Sermons

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Grace and Peace
July 6, 2003
Pastor Dan Baumgartner
First in Series on Ephesians
Ephesians 1:1-2

Today we’re starting a new series that will take us through these months of July and August. In these two months, we’ll make our way through the New Testament book of Ephesians. I’m very excited about this, having spent some hours in these last weeks living with this book.

(You know, I often have people ask me about preaching, about whether I don’t run out of things to say. I have to tell you, that was a huge fear of mine when I thought of moving from business into full-time ministry. I mean, they say that most people have one or two really great ideas in their lifetime…how do you stretch that into a thousand sermons?! But early on, a wise person said to me, “You know Dan, if you stay in the scriptures…THEY will never run dry.” And they were absolutely right. I am amazed at how rich and deep the contents of this book run.)

If you’ll turn with me to Ephesians 1, and you might want to leave it open. We’ll read just a couple of verses now, and then some more later. Ephesians 1:1-2

I’ve told you before that I still correspond with one professor that I had 10 years ago in seminary. Dr. Story was my Greek professor, and he’s now 85 years old, and sharp as a tack. We exchange about one letter per month…handwritten, snail mail. It’s a real pleasure to receive that envelope, with the small, tight cursive writing on the envelope from Richmond, Kentucky. Dr. Story often starts his letters with something like this:

“Dear Dan: A joy as always to receive a letter from my very young brother (that’s me) to this ancient disciple..” (that’s him)

I often begin his with “My dear erstwhile professor…”

Letter writing is a disappearing art. Disappearing rapidly, thanks to the Internet and e-mail. I was, in fact, instructed this week by younger members of our household that a typical e-mail greeting today might sound more like this: “Hey, wassup?!”

Paul’s greeting is a little different. GRACE TO YOU AND PEACE FROM GOD OUR FATHER AND THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.

Paul had a lot of guts, starting a letter with nice sounding words like “GRACE AND PEACE,” when the world of his recipients was such a mess.

• Rome ruled a good portion of the world on the basis of military accomplishment, and the area around the Mediterranean sat uneasily as a series of Roman colonies. Among them were the ruins of other cultures, traditions uprooted and people alienated.
• The universe which once had been seen as somewhat ordered and logical was now a hostile place where demonic powers opposed human beings.
• Religions had been melted together, syncretized until they were virtually unrecognizable. At the very best, God was impersonal and very distant. It was easier to believe in superstition, mysticism, magic or astrology.
• And the physical world was despised. “A wedge had been pounded” (Ralph Martin) between God and God’s creation. The physical world was seen to have no value, and that made individuals go one of two ways: either to indulge themselves without restraint…or to remove themselves from every possible influence.

In short…the world had gone awry, and was in many ways hostile and frightening.

GRACE TO YOU AND PEACE FROM GOD OUR FATHER AND THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.

Paul had a lot of guts handing on a letter that WE would one day read with nice sounding words like “Grace and Peace,” when OUR world is such a mess.

• Militias and terrorists and powerful armies rule the day. Ethnic cleansings have been repeated over and over.
• Native cultures are upset, traditions lost, people alienated.
• The universe, once seen as infinitely rational and understandable…seems a far more confusing place. Things happen we don’t understand. Earthquakes topple cities,
  health epidemics worsen.
• Religions have been melted together into a kind of universalist Unitarianism, all gods lead to the same place…astrology, crystals, the-god-inside-you. We talk about spirituality…not God. And God is visualized as impersonal and distant, with little power to affect anything in the physical realm. So who really cares if we indulge and overindulge, or if I just close shop and escape behind the walls of my own emotionally gated community?

In short, OUR world has gone awry, and is in many ways hostile and frightening.

GRACE TO YOU AND PEACE FROM GOD OUR FATHER AND THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.

To you and me…whose lives seem too harried, sometimes void of meaning, burdened by losses of loved ones, lonely, confusing…to you and me, who wonder at times whether God really much cares, Paul says:

GRACE TO YOU AND PEACE FROM GOD OUR FATHER AND THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.

Perhaps it’s just a way to start a letter, just a salutation. Other letters from antiquity started in similar ways. For Paul himself, it is very close to the greeting he uses in every single letter he writes.

Now, I should stop for a second to tell you a couple things, since we will be studying together for these months…Many reputable scholars have questions about this letter we call Ephesians. The questions fall mainly into three types:

a) Should we actually call it Ephesians? The earliest documents skip the “in Ephesus” found in verse 1, thus reading “To the saints who are faithful in Christ Jesus…” Many have treated it as a “universal letter” that was meant to go to a number of different churches in Asia Minor, now called Turkey. Since Paul spent three whole years with the Christians in Ephesus and yet writes his most impersonal letter here…there’s a good likelihood that Ephesus may have just been one of many churches to read this letter.

b) Is it really a letter? Despite its form, the lack of personal touches make it read something more like a sermon…perhaps it was. Certainly it contains the issues Paul was passionate about.

c) Did Paul really write it? This seems redundant since it says “FROM PAUL," and details out things about him, but in modern days every single New Testament book has come under close scrutiny in this way. Many feel that this was not from Paul, but from a follower who outlived him and wrote under his name as part of the Pauline “school.” There are some interesting reasons, linguistically and theologically that make this a possibility. For my money, however, I still have not seen a compelling argument that should make us read it in any way other than as a letter from Paul.

GRACE TO YOU AND PEACE FROM GOD OUR FATHER AND THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.

Maybe it’s just another salutation…but the way it reads, it is almost more of a pastoral blessing, a prayer and a desire.

GRACE TO YOU. Here’s a word we have not quite yet ruined. It keeps some of its loveliness, GRACE does. If someone is gracious or graceful…it still connotes an image of tenderness and beauty. Grace involves undeserved favor, settling NOT for what might be Just or Fair or Okay, but what is Good. Transformingly Good.

When we see glimpses of grace in the world…it sets our minds and hearts wondering just one more time…perhaps all is not lost. I invited you to read a Wendell Berry book (Fidelity) of short stories this summer. In the first story called "Pray Without Ceasing," a good man is shot and killed by an angry, drunken man. The murderer turns himself in and is in a local jail, but a mob gathers at the house of the dead man, and suggests to the man’s wife and son that they could take matters into their own hands. Here’s what mob says to the grieving son and mother:

“We want you to know we don’t like what he did…it was a thing done out of meanness. We don’t think we can stand for it, or that we ought to…It’s only up to you to say the word, and we’ll ride down there tonight and put justice beyond question. We have a rope.” And in the now-silent crowd someone held up a coil of rope, a noose already tied.”

There was a long pause. And then the son, just a young man…gave what we are told was the longest speech of his life…six sentences.

“No gentlemen. I appreciate it. We all do. But I ask you not to do it. If you want to, come and be with us. We have food, and you all are welcome.”

That was all. Just a few sentences of grace that put off what they perhaps had a right to, or certainly wouldn’t have been blamed for…and turned an ugly mob into a community grieving together. GRACE TO YOU. Grace changes our world.

C.S. Lewis once walked into a discussion in England of a number of experts in comparative religions. They were debating what (if any) belief was distinct to the Christian faith. They found other religions with forms of incarnation, even resurrection. When Lewis walked in and heard the debating, he wondered what the issue was. He was told they were debating Christianity’s unique contribution among other religions. Lewis quickly said, “Oh that’s easy. It’s grace.”

God’s love comes to people. That is grace. There are no strings attached, it is free of charge to the recipient. That is grace. God loves you as you are and not as you will someday be. That is grace. Philip Yancey says, “Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more…AND there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.” That is grace. Jesus talked about grace all the time, though almost never used the word. He just tells stories:

• The man who had his huge debt forgiven.
• The angels in heaven rejoicing when just one person who was lost turns towards God.
• The father who welcomed back the son, arms wide open and not condemning him.

GRACE TO YOU…the favor of God, undeserved and real…that is bigger than what you do, that liberates you from sin. GRACE TO YOU.

AND PEACE. TO YOU. The shalom of God, the Peace that is the absence of war, but far more. The Peace that is the sense of harmony, of wholeness, but far more. The Peace that is the highest good, independent of external things, but far more. The Peace that is social, emotional, spiritual, mental, communal. The Peace of God, the shalom of the Jews TO YOU. The Peace that liberates us from guilt. The absolute deepest well-being.

Often when I write to Dr. Story, I think about this: He is now 85 years old. His body is beginning to fail a bit, as is his wife’s. They get anxious, they get ill, they are in the hospital more often. In good conscience, I can’t say, “I hope everything is great with you,” because it often isn’t great. What I find myself saying is “I pray it is well with your soul.” I wish him, I pray for him and his wife…God’s peace, the sense of deep well-being that only comes from God. GOD’S PEACE TO YOU. The one that is deeper than any exterior circumstance.

GRACE TO YOU AND PEACE…one concept of the Greeks, one of the Jews. And that is no small thing to note, because one of Paul’s main thrusts in this whole letter we call Ephesians…is to deal with the coming together of the Gentile Christians (Greeks) and the Jewish Christians. Reconciliation of people is at the front of Paul’s mind…for this is a way that the ONE church of Christ should model to the world. The church is not two…but one. Not a Greek church and a Jewish one, not a church of longtime Christians and a church of new ones, not a black and white church or a rich and poor one…but the church is the people God has called together as ONE in Christ.

Our elders at Bethany are wrestling right now…with how we might better be part of Christ’s ONE church…when we are such a homogenous racial group, with how we might better be part of Christ’s ONE church, with how our Sunday morning and Wednesday night communities might be more together as ONE.

Paul will continue to talk about this kind of GRACE…12 times in these few chapters. And he will continue to talk about this kind of PEACE…7 times in these few chapters.

Now, we’ve come almost to the end of our time, and only talked about two words from this first section. On purpose. After Paul gives this blessing, GRACE TO YOU AND PEACE FROM GOD THE FATHER AND THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, he launches immediately into worship. We actually looked at this section back in January. It is one huge run-on sentence, and it is full of an extraordinary number of rich thoughts, of the full trinity of God, of forgiveness, of God’s choosing, of grace and peace.

Years ago a Chinese pastor and writer Watchman Nee wrote a little book on Ephesians and entitled it SIT, WALK, STAND. That’s how he broke Ephesians down, and it’s how he thought the Christian life went. A Christian must sit before walking…sit with God, and understand what God has done for us...before doing. Paul will have plenty for us to DO…three chapters worth. But before we practice grace-fullness and peacemaking in the world…he wants to make sure we know it. Watchman Nee says, “The Christian experience does not begin with walking but with sitting. Every time we reverse the divine order the result is disaster."

I want to invite you, then, to listen, or follow along, as I close with the reading of verses 3-14 from Eugene Peterson’s translation…just sit before the Lord, and soak in what God has done for you. Ephesians 1:3-14 (The Message)

GRACE TO YOU AND PEACE FROM GOD OUR FATHER AND THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. AMEN.