Ephesians 3:1-13
Rev. Rebecca M. Heilman-Campbell
One of my favorite holiday movies is National Lampoon’s Christmas
Vacation with Chevy Chase. Have you seen it? Its humor is irreverent and risky.
We love it. We have a story in my family that is similar to when Chevy Chase’s
family sits down for their Christmas meal. In this classic movie, it’s loud and
chaotic around the table and Clark invites Aunt Bethany to say the blessing. Aunt
Bethany can’t hear a lick of anything! When asked, she says, “what?”And her
husband, sitting next to her yells in her ear, “Grace! Say Grace.” And Aunt
Bethany replies, “Grace? She passed away thirty years ago.” When she finally
understands that she’s supposed to bless the food, there’s a long pause and slow
Christmas music crescendos in the background. She bows her head, puts her
hands together, takes a deep breath, and then says the pledge of allegiance. I
think everyone rolls their eyes and joins in while Cousin Eddie stands and places a
hand over his heart.
We have a similar story in my family. My grandmother, who we called
Marsie, quickly fell into dementia and Alzheimer after my grandfather died. We
have a cousin, married into to the family, who takes prayer VERY seriously. And
when asked to pray (and we often don’t ask him), he will go on and on and on.
After about three minutes of praying, which you all know is a long time, my sweet
grandmother, who, with her dementia got sweeter and sweeter, pipes up and
interrupts this cousin, with a loud “AMEN.” She wanted the prayer to be over. We
lost it. The room hunches over with giggles and sniffles of laughter. And guess
what, this cousin keeps on praying. It’s a story we will never forget. And it’s a story
that reminds me that sometimes prayer needs to be interrupted with laughter.
Laughter is as much of a prayer as anything. And let’s be honest, sometimes a
prayer is too long and an interruption is a blessing. Have you ever tried to
meditate and notice how thoughts come in and out of your mind? We just can’t
help it! We’re human!
That’s what has happened in our story today. Up to this point in Paul’s letter
to the Ephesians, he has been in prayer with them. And now, he interrupts his
prayer to make the mystery of Christ known. And my goodness, isn’t Christ, isn’t
our faith a mystery? The author Ross Douthat, writes about our desire as reformed
Christians to simplify Christ, our faith, and the mystery of it. How we are always
looking for an answer, the right answer, the truth about God, but ultimately, we
lean further into questions. Think about it. We declare undeniable trust that Christ
is both human and divine. Never being certain. God is omnipotent and
omniscient. God is both, we’ll never declare one. That the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit are three in one, a concept so hard to explain, we just agree to it. We
declare that faith alone saves us, yet faith without works is dead. I won’t event
mention predestination and where we Presbyterians land on that. By not
choosing one over the other, we open our faith to more questions and lean into
the mystery of faith, trusting that we don’t need to know it all. Listen to this quote
by Ross Douthat. He writes, “Time and again, in the early centuries…, the
councils of the Church had the opportunity to resolve the dilemmas and shore up
the fragile [theories]—to streamline Christianity, rationalize it, minimize the
paradoxes and the difficulties, make it more consistent and less mysterious.”1 But
we don’t. The church, “could have joined the movement called Gnosticism” in an
attempt to minimize the problem of good and evil (a question we all have).2 But
we don’t. We have questions more than ever! Instead, we know as Douthat states,
that “Mystery abides at the heart of every religious faith, but the Christian
tradition is uniquely comfortable preaching dogmas that can seem like riddles,
offering answers that swiftly lead to further questions, and confronting believers
with the possibility that the truth about God surpasses all our understanding.”3
We like the mystery of God. We like the mystery of our faith. It’s what keeps us
coming back for more. At least for me, that’s why I’m here.
We cannot know the ultimate truth about God. That is for certain, but that
does not mean there are things about God we cannot know. That’s how Paul is
using the word “mystery” here. Mystery, in the original Greek, does not mean
that something is unknowable. Rather, the mystery can be known through a
revelation. That God, through the Holy Spirit, does the work of revealing the
truth.4 So now that I’ve taken you on a theological roller coaster (I pray, not
wasting your time with my nerdy reads), you may ask, “well, what IS the mystery
Paul is talking about?”
Y’all, is it really a mystery? The Holy Spirit reveals to Paul that the mystery is
togetherness, unity, fellowship, a community where all people are welcome. As
Stan Mast, a theologian states, “The mystery, in a word, is the “church”.5 What I
love about Paul, and our faith of centuries old, is that we say beautiful prayers,
and speak of complicated theological terms, and go on and on and on asking the
question, “is Jesus human or divine?” when Paul pauses his letter of prayer and
reminds us, his listeners, that “you know what? The mystery of faith isn’t much of
a mystery at all.” Through Christ, you are together in faith and we, together, must
be the faith. Paul welcomes the Gentiles into the space of the Jews and the Jews
into the space of the Gentiles. Both parties become one and they all, together,
are members of the same body, and they too share together in the promise in
Christ Jesus through the gospel. Paul reveals through the Holy Spirit that Christ is
the peace. Christ is what brings people together. Christ is our peace bringing
both Jew and Gentile, democrat and republican, black and white, queer and
straight, night owl and early bird together into that peace. With Christ, there is a
new humanity of equality and equity, togetherness and union. Paul makes this
quite clear to the Ephesians in the Greek. In Paul’s letter, he creates new words,
words not known in the Greek lexicon, words that would have stood out to the
Ephesians. When adding the prefix, syn (sum), the word tells the Ephesians that
they are to do the action together or as a noun, they are now together. For
example, instead of it saying they are all the body in Christ, the sum, the prefix
enhances the word, essentially saying they are united in one body of Christ. Do
you see the difference? They are not just the body of Christ, they are united as
the body of Christ. It’s emphasizing the togetherness of Paul’s revelation. You are
no longer individuals, but one body, the church, united in Christ, where all people
are beloved children of God.
My friends, we complicate our theology, we use big words and long
sentences to try and explain our God. And I’ll be honest, so does Paul. And we
probably won’t ever stop doing that, but when we get down to it, God, through
the Holy Spirit, invites us to be church together. Holy in one. It’s no mystery
because it’s exactly what Christ taught us. A church with no boarders and no
walls. A church that is willing to reach across aisle lines knowing it might seem
impossible today, but one day, and I pray one day soon, we may see each other
again as children of God. To welcome the stranger and the immigrant with dignity
and grace. To invite to the table those who are hungry and reach out to those
experiencing homelessness. To embrace those who are outcast, neglected, sick,
lonely, and tired. To be together, here at church, through the good times and the
tough times. To be church, together, holy in one, grasping each other in joy and
hold each other in sorrow. It’s our glorious calling as Paul reminds us in the end of
our passage today! And maybe our toughest calling in times like these. But the
most necessary calling in times like these. The polarization of our society has
never needed this message more. The church is more relevant in the world than
we allow her to be, but if we truly, truly trust in God working through us and into
the world, we must also trust that the church can have an impact of our current
climate. And so, beloved, where are we good at being church, together? And
where do we have places to grow? Where are we challenged and where is it
easy? Where are we welcoming in and where do we need to be reaching out?
How can we take church with us today? Listen for this, watch for it. Paul calls it the
greatest mystery of our faith and our most glorious calling. And indeed it is.
Pray with me.
Loving God, we believe. Help our unbelief.