for them in his daily prayers.
However, he does not just give thanks to God for their faith, he "keeps asking" God to give them a spirit of wisdom (as the NIV translates the phrase; it could be the Spirit of wisdom). We will discuss that difference of translation in a moment. But we need to stop here and contemplate -- when we pray for one another, what do we usually ask for? That they have good health? That they might find a new job? For a loving spouse? All of these things are good things to hope for. Or do we pray that they might win the lottery, get a raise, or find a great car? Are our prayers for ourselves and others for material things? Or are they of a spiritual order, like Paul's prayers?
What is the point of asking for a spirit of wisdom? The author says it's not so we can discern the future or plan well -- those things might come with wisdom, but Paul says that the gift of the Spirit will help them (and us) to know God better. The Spirit (whether we call it the Holy Spirit or the/a spirit of wisdom) draws us closer to God, not by imparting knowledge such as we might get from a Bible study, but an intimate understanding of God. It gives us a sense of the presence of God daily in our lives. It strengthens us in the face of trouble, because we know that God is with us in whatever circumstance we are facing.
This ability to sense God's presence in our lives is called enlightenment. It is the ability to sense the reality that underpins the world and our life in it. The author says that enlightenment allows us to know hope -- that is, to experience the glory of God and the fact that we will inherit that same kind of glory.
There is an interesting biblical meaning to that word "glory." In Hebrew, that word is the same as the word that refers to the robes of the high priest or the royal robes that the king puts on for ceremonial occasions. The implication is that glory is something we can put on, much as a king puts on his ceremonial robes. So the Spirit nudges us to put on God's glory, to use that glory to become more holy, as God is holy. It is literally part of the inheritance we are entitled to as children of God. Just as princes and princesses are entitled to honor simply because they are part of the royal family, so we have honor also. Just as there are special rules of behavior for princes and princesses, there are special rules of behavior for us. Just as princes and princesses have power to make their requests known, so do we.
The author goes even further in verses 19-20: The power we have, simply because we are children of God, is "like the working of his mighty strength" to accomplish things that people generally don't believe they can accomplish. That "mighty strength" of God is seen in the resurrection of Christ from the dead. God had allowed Jesus to go to the cross, to suffer and die, and to be buried. It took strength as only God has to pry him from the clutches of death and not only restore him to life, but to seat him, as the Christ ("Anointed One") in a position of honor and power (the meaning of him sitting "at [God's] right hand in the heavenly realms").
Our first response to these comments may be to say a quiet "wow!" And then we may shake our heads and say, "Well, that's all very well, but no one but God can raise the dead. And I'm no faith healer!" and we may even laugh a little embarrassed laugh. Who am I, after all, compared to Jesus? It's silly to think I might have such powers."
Marianne Williamson, writing in A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles, says, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." (apparently quoted by Nelson Mandala in his inauguration speech)
Perhaps we can better accept this truth about ourselves in children's literature. There are innumerable writers who put this idea in their works, but I most like the way Shel Silverstein says it: "Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be." Probably all those "impossibles" and "mustn'ts" drill the opposite into us. But this passage to the Ephesians tells us that Ms. Williamson and Mr. Silverstein are onto something.
We are modern disciples of that Christ, who had God place "who fills everything in every way." Can we begin, even a little, to ask ourselves and each other what it means that we are children of God, the same God who raised Jesus from the dead and placed everything under his feet? What could we be accomplishing if we took this writing seriously and quit worrying about how others would think of us if we claimed such power? What changes might we make in the world?
Matthew 25:31-46
We have heard this passage so many times, usually aimed at making us change our behavior, that the average person in the pew is most likely to say to herself, "Oh, this one again. Right, right, I'm to be judged on how I care for others. Yawn."
The problem is that the poor are often invisible to the average person in America. One of the trustees in a certain church came to me and said, "I got a call from one of our neighbors about the man who's sleeping behind the chapel in our graveyard. Do you know anything about that?"
Well, in a nutshell, no, I didn't do a tour of the old cemetery each night, or even every week, though I felt guilty that someone could have been sleeping out there every night for weeks. How could I have missed that? Turns out it was easy. He had spread cardboard on the ground between the chapel and a row of bushes, and even when we were only a few feet from his improvised bed there was little evidence of his presence. Sadly, our trustees' solution was to confront the man and tell him to move on.
This fellow was from Bosnia, a country where a poor man like himself might get work from the local priest and be allowed to sleep in the church until other arrangements could be made. How do I know? Well, our custodian found him sleeping on a pew in the sanctuary one night and got that part of the story. The custodian came and got me, and the fellow and I had a short conversation in which I allowed him to sleep there that night, since it was too late to get him into any shelter in the city, and the next morning he was to come to my door for some breakfast. My secretary was horrified that I let him sit at my kitchen table. (My housekeeper had shamed me into that; I would have served him on the back step, out of the same fear that made my secretary react so strongly.)
We are afraid of the poor. Most of us know instinctively that we are one catastrophe away from losing our home, our car, our place in the world. One hurricane, tornado, or earthquake can change not just our lives, but the lives of everyone in our neighborhood or town. In any city one can see the old and the young pushing shopping carts piled with garbage bags that contain everything they own in the world. We could see people in bus station bathrooms, washing their hair in one of the sinks, wringing out a tank top they've just used the last of the soap to wash. Most cities have laws against "panhandling" -- in other words, begging for enough change to eat. Out in the country the poor are better hidden, living in trailers out in the trees, where they park a number of cars from which they can get parts to repair the one or two that they need to get around.
I wasn't long out of seminary when I was posted to a small-town church. I lived in a parsonage where the first floor bathroom had an outside door so that those who needed to use a toilet could come over from the church to do so. They could not afford to build a bathroom in the church. Of course, I put a deadbolt lock on the door into the house and locked it before I went over to lead worship. There were (no surprise) a few shocked parishioners: "Don't you trust us?"
One day, a pregnant young woman and her younger sister came to the door to beg some groceries. As I was packing up some basics from the pantry, the girl couldn't resist stepping further into the house. Her eye fell on the lace tablecloth on the dining table. "You must be rich," she said with awe in her voice. "No, I'm not..." but I stopped. Of course I was. I didn't need to beg. I was one of those who had enough food in the house to feed a family for at least a couple of days. I had the $10 to put a cheap lace tablecloth on the table.
The problem is the poor have no money for the laundromat. If they don't have a house to live in, they have no bathtub in which to soak off the dirt of the street. If they're lucky, we will arrange for them to stay in a motel one night so they can sleep without interruption, take a bath, wash their clothes, and feel safe for a few hours in a room that actually has a lock, unlike the shelters, which often will not or cannot accommodate families. If they're unlucky, they'll wind up in jail for a few days for loitering, panhandling, or some other offense against society. But they'll have a place to shower, food three times a day, and a bed -- no matter how hard to sleep on, in a place where there are no drunks prowling through, looking for those who don't know to sleep on top of their few belongings, as in many shelters. They may gain a social worker in a more enlightened jail system, who will get them enrolled in a GED program or get them into some program that will help them become employable. Whether or not that will lead to a job is another step down the line, because many employers will not hire an ex-convict. This is poverty right here in America.
The problem, as one elderly lady in my first church made me aware, is that the stories of the poor can be so devastating to the hearer that they lose heart. If the lives of the poor are really so awful, so basic, what can the average person possibly do to lift them up? We might think, "Well, if they have nothing, then anything you do to help makes a big difference! But no, we need to break down the problems of those who are destitute so that our parishioners can grasp one problem, one need, and address that so that they can feel some sense of accomplishment in helping. We need to point out that no one wants to be poor, to be dependent, to degrade themselves by begging, especially because there are those who will proclaim loudly that all those people on the street corners could well have a fortune, earned by begging, squirreled away somewhere.
If you want to give your congregation some illustrations that will help them to picture how their giving helps, go to YouTube and look for the AmazingLife247 videos. They are powerful and convincing.
