St. Andrew’s Episcopal
Church (Highland Park)
7.22.12
Ephesians 2:8-22
“Unconditional AcceptanceàHostility
UndoneàPurpose”
It’s an absolute pleasure
to be here with you in your beautiful building this morning. And while it is noble and very Christian of
you to welcome a complete strange into your midst, it probably wasn’t very wise
giving him the pulpit. With that said, have
no fear, your valiant rector will return next week to undo any of the damage
that Tim, Philip, and I most certainly have done or—in this case—will do.
But in all seriousness, I
am very excited to be here this morning, not only because I have the chance to
meet new people, but also because I get to talk about my favorite thing in the
world—the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What
one theologian refers to as the one-way love of God for suffering sinners like
you and me. What NT scholar F.F. Bruce
summarized using in these words, “Christ died [not for the healthy but] for the
ungodly.”
It’s been offending
self-righteous people like myself for two thousand years now. For just like the older brother in the
parable of the prodigal son, some of us find it downright upsetting that the
wayward son is just as acceptable to the Father as us—the diligent,
hard-working, rule-keeping—older brother (or sister) types. We’ve been trying to earn his love for some
time, how dare he accept these reprobates who turn to him at the last
minute?
Yet when we internalize
the truth of the Gospel even we begin to realize that this unfair reality—this
message that is too good to be true—is, in fact, what we’ve wanted all along. A love from the praiseworthy that is truly
unconditional—a love, that as the great hymn says, will never let us go.
This Gospel, while found
throughout both Old and New Testaments, is most explicitly stated in what has
come to be known as the Pauline Corpus—and that just means the collection of
letters traditionally attributed to St. Paul.
Unfortunately, for many of us Episcopalians, we have picked up the
notion somewhere that Paul somehow complicated what Jesus made simple.
This truly is an
unfortunate reality, and we would do well to learn from our Lutheran brothers
and sisters that, rather than complicating Jesus’ teaching, Paul makes explicit
what is left implicit in the Gospel narratives.
And I’m going to say that again because that was profound for me the
first time I heard it. What Jesus left
implicit, Paul makes explicit.
And hopefully this will
become evident as we take a look at the actual passage read just a moment
ago.
In our text for this
morning the author of Ephesians is pressing a point Paul made time and time
again, that we have been saved by grace and not by our works. If there is any doubt or confusion about
this, I’m going to read a portion of the passage again—starting at verse 8—“For
by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it
is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Notice that the author
writes that salvation is not by works twice for effect. Just like the Hebrew prophets of old, he is
purposely redundant to emphasize his point.
In doing so, he makes it very clear that salvation it is a gift of
God. Therefore, the grounds for
self-righteous boasting have been pulled out from underneath us. The older brother’s salvation in the parable
of the prodigal son was just as much a gift as that of the prodigal.
Earlier in Ephesians 2,
the author spilled much ink to show us that we were not in good standing
with—our creator—the Triune God. He’s
goes so far as to write that we were spiritually dead in our trespasses and
sins, because from time immemorial we have chosen to go it our own way. As Martin Luther would later comment, “we are
curved in on ourselves.” Put simply, we
are profoundly selfish. And no, not just
those “real sinners” like the prodigal son who make the 10 o’clock news, but
all of us, even the most pious.
I think a scene from Clint
Eastwood’s movie “Unforgiven” illustrates the author’s point well. Having just
participated in the shooting and painful death of another man, Clint’s young
sidekick, the ‘Schofield Kid’ is shaken, he’s visibly disturbed by the
consequences of his action. Trying to
justify his actions, to reassure himself, he says, “[Well,] He had it
coming.” Only he receives no comfort
from Clint, who utters that deathless line, “We all have it coming, kid.”… Indeed, Clint, we all have it coming; maybe
even especially the self-righteous.
But the author’s point
here is not to make us depressed or for us to wallow in self-pity. He calls us dead to get his point across
well, and his point is this: dead people do not rise. They cannot release the grip of the grave by
picking themselves up by their own bootstraps.
He emphasizes the fact
that we are utterly helpless to make ourselves right with God to show us that
we are not self-sufficient, that all of us were in desperate need of an
external solution (of outside help.) Not even being made better was an
option. We were in need of something
much more radical. We were in need of
being made new. We were in need of
resurrection.
And that is exactly what
God has done for you and for me, for while all of us “have it coming,” we are
not going to get what we deserve. Our
past, present, and even our future sins have been cancelled not because we’ve
been able to make up for them, but because of the Cross of Christ. Because our God loves us—the ungodly—so much
that he took what we deserved upon himself so that we might be reconciled to
him.
Just as Christ was made
alive after his crucifixion, so, too, has God made us alive. We, his servants, have also been resurrected.
And the crazy part about
all of this—as noted in the passage that we just read—is that he did this
without regard to our efforts. He did it
entirely free of our help.
For as Paul and his
disciples make clear, reconciliation with God is not contingent upon our works. Peace with God has nothing to do with what we
bring to the table. It is the gift of
God. For as verse 9 makes clear, “[it is]
Not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”
And that is the good news
for you and me—that his grace triumphs over karma. The Good news that is too good to be true and
yet it is…
Now I don’t know you and
you don’t know me, but I’d be willing to bet that you’ve been the victim of
conditional love at some point in your life.
Maybe a lifelong friend bailed on you because you just weren’t cool
enough. Or maybe—back in high school or college—your
boyfriend or girlfriend abandoned you when the going got tough, or maybe you
just never lived up to your father’s expectations.
(story to illustrate point)
Or maybe you’re the guilty
one. Notice I told the story of when I was the victim, but there are plenty of occasion
when I was the victimizer—when my love for others was conditional.
Thankfully, the living God
is not like this. Although our friends,
lovers, and earthly fathers fail us—and we, at times, fail others—our heavenly
Father will never leave us or forsake us.
Not when we ignore him, not when we fail him, not even when we betray
him (not even when our love is conditionally granted to him). For recall the definition of the Gospel I
gave at the beginning of the sermon—God’s one
way love for suffering sinners. One
of my favorite verses in the Bible reads this way, “While we were yet sinners
Christ died for the ungodly.” It is the
very moment that we were at enmity with God that he reconciled us to him by
dying for you and me on the Cross.
You see, the Christian
life is not a burden that our parents passed on to us, or a call to a life
marked by self-righteousness. Instead it
is an invitation into a love that will not let you go…
But before I close I have
to address those of you who inwardly protest.
Those of you who see all of this as being too easy. For there is a rejoinder in the back of my
head as well. If law observance is not what makes us right with God, well, then
what’s to stop us from sinning? What’s
to prevent those stories on the 10 o’clock news from happening? Or maybe, even more personal, what then am I
supposed to do? If God is doing
everything, if none of it is my doing, if good works don’t make any difference
regarding my standing before God, what’s the point?
And as if anticipating our retort, this is
what the author writes next (verse 10), “For we are God’s workmanship… we are
created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand for us to
walk in.”
Thus the author clears himself of the charge of antinomianism or being
against the law. We do good works. Not
because we are saved by them, but because we are saved for them.
In the Rite I
post-communion prayer we ask that God would help us to “do all such good works
as thou hast prepared for us to walk in.” You can see how directly it is
modeled on Ephesians 2:10. The point of good works is that they are already
prepared for us by God ahead of time. That is his gracious will and purpose, so
that we do not need to be anxious, nor do we need to be prideful. When we
manage to do something good, that is the grace of God operating in us. And all
of this comes from “the immeasurable riches of God’s grace in kindness toward
us in Christ Jesus.”[1]
So having just been
offered the peace that passes all understanding, we are now given purpose. And while there a plethora of things we can
do to the glory of God, one of these things is what the author writes about
next.
For not only has Christ
leveled the playing field when it comes to piety, but he has also done the same
regarding race and class. On the Cross,
not only did he forgive us our sins, but he also broke down the wall of
hostility that separates us from each other.
We’ve learned that we may not boast on account of our piety, but we also
have no grounds to brag on account of our race, gender, or socio-economic
status. The work of Christ has undone
racism, classism, and gender inequality for we all come before the Lord with
empty hands.
All this to say that one
of the works which we have been prepared to walk in is to work to eradicate
these prejudices in the life of the church, because discrimination is
incongruent with the truth of the Gospel.[2]
And even though we still
see these things all around us today—especially on the 10 o’clock news—when
Jesus comes again it will be done away with forever.
Only until then we don’t
wait passively for the 2nd coming.
We work for these things God has prepared beforehand for us to walk
in. Knowing that work done for justice,
in love and obedience to the Scriptures, in the power of the Spirit, will be
completed and fulfilled in the new Kingdom.
Therefore, none of your efforts are in vain.
So for those of you who
didn’t get that job because you are a woman, or for those of you who have been
discriminated against because of your race, or for those of you who have
suffered impartial treatment due to your economic status, know that justice is
coming, that all wrongs will be made right, that all sufferings and ills will
somehow truly be undone.
In the name of the Father,
and the Son, and the Holy Spirit…
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