That You May Be Full

From his prison cell, Paul has time to think and pray and pass on wisdom. One commentator writes, “In this letter, Paul takes us to the mountaintops of Christian truth and invites us to look at the breathtaking view! When we do so, we see that it is Jesus Christ who dominates that view.”

Ephesians doesn’t answer a letter asking questions about how to run the church or for advice on dealing with the issues that a congregation is facing. In fact, none of the early Greek manuscripts say that the letter is addressed to any one congregation. Our translation says, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saint in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus.” But the early manuscripts read, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to all those who are saints and faithful in Christ Jesus.” (Barclay)

So what happened? It was likely a circular letter – a letter written to be passed from church to church throughout Asia Minor. A copy may have survived in Ephesus, and then because no other name was attached to it, been described as a letter to the Ephesians when really it is to all saints and faithful in Christ Jesus. It is written even to us.

The key thought of the letter is the gathering together of all things in Jesus. “God placed all things under his feet.” Everything is under Christ’s authority. There wasn’t any one issue that Paul was addressing. There were many issues. What laws remain? What is required and what is tradition? As the Gospel spread, unity challenged norms. Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians were in a power struggle. United? What about class divisions? United? What about racial divisions? United? What about nationality? United? What about ideology? United?
After our celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation last month, I have thought a lot about what has happened to the church over the last 500 years. We have divided, and divided again, and argued and divided again. And every time we divide, God’s Kingdom gets farther away. Our impact on the world divides and shrinks.
So, Paul’s prayer is for us, too. I keep asking God to give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so you may know God better. I pray for your hearts to see and know the hope to which he has called you, the incomparably great power for us who believe. The power is like God’s mighty strength, the same strength that raised Jesus from the dead and placed all things under his feet and appointed him head over everything for the church. The church that is his body, the fullness of Jesus Christ, in the world. Jesus is the head and the church is the body. One cannot exist without the other.

Paul prays for each of us to have the Spirit of wisdom, the Greek word is sophia, and it means to know the deep, eternal truths of God for ourselves. It is to have faith that has been examined, questioned, struggled with, and hobbled back together. It is to know more than the “right answers” passed down from the previous generation or the pastor or a Bible study leader. It is to search Scripture and your heart, to pray and seek to understand God’s way and will. And Paul prays that as we are seeking God would reveal himself to us, allowing us to know God better.

So that we might experience and be the hope God calls us to; we might receive God’s power, and then be the fullness of being Christ’s body. It is easy to lose hope. Every generation has looked around and thought, “Wow, this must be the end. Pessimists abound. Despair is readily available. William Barclay writes, “In every [person] there is a tension; every [person] is a walking civil war; there is a constant battle between the higher and the lower side of [being human]; [every person] is always torn between the desire for good and the desire for evil; [every person] hates his sins and loves his sins at one and the same time.” Every person is tempted to selfishness – individualism and independence.

But God calls us to be hope, to receive God’s power, and to be the fullness of Christ’s body in the world.
And yet, as we come to worship this Thanksgiving week. I imagine all of us have thoughts, as we list our blessings, of suffering, as well. We have so much to be thankful for…and yet: flooding and landslides from monsoon rains killed thousands of people this year, earthquakes in Mexico killed hundreds, hurricanes have changed lives forever. We have so much to be thankful for…and yet: identity theft and cyber security threats have never been more prevalent or impactful. We have so much to be thankful for…and yet: every year has its Charlottesville, Las Vegas, New York City, Antioch, TN, Southerland Springs, TX…largest mass murder eclipsed year over year by larger. We have so much to be thankful for…and yet: we will gather at tables that are missing some, we will gather at tables with some who are divided, we will gather at tables with pain, suffering, for some it will be the last time to gather…

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which God has called you, the lavish inheritance that is yours, and receive his incomparably great power. For Christ is the head and all the body is the church, the fullness of Christ in the world. Is it Pollyanna? Is it naïve? Is it even possible?

Jan Richardson is an artist and an author. I was moved by her response to this passage. She wrote this in 2014 (The Painted Prayerbook), but it is timeless. “Hope is a hard word for me these days. Last Friday marked a year since Gary had the surgery that would begin to bear him away from us. I think of those who waited with me with such hope throughout that surgery, throughout the two emergency surgeries that would follow, and throughout all the days we kept vigil with Gary until it became clear our vigil was at an end. What is the use of hoping, when hope comes to such a pass?

For those in grief, it is common to encounter well-meaning people who seek to stir our hope,…tell[ing] us our loss is part of a larger plan and a bigger mystery that we cannot know from here but that we will understand one day. I have a tremendous tolerance for mystery, a great capacity to abide the unknown. In the wake of my husband’s death, I am clear that when it comes to suffering, in the astounding variety of forms by which we experience it in this world, it is not enough to chalk it up to mystery, to a larger plan. It’s not that I’m not interested in the bigger mystery, or in knowing that I might have a better grasp of it someday in another world. It’s just that someday is not, in itself, sufficient to get me through this day, to move me from one moment to the next in this world where Gary is not.

In the midst of my grief, what I know is that hope, inexplicably, has not left me. That it is stubborn. That it lives in me like a muscle that keeps reaching and stretching, or a lung that keeps working even when I do not will it, persisting in the constant intake and release of breath on which my life depends…. A hope that is bound together with the life of the risen Christ, … Christ who wore our flesh and abides with us still, hoping for us when our hope is shattered, breathing new life into us, encompassing us in the arms of a community that holds us with hope.”

For all who suffer, God has called us to be hope – to receive God’s power to be Christ’s body in the world. So, as we give thanks, may we remember the yet…the suffering, the challenges, the hurt and pain, and may we pray for ourselves and one another, asking God for the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, to know God better, so that our hearts might be enlightened to know and be the hope to which God has called us, to receive God’s power, and to be the fullness of Christ’s body in the world. Amen.