Bill Countryman Good Shepherd Berkeley

July 14, 2024

EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Readings for Proper 10, Year B:  2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-10; Psalm 24; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:14-29

If you are like me, you probably won’t remember much about that reading from Ephesians—our second lesson this morning. It’s a long, complex blessing with Paul giving thanks for all the excellent qualities of the people he’s writing to. He’s devoutly praying—and also obeying the rules of classical rhetoric, which taught that a speaker should always begin by capturing the good will of the audience. What better way than by complimenting them?

In English, though, it kind of seems to ramble. The NRSV translation that we use at Good Shepherd has actually tried to clear things up for us a bit. In the Greek original, the whole thing is a single very long sentence. The NRSV has broken it up into six! If you’d like a better impression of the original pacing and rhythm, try reading the passage in the King James Version. You’ll find that there’s something more going on in this passage that gets lost when it’s cut up. That long, breathless sentence conveys the impression that Paul just can’t stop himself or suppress his excitement. Here is it inthe American Standard Version from 1901. Don’t worry too much about the words. Just listen to the flow of it. The point is as much the tone, the splendor, the exaltation as the words themselves.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ: even he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love: having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved: in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, making known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and things upon the earth; in him, I say, in whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will; to the end that we should be unto the praise of his glory, we who had before hoped in Christ: in whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation,—in whom, having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance, unto the redemption of God’s own possession, unto the praise of his glory.

I don’t find myself picking up ideas here so much as rhythms of excitement along with some key words and phrases like love, riches of grace, adoption, fulness of times, praise, glory, sealed with promise. Paul, the skillful rhetorician, is conveying a climate of awe and amazement. He’s telling us that God has taken us all and raised us to a new kind of human life, pervaded and empowered by God’s love, which isn’t something we’ve earned, but something that God has just showered on us. 

Why? Why would God do that? I don’t think any of us is likely to feel that we’ve deserved it. We have more self-awareness than that. And Paul certainly didn’t think that way; he was very conscious of his history as a persecutor of Christians. Paul insists that this was all God’s doing, from the ground up. God chose us. God even “foreordained” us. Why? Not because we’re all that good, but because God is.

Of course, this language raises some problems for us. We rather like to think that we have somecontrol over our own lives and that we make our own decisions in this regard. And there’s truth in that. But Paul wants us to understand that the initiative doesn’t come from us. And our own ability to respond to the gospel—this good news of love and faithfulness—that, too, is a gift. 

Paul, of course, was particularly aware of all this. So far from deserving any favors from God, he had been persecuting the Christians. And God yanked him back quite forcibly. But Paul saw that, in various ways (mostly less dramatic) everyone who draws close to God does that not because we’re so knowing and faithful and good, but because God is. And God keeps calling, keeps drawing people in. That call can be quite gentle, almost too subtle for us to be aware of it: someone “tries out” Good Shepherd because it’s a beautiful building and a neighborhood institution, because a friend goes there and finds it worthwhile, or just out of curiosity, without intending anything in particular. 

This isn’t something restricted to religion. All of human life is full of “callings” like that, not all of them necessarily of deep import. It’s just the way human life works. Often we can’t explain exactly how we got started on this or that hobby, how we started liking opera, how we got started reading that author or this kind of book. Things pop up and we respond with curiosity, attraction, enthusiasm—but we respond

God doesn’t usually work by ordering people around. God is more given to nudges—or oblique questions, embarrassing second thoughts, doors open just a crack in what one had thought of as a solid wall. God is mystery. And everything to do with God is likely to have some of that quality. 

And one of those mysteries appears here when Paul tells us we’re foreordained (or “predestined” in other translations). He’s not saying we’re good and meritorious and have earned some favors from the Almighty. Just the opposite. We’re people who live by grace, by gift—gifts directly from God, yes, and gifts from each other. At one point, Paul says that God does all this “to the praise of the glory of his grace.” Because to be invited into God’s own intimate family is the biggest, most gracious gift imaginable. 

We all sometimes think of our religion, our faith, as something we do. And, yes, we are deeply involved in it. But, more fundamentally, it’s something we’re given—from God and through our sisters and brothers around us. And Paul, in this passage, is exalting that gift as the doorway to a life of joy and praise and shared community. Sometimes, people assume that faith is about following rules and doing good. And, yes, when we discover God’s love and decide to honor it starts to shape our lives. But at the heart of it, faith isn’t something we do. It’s something we’re given! And the praise belongs to the One who gives it to us—not to us.