Sermon on Ephesians
Jul. 16th, 2012 07:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chrishansenhomeYesterday I preached at St. John's, and I decided to preach on the Epistle, rather than the Gospel. The Gospel passsage from Mark, giving directions to the disciples on how to evangelise, didn't present any insights to me; I've preached on it before and I think I need another three years before I figure out how to preach on it again. So I looked at the Epistle. Web searches helped to identify an angle that appealed to me.
“...a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”
In the name of God, the one, the Undivided Trinity. AMEN.
When I was a kid, quite a while back, like all kids I looked forward to the summer holidays. School holidays here in England are relatively short compared to ours in the United States, where we would break for summer in late May or early June and have three entire months to kill, returning to school in the first few weeks of September, after the Labour Day holiday.
To a child of 10, summer seems interminable. After leaving school, each day brings you closer to the next school year, but that seems an eternity from now.
As I've gotten older, time flies faster than it ever did. It seems like just yesterday when I was sitting on the couch in the living room watching the New Year's Eve fireworks. It was more than 6 months ago. Already autumn is lurking ahead, even though summer doesn't seem to have yet arrived. Christmas is right around the corner. I apologise to the mums and dads who will now have to explain to their young ones that Christmas is actually five months away. To the children, it will seem an eternity. To me, Christmas cards loom large.
So the author of Ephesians speaks of the “fullness of time”. One might even say, “the end of time”. It's hard to imagine time ending. We always have time for chatting, for working, for playing, for God, and for our friends and families. Is there a point at which there will no longer be any time?
Rather than talking about the end of time, which in cosmology is just as mysterious as in our own lives or in religion, I'd like to talk about the completion or perfection of time. When something is perfect, what we really mean is that there is no more work left to be done on it. Through effort, it is complete.
Let's think of the Christian community as part of this perfection. No one knows better than we who are Christians that the community of Christ on earth is not perfect. We are constantly being exhorted to become perfect. We aren't there yet. We may never be there. And yet we among all other things will be gathered up in Christ when time ends.
The words “all things” occur twice here: gathering up all things in Christ and accomplishing all things according to his counsel and will. I think these are two sides of the same coin.
We are gathered up here as Christians in one body, even though sometimes we don't act as though we were one body. As time has passed down the ages, the injustices of the Reformation, committed on both sides, and the sins of the Inquisition have receded into memory. But I'm sure we can think of instances where the Church as a whole does not act consistently towards all the baptised who are its members. Perhaps we can imagine how in the fullness of time, when there is no time left, we are together as one in the Body of Christ. So a first question is: if we can imagine that in a far distant future, what is keeping us from making it happen in our own time?
Accomplishing all things according to his counsel and will requires us to think that hackneyed phrase: “What would Jesus do?” Lots of people who say this phrase do not understand it. What would Jesus do about poverty, or injustice, or war, or cruelty, or any of the many other things about modern life and fall short of showing God's love for us? I think that we know what Jesus would do.
The reason we don't do those things is that we are not Jesus, pure and simple. This is not an excuse, but a reason. Who would not want to wave a wand and abolish war? Who wouldn't want to say, “No one should lack the things they need to live.” and make it so just by that word? And yet, our common efforts, whether contributing to charities or electing governments, do not accomplish any of those things in any major sense.
We are God's hands in the world, and an end to poverty, hunger, war, and all those other evils can only come about through us. The second question then is: why hasn't that happened yet?
Two questions to which there is but one answer. We are fallible. We fall short of all the expectations and hopes that God has invested in us.
Perfection is a journey and a goal, not a condition. We are not perfect, the world is not perfect, but only God is perfect. We are all on that journey to perfection, and no one except God knows where it will end.
So when we grouse that we have no time to do something, or that a month, or a year, or a decade has passed before we noticed, we ought to remember that we have work to do to perfect ourselves, and that the work will never be finished while we live. The country, the world, and the church all are on the road to perfection and will not get there until the end of time.
Do your part. You are destined to live to God's praise and glory, and what better way to do that than to acknowledge that we are unfinished works, shaped by the seal of the Holy Spirit to be swept up at the fullness of time into the Divine, to whom be ascribed all might, majesty, dominion, and praise both now and evermore. AMEN.
Now the interesting factoid is this: I felt quite uncertain about this homily. I thought that it was a bit thin and that it wasn't one of my best productions. However, during the Mass one of the acolytes said that he thought the idea that we are not yet perfect was something he would be able to ponder, and at coffee hour two other people, one a newcomer, said that they enjoyed the sermon and that it gave them food for thought.
I don't know exactly what this means. I do know that I am evidently not the best critic of my own sermons.
July 14, 2012 Fourth after Trinity
Sermon delivered at St. John the Evangelist, 10AM.
First Reading: Amos 7:12-15
Epistle: Ephesians 1:3-14
Gospel: Mark 6:7-13
Sermon delivered at St. John the Evangelist, 10AM.
First Reading: Amos 7:12-15
Epistle: Ephesians 1:3-14
Gospel: Mark 6:7-13
“...a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”
In the name of God, the one, the Undivided Trinity. AMEN.
When I was a kid, quite a while back, like all kids I looked forward to the summer holidays. School holidays here in England are relatively short compared to ours in the United States, where we would break for summer in late May or early June and have three entire months to kill, returning to school in the first few weeks of September, after the Labour Day holiday.
To a child of 10, summer seems interminable. After leaving school, each day brings you closer to the next school year, but that seems an eternity from now.
As I've gotten older, time flies faster than it ever did. It seems like just yesterday when I was sitting on the couch in the living room watching the New Year's Eve fireworks. It was more than 6 months ago. Already autumn is lurking ahead, even though summer doesn't seem to have yet arrived. Christmas is right around the corner. I apologise to the mums and dads who will now have to explain to their young ones that Christmas is actually five months away. To the children, it will seem an eternity. To me, Christmas cards loom large.
So the author of Ephesians speaks of the “fullness of time”. One might even say, “the end of time”. It's hard to imagine time ending. We always have time for chatting, for working, for playing, for God, and for our friends and families. Is there a point at which there will no longer be any time?
Rather than talking about the end of time, which in cosmology is just as mysterious as in our own lives or in religion, I'd like to talk about the completion or perfection of time. When something is perfect, what we really mean is that there is no more work left to be done on it. Through effort, it is complete.
Let's think of the Christian community as part of this perfection. No one knows better than we who are Christians that the community of Christ on earth is not perfect. We are constantly being exhorted to become perfect. We aren't there yet. We may never be there. And yet we among all other things will be gathered up in Christ when time ends.
The words “all things” occur twice here: gathering up all things in Christ and accomplishing all things according to his counsel and will. I think these are two sides of the same coin.
We are gathered up here as Christians in one body, even though sometimes we don't act as though we were one body. As time has passed down the ages, the injustices of the Reformation, committed on both sides, and the sins of the Inquisition have receded into memory. But I'm sure we can think of instances where the Church as a whole does not act consistently towards all the baptised who are its members. Perhaps we can imagine how in the fullness of time, when there is no time left, we are together as one in the Body of Christ. So a first question is: if we can imagine that in a far distant future, what is keeping us from making it happen in our own time?
Accomplishing all things according to his counsel and will requires us to think that hackneyed phrase: “What would Jesus do?” Lots of people who say this phrase do not understand it. What would Jesus do about poverty, or injustice, or war, or cruelty, or any of the many other things about modern life and fall short of showing God's love for us? I think that we know what Jesus would do.
The reason we don't do those things is that we are not Jesus, pure and simple. This is not an excuse, but a reason. Who would not want to wave a wand and abolish war? Who wouldn't want to say, “No one should lack the things they need to live.” and make it so just by that word? And yet, our common efforts, whether contributing to charities or electing governments, do not accomplish any of those things in any major sense.
We are God's hands in the world, and an end to poverty, hunger, war, and all those other evils can only come about through us. The second question then is: why hasn't that happened yet?
Two questions to which there is but one answer. We are fallible. We fall short of all the expectations and hopes that God has invested in us.
Perfection is a journey and a goal, not a condition. We are not perfect, the world is not perfect, but only God is perfect. We are all on that journey to perfection, and no one except God knows where it will end.
So when we grouse that we have no time to do something, or that a month, or a year, or a decade has passed before we noticed, we ought to remember that we have work to do to perfect ourselves, and that the work will never be finished while we live. The country, the world, and the church all are on the road to perfection and will not get there until the end of time.
Do your part. You are destined to live to God's praise and glory, and what better way to do that than to acknowledge that we are unfinished works, shaped by the seal of the Holy Spirit to be swept up at the fullness of time into the Divine, to whom be ascribed all might, majesty, dominion, and praise both now and evermore. AMEN.
Now the interesting factoid is this: I felt quite uncertain about this homily. I thought that it was a bit thin and that it wasn't one of my best productions. However, during the Mass one of the acolytes said that he thought the idea that we are not yet perfect was something he would be able to ponder, and at coffee hour two other people, one a newcomer, said that they enjoyed the sermon and that it gave them food for thought.
I don't know exactly what this means. I do know that I am evidently not the best critic of my own sermons.
