Ephesians 1:1-14
June 1
David A. Davis
Jump to audio
Our granddaughter Franny celebrated her fourth birthday in April. Her mother broke the rule of inviting the same number of children to the party as the age of the one celebrating. But there is a rule in Franny’s pre-k class that if you invite one, you understandably have to invite all. Cathy and I went to the Bronx a day early on a stunningly beautiful spring Friday to help set the backyard for a party of 15 four-year-olds and their families. Saturday, the day of the party, was, of course, cold and rainy. So we spent the morning moving furniture around the house and getting the toy room formerly known as a home office ready for the afternoon guests.
As the children started to arrive, they represented all the diversity of a NYC pre-school one can imagine. Otto had brown skin and came with her two abuelas, who spoke little English. Rachel came with both parents after Shabbat services. Malachi, with black skin, came with both his Puerto Rican moms. Dillan, who looked a bit like me when I was his age, was stocky, and his blond hair was sticking out pretty much in every direction. At one point during the exhausting afternoon, I stuck my head into the toy room. I think all fifteen four-year-olds were in there. Most of the parents were just in the next room getting to know each other. The toy room, though, was strangely quiet. There was no arguing about toys. No tiffs about space. Then I realized that the children were all playing by themselves. Surrounded by Franny and her little sister’s toys, which were all new to the classmates. It was like being in a toy store. But they weren’t playing with each other. It was like speed dating with toys as they moved around the room. Each child is playing with a toy of some sort. They all seemed to rotate to the next toy like gymnasts rotating around the various pieces of equipment. They were together, but they weren’t. They were playing but not collaborating. They were all in the same room while being in their own four-year-old world.
My observation must have still been hanging around in my head as I read the first chapter of Ephesians over and over this week in my office. “…blessed us in Christ…God chose us in Christ…God destined us for adoption as God’s children…the glorious grace that God freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption…the riches of his grace that he lavished on us…God has made known to us the mystery of God’s will…In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance…we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ…as God’s own people, to the praise of God’s glory.” Us. Us. Us. We. We. We. God’s children through Jesus Christ, “according to the good pleasure of God’s will”. God’s good pleasure made known in and through Jesus Christ to us. Us. Us. Us. It’s not the royal we but it is the “holy we”.
Another observation hanging around in my head for a few weeks was the morning of Confirmation two Sundays ago. The incredible morning of worship and affirming faith in Jesus Christ included the baptisms of Sterling, Isaac, and Nico. Like Mark Edwards in his sermon, I was focused on getting through the baptisms without too many of my own tears. A choir member told me afterward how meaningful it was to be up here in the chancel and able to see the faces of the parents and siblings. I had to try not to look and focus solely on the young men standing before me. I joked with the families about having to reach up for the baptisms. You probably have observed that our common practice at Nassau Church for infant baptism is one family, one child, one baptism per service. But that trinity of baptisms underscored the “holy we” to which God calls us. As the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA) puts it, “No one comes to Baptism alone; we are encouraged by family or friends and surrounded by the community of faith.”
The community of faith, together, standing along the river bank of God’s grace, affirming over and over again the reach of God’s mercy, the first touch of God’s love, and the endless nature of God’s compassion. Here at the fount, basking in what one liturgical theologian describes as “the kiss of God.” Hearing not once, not twice, but three times, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Celebrating our adoption as God’s children in triple forte. Marking with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, “the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of God’s glory.” The “holy we”, experiencing in sacramental form what the Apostle Paul tries to express in words in the first chapter of Ephesians. The inexpressible giftedness of our life in Christ. The seal of God’s love. Marked forever as children of God. We are God’s own forever etched with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit’s mark given in the very fullness of God’s time, in all the mystery of God’s will, far beyond our comprehension, affirming deep within that we know far more than we can ever say about our life in God. About belonging to God now and forever. That you and I, we, us, are indeed God’s good pleasure.
Yes, of course, God’s good pleasure, this “holy we”, is much, much more than Nassau Presbyterian Church. The embrace of God’s everlasting arms reaches far and wide. Every time we gather at the fount, every time we come to the Table, it is a splash, a taste of the kingdom God intends for the world. One of the reasons the we, we, we, and the us, us, us leap off the scripture’s page this week is the gospel teaching that “we” and “us” in the eyes and heart of Jesus is always bigger, broader, greater than you and I can comprehend. God’s promise and God’s mercy stretch far beyond what you and I can imagine. The we, we, we, and the us, us, us leap off the page this week because the powers and principalities are in the business right now of demonizing, dismissing, dehumanizing, threatening, harming, getting rid of “THEM”. Hundreds of thousands of “them” near and whose lives and families and children are at risk with mass layoffs in the blink of an eye, benefits being crushed buried deep within budgets, decisions released unsigned by courts late on a Friday afternoon, and orders callously signed and celebrated by the wealthiest and most powerful in the world. You and I know in the deepest parts of our soul, way down in our bones, you and I know and dare to believe and so live, that “THEM” is and will always be “US”, we, the children of God. They, too, are God’s good pleasure. All of humankind. All is God’s good pleasure. All within the embrace of the everlasting arms.
A couple in my first congregation had a farm in Maine where they would spend the summers. The husband once described to me the small country church they attended each Sunday. It was a Methodist Church that could seat maybe 100 people, and it was about a third full, he said. “I still sit in the back, though,” he told me, knowing that I knew exactly where he sat when they were in New Jersey. “But up there, I don’t sit on the right, I sit on the left. That way, I can see the cows in the pasture next to the church.” The son of a Methodist preacher, he went on to say that when the preacher was going on too long, he enjoyed looking out the window. “With all due respect”, he said with a chuckle, “the beauty of creation proclaims the gospel promise of God better than the preacher.” I can’t disagree. As Norman Maclean put it in his description of the beauty of creation in his book “A River Runs Through it”: “Every afternoon I was set free, untouched and untutored to learn on my own the natural side of God’s order. And there can be no better place to learn than the Montana of my youth. It was a world with dew still on it, more touched by wonder and possibility than any I have since known.” The world with dew still on it.
Have you noticed that most, if not all, the Sundays we have been worshipping here at the Seminary Chapel have been stunningly beautiful? Like that Methodist Church in Maine, here in the Chapel, we can look out at the world. There are no cows to look at, but there is creation in full bloom. This morning, with a sky so blue that it points to “a world with dew still on it, touched by wonder and possibility.” A sky that whispers of the world God intends. Creation can proclaim the gospel promise of God.
No one comes to the fount of baptism alone. No one comes to the table of the Lord’s Supper alone. Coming forward for communion this morning puts an exclamation point on that. Our Savior invites each one of us to this table prepared for us. The table of his promise. The meal of his grace, mercy, and love. A foretaste not just of glory divine but a foretaste of the kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven. Jesus invites us here to remind us that we are indeed God’s good pleasure. Jesus invites us here, for when the earth shakes and the nations totter, we still feast on his love, crave his mercy, and are nourished by his grace. For as Jesus says in the of times like this in gospel of Luke, “This will be a time for you to bear testimony”.
Come to the Table this morning. And before and after you receive the bread and cup, look around and give thanks for the “holy we” to which we have been called. Don’t taste and see that God is good by yourself. And when you turn from the table, toward the outer aisles, make sure to look out the window. Look out at the world God created. For it is by the wonder and mystery of God, still a world with dew still on it touched by the wonder and possibility. A world of God’s promise. A new heaven and a new earth. Take a look out the window and remember that in Jesus Christ, our best days are always yet to come.