Ephesians 1:3-14
We are ready
to live more fully and faithfully into the Christmas story. The story is only beginning when we say with
a great sense of relief, “God is with us.”
In what way is God with us? What
does it mean for God to be with us and to what extent? How can we flourish now that God has arrived and is
in our midst? Is it a personal feeling that we receive a few times a year or in
a lifetime; or is there something more radical and restorative at stake? The Christmas story emerges with the
incarnation and goes deep in the manifestation of the arrival.
Well meaning
people have led us astray in their interpretations of key passages over the
years. My goal is to offend just about everyone today and therefore reposition
all of us in a journey that is less about what we think IT is all about and in
line with what IT might be all about—perhaps anyway.
Sometimes we
can get lost in trees in such a way that we are blinded by the smaller trees to
the extent of the size of the forest. This is one such text that has a tendency
to blind us to the bigger picture because we are so enamored by the wrong
smaller things. In other words we get carried away by the distractions. My
intent is to help us see with a new imagination that is in line with what the
first listeners heard as a way forward for us in an as equally as complicated
geo-political social setting. Are you ready?
You will have to pay attention to this one.
I
would like to begin with three fictitious interpretations of this introduction
to Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus. The first character is Terry the
Traditionalist. S/he would read it as follows. In a nihilistic and
self-centered world we need strong appeals to authority and hierarchy, So God
the father is as good of a place to start as any. We are elected to our new
stature of holiness through the blood offering of Christ in the power of the
Holy Spirit. IT is all about the doctrine that is righted here in Paul’s
letter. This stuff will preach! Bring it
Preacher man!
Secondly
we turn our attention to Progressive Pamela: Terry I think you exist to get
under my skin. Your doctrinal platitudes apart from any relationship sound more
like fingernails scratching across the chalkboard than anything else. Paul
never wrote this letter and neither did any of his misogynistic co-horts. Not
to mention the fact that you call God “Father” marginalizes and alienates over
half of the women on the planet. This nonsense assertion that God had to redeem
us with the blood of his own son makes all of us murdering child abusers and is
quite offensive because it is the love of God that redeems not some blood-thirsty
God bent on a new cultic substitutionary atonement and social justice theory.
Not to mention this heavy deterministic language that imposes all western
cultural practices on the less powerful and is what is wrong with all of the
previous missionary movements on the planet. The importing of your cultural
conditions on everyone else becomes the capitalistic survival of the strong
over the weak and is hardly Jesus’ gospel. Arghhh…I am exhausted with this line
of thinking!
Finally
our attention turns to Don the Deconstructionist. Frankly both of you are
driving me crazing. Get over yourselves. It is not about either of these it is
about getting rid of all grand narratives whether it is the doctrinal determinism
of God or the people who bring about peace and justice through optimistic
humanism. Neither approach worked; they both end in the same place—the bloodiest
in recorded history—through Stalin, Hitler and the bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. Frankly, any and all gods are killing us. The only way forward is to
remove all metanarratives and let people live how they want to live. Period!
Don’t
you kind of pity the Pastor that has to swim in these waters—it is my/our blessing
and curse to do so with what I think are some thoughts to help us move forward.
I
warned you that I would leave no rock left unturned. Here is my point why are
all of these adventures in missing the point? While they each contain an
element of truth, not one of them contains all of truth. I don’t have the time
to successfully dismantle the failures of each although I do have enough
sarcasm, but then I would be missing the point. In order to get this text and
the point we have to unpack the culture at the time of hearing this text.
Our
cultural clash today is not so different from the day of Paul and the spread of
early Christianity. Remember Paul is writing to Jews who live in Greek
countries apart from their Jewish Jerusalem. AND Paul is broadening inclusion
to Greek communities that had never been part of any Jewish community. This
issue is who will one align with? What is the nature of our set apartness? What
story will we align with? Jewish? Greek? Christian? Pagan? Syncretistic story?
Where and how does one receive harmony in the midst of a choir of distinctive
voices? The traditionalist aligns with doctrine not Emmanuel. The progressive
aligns with science and human utopias not with Emmanuel. And the
deconstructionist aligns with a no story story which is still its big picture
story. All adventures in missing the point!!!!
One
more piece of history then on to answering our question-what does it mean to
flourish today? Here is the issue. In 31 BCE Octavian defeated Anthony for
control of Rome. He took the name “Augustus” whose name means “revered.” He was
called the “savior” of the world who had brought “peace” everyone everywhere.
Caesar Augustus became known as the gift of Providence equal in our text this
day as the one who is “equal to the Beginning of all things.” Listen to what
else he was said to have done in light of the phrases in our text this morning.
Ready? I hope so. Here is what Caesar
Augustus allegedly did:
He “put an
end to war and set all things in order”
He “gave to
the whole world a new aura”
Beginning
with his birth, marked the “beginning of good news.”
And thus was
“god-manifest”
With citizens
to celebrate his reign in “assemblies”
This is the essence of the Pax Romana;
it was the Roman Empire that secured peace, security for all, and an expanding
global economy through a common language, building of roads, and the fullness
of times. The alleged peace came through power, violence and in-justice.
Paul is asking us to choose this
Christmas which manifestation of God with us we will align ourselves with; the Pax Romana of our day usually robed in
an American flag or the Pax Christi. Is it any wonder why the first Christians
called the first missionary movement the Pax
Christi? It was in direct opposition to the Pax Romana and even used identical phraseologies. Paul asks us to
do the same today. I ask you to do the same today. Which kingdom manifestation
will you align with; Presidents and politicians or the peace of Christ? It is
that simple. Do you want to flourish? Then align with the pax Christi.
So was this well received? I like how you have a go at the three major positions, enough to upset just about everybody, I hope they didn't tune out.
Would love to get together some time. It's been way too long
Posted by: neil | January 14, 2010 at 09:02 PM