“Unpacking Paul”
A sermon for Edgewood PC, Birmingham, AL
4th Sunday in Lent, March 22, 2009
Text: Ephesians 2:1-10
I must confess that I often find the epistles difficult. Church tradition attributes most of these ancient letters to the Apostle Paul. I find “unpacking Paul” to be quite a challenge. To me, it’s a bit like unpacking in the cramped quarters of my small tent in the dead of pitch-dark night. I might be looking for a pocket knife, or a pair of socks, or the sun screen I’ll need tomorrow. I know it’s here somewhere. I thought I had all this stuff well organized. But try as I might I can’t find it. The tent is too small for me stand up, even to kneel down so here I sit with my legs beginning to cramp. Ah, there it is. Got it! But now I’ve got to reshuffle and repack.
So there, now you know why I rarely preach from Paul. Give me that old time religion of the Older Testament. I love this story about Moses and the snakes. I’ve done it a couple of times--and none of you fell asleep. Or give me the Good News of the Gospel--“God so loved the world . . . .” Did that one three years ago. Someone’s bound to remember, plus Mike has it posted on our church webpage.
So this week I waded into the Epistle lesson, and let me warn you I find Ephesians tough going, Jack Steward’s inspired presentations last fall, notwithstanding. I have provided you with an outline--just in case I get us lost. Since that is a distinct possibility, I’m going to give you the punch line right up front. It comes in verse 8: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. . . .”
Someone wants to know why you are a Presbyterian, just tell them it was a present, a gift from God, nothing you did to earn it, just a sacred gift. But I get ahead of myself. My mission this morning is to unpack Paul--or at least a key portion of Ephesians, this ancient letter to us, to the Church.
Thank goodness, I was not in my tent but in the pastor’s study for this week of sermon preparation. Not in the dark, but surrounded by the light of good resources. One of those resources suggests we can divide this passage into three parts.1 Part one I call the “Before section.” Here in vivid language Paul describes “humanity’s hopeless state” before our rescue. He says we were a corpse: dead through trespasses and sins. Trapped on a road leading nowhere--following the “course of this world.” Condemned, we were prisoners to our base desires; by nature “children of wrath”--consumed with anger. In other words, we were in a hell of a fix, and “powerless to change.” In the Before section I picture us spiritually broken, not a ‘dime to our names,’ like those poor souls living in corrugated boxes under the Interstate--no place to shower, no clean clothes to wear.
Just when the picture cannot get any bleaker, here comes part two--the “After section.” It begins with that most profound word in faith---but! All of the above is a given--dead, trapped, condemned, broken humanity--but God steps in to rescue and redeem us. Here is God, “rich in mercy,” operating “out of the great love with which God loved us.” Here is God, bestowing on us “the immeasurable riches of God’s grace in kindness,” before we’ve even had time to take a shower. Before we’ve even had a place to wash our dirty clothes, “these verses celebrate the aggressive, liberating God who initiates and completes the rescue of entrapped people.” Here is the mystery of Christian existence--we, who were once dead, have been invited to share in the very life of God. We have been raised up, alive together with Christ, God’s beloved, and given seats of honor with Christ in heaven above. Just look at us now, all giddy over our good fortune. Poking each other in disbelief, asking one another, ‘What did we do to deserve this?’
Which leads to part three . . . . Part one--Before--bad scene.
Part two--After--glorious rescue. Now part three: How? How did we
pull it off? From “sinking deep in sin,” from life under the
interstate bridge to soaring in the heavenly heights. How did we do
it? And the answer is: We didn’t! We didn’t, but God did. Remember
the punch line:
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not
your own doing; it is the gift of God—
My birthday comes in January, just three weeks after Christmas. I remember one year--I must have been about nine years old. My parents gave me a little surprise birthday party. One of my buddies walked unannounced into my room carrying a present. I was dumbfounded. Christmas was past. I had no gift to give to him and here he stood with a gift for me. What was I to do?
In like manner, we stand before holy God, holding the gift God has given us--the gift of salvation, relationship with God which begins in the here and now and never ends. God has given us the very gift of life. Not just any life, but life with God. Life with beauty, love, truth, goodness, justice, and peace. Unmerited, unwarranted, unexpected life--God’s gracious gift to us. What’s a person to do? How to respond to so magnificent a gift?
I may be at a loss for words, but St. Paul is ready. Ready with these instructions: “For we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works . . .”(v.10). This is to be “our way of life”--good works. We are to respond to the gift of grace with “good works.” Two chapters more in Ephesians and St. Paul defines the “good works” that we are to do. Chapter 4 says we are to “speak the truth to our neighbors”(4.25); work so as to have something to share with the needy (v.28); and, act--conduct our lives--with kindness and forgiveness (v.32).2
Presbyterian pastor Jeff Paschal of Ohio defines “good works” in this way: “Good works are expressions of Christ alive in us ministering to the world.” 3
Imagine that, Christ alive in you gathered for worship in his Holy name, singing God’s praises, listening to God’s word, and sharing God’s presence in the sacraments. Christ alive in you as you dig into your pockets to give to the Church. Christ alive in you as you teach the children and lead the youth. Christ alive in you as you participate in Sunday school and gather for fellowship supper. Christ alive in you as you participate in our food ministry. Christ alive in you supporting Habitat for Humanity, First Light, Alabama Arise, and Greater Birmingham Ministries. Christ alive in you as you host six AA meetings a week here at Edgewood Church.
Come to think of it, our friends in AA can tell us a good bit about God’s gift of grace. The 12-step recovery program begins where St. Paul begins-- with one’s fallen state, a broken spirit, helplessly separated from God. “Hello, my name is Bill, and I am an alcoholic”--or a drug abuser, or a sex addict, or an over-eater. Confession is good for the soul, and according to AA, it is the first step on the path to recovery. One observe writes: “Take a room of a dozen or so people, all of whom admit helplessness and failure, and it's pretty easy to see how God then presents (God’s) self in that group. The dynamic of grace is throwing ourselves on the mercy of God.” 4
My sources tell me that early on in the AA movement, the group splits into two factions over the issue of ‘perfectionism.’ One group insisted on “Four Absolutes”--Honesty, Unselfishness, Love, Purity--with the membership held accountable for perfecting those “absolutes.” The other (group), led by Bill Wilson, started with a dependence on grace, an acknowledgment that its members would never achieve perfection. Absolutes, said Wilson, either turned alcoholics away or gave them a dangerous feeling of “spiritual inflation.” Over time, the perfectionist group shriveled up and disappeared; grace-based AA has never stopped growing. 5
I can picture the Apostle Paul participating in a 12-step meeting. We know he has some nagging “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12.7)--we don’t know what. From today’s text in Ephesians we do know where Paul would begin his testimony, conceding trespasses and sin, separation, alienation from God and all goodness and love. But, then, by God’s mercy and grace, rescued and redeemed--saved by faith--a faith given to him by God. It is a gift of faith that has brought him into relationship with God, three-in-one. Relationship with God as God is made known to the world through Church, the body of the Risen Christ. St. Paul, rescued and redeemed so that he could begin the “good works” God had prepared for him as his way of life.
Paul has done his part. Now it is our turn.
10 For we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good
works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
To the God of all grace,
who calls you to share God's eternal glory
in union with Christ,
be the power forever! 1 Peter 5:10,11
Amen.
1Cousar, Charles, TEXTS FOR PREACHING, Year B, pp.
226-227.
2Ibid., 227.
3Paschal, Jeff, FEASTING ON THE WORD, Year B, vol. 2, pp.
111-115.
4Anders, Mickey, “Saving Grace,” Ephesians 2:8-10,
Lectionary.org.
5Ibid.