SUNDAY SERMON
GOD'S PURPOSE: UNITY IN CHRIST
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 13, Year B
August 03, 2003
The Epistle: Eph
4:17-25
Let us pray in the ancient words of Hymn 302:
Watch o'er thy Church, O Lord, in mercy, save it from evil, guard
it still, perfect it in thy love, unite it, cleansed and conformed unto thy
will. As grain once scattered on the hillsides, was in this broken bread made
one, so from all lands thy Church be gathered into the kingdom of thy Son. Amen.
+ + +
As you can see, [hold up envelope], I have a letter here-but it's not addressed
to me individually. It's addressed to all of us-in fact if I'm deciphering the
handwriting correctly it's not addressed just to us at Church of the Holy Communion
but to all Episcopalians. It's a bit too long to read the whole thing aloud;
but I've read it and reread it this week and will gladly mail or email you a
copy so you can read every word for yourself.
There are some parts of it that are simply so sublime, so wonderful, so penetrating that I just have to read them to you.
[READ Eph. 1.3-10]
…to unite all things in him…There's the key phrase, the theme, the point of this letter: God has a plan and a purpose; God has laid bare that plan and purpose. It is to unite all things in heaven and earth in Jesus Christ.
And how do we know this, see this, believe this?
[READ Eph. 1.11-14]
Amazing, even shocking as this sounds, the unity which is God's purpose and plan is already being realized by the Holy Spirit in the present life of the Church.
Unity in the Church? You can't be serious, Blair. Unity in the Episcopal Church in the face of General Convention? unity in the face of cracks and fissures in the Anglican Communion worldwide? Yes, my friends, I am serious and I firmly believe that I stand with Paul and the gospel message; I also stand with Rowan Williams, our own Archbishop of Canterbury who three weeks ago preached on this very topic at York Minster [English for "large church'!] at their General Synod in England.
I invite you to a serious engagement with this letter. Because we are reading through most of it this summer and still have four more weeks to go, I have chosen to focus on the grand theme of the letter. I hope it will light a fire in your soul and instill hope for the Church.
The hidden purpose of God, now laid open, is to unite all things in heaven and earth in Jesus Christ. That is the gospel Paul preached to the Christians in the NYC [Ephesus] of his day. That is the same gospel Paul proclaims to Episcopalians in the United States of our day. This letter [ hold up the envelope],called Ephesians, is THE letter for us to be reading the summer of 2003. It's personal, it's pertinent, it's passionate. At times it reads like poetry, at times like prayer, at times like preaching. More than any other letter, it lays out the gospel of the Church.
Unity is a word we need to grasp-to hold fast to and be held by it. Unity in its gospel magnitude; not meaningless consensus, not unanimity bought with party alliances or political compromise. …to unite all things in him…This gospel unity is achieved by one particular action of God: the cross of Christ his Son. Listen to this from "page 2" of the letter.
[READ Eph. 2:13-16]
Archbishop Williams, referring to these words, writes, "Living in the Church is living in the aftermath of this divine event [the cross], living in the landscape where barriers between heaven and earth are down and walls of hostility between human beings are down. Here and now, and especially when we meet for Eucharist, we inhabit this new landscape."
The Archbishop goes on to ask what we see of this new life when we turn to other NT letters, especially Romans and Corinthians? It's not a pretty picture. He writes, "Passionate party spirit [I belong to Paul, I belong to Apollos]; moral confusion [It is actually reported that there is immorality among you]; bitterness and superiority [Why do you despise your brother?; You gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves]; ignoring the needs of the disadvantaged [You despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing]."
It doesn't sound like unity, does it? What follows next is the Archbishop's powerful insight into Paul and the unity he calls "a gospel imperative."
"What is striking is that Paul appeals for unity not as a way of denying conflict…but because the conflicts and failures of the churches are the opportunity for wresting a gift out of what seems a curse. Each member of the Body is gifted for the sake of all others; break the unity of the community and you will never receive what God has for you in the life of the other…To abide in unity through the sort of savage quarrels he describes [does this sound like the 1st or the 21st century?] is absolutely not the soft option. The Apollos party and the Cephas party in Corinth… would have had a much nicer time if they retreated into their separate enclaves. But, as Paul puts it in both Romans and 1 Corinthians, to do this would be to forget that they are there in the first place because Christ died for them all…and the Spirit wants to give something through them.
"The challenge of Paul's gospel appears most radically at this point…Unity is a gospel imperative to just the extent we find it hard. Unity is a gospel imperative when we recognize that it opens us to change, to conversion; when we realize how our life with Christ is somehow bound up with those we think are sinful and those we think are stupid."
Still quoting from the Archbishop: "A New Testament Church is one in which unity is seen as vital precisely because it invites us to struggle for blessing as we wrestle with a stranger. If someone else stands with me claiming the promises of Christ, then, for St. Paul, my first assumption must always be that in unity-in conversation and struggle, agreement, argument and shared praise-I shall receive from them something of Christ."
Let us make our aim to receive something of Christ from one another, looking especially to those with whom we differ-in our families, in our parish and in our Episcopal Church.
Remember God has a plan: To unite all things in heaven and earth in Jesus Christ. Trusting God, let us pray in Paul's words from "page 3" of his letter [Eph. 3.20-21]:
Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly
than all that we ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ
Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.