God's Benefactors
Sermon
Sermons On The Second Readings
Series I, Cycle C
Once when I returned home for a quick visit with my parents, an old friend unexpectedly dropped by to see me. We took advantage of the warm spring weather and sat out on the back porch. A tiny cluster of maple trees exhaled the fragrance of sticky new buds, as Fred and I reminisced about our high school days and exchanged the latest gossip concerning classmates. It wasn't long, though, before we found ourselves running out of things to say. Like trying to read the comic strips after returning from an extended vacation, we had lost the continuity of each other's stories.
After an awkward pause, Fred fished a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. I noticed that he had taken to wearing a perpetual squint -- either from needing glasses, or smoking too much, or simply because he wasn't able to look at the world wide-eyed anymore. He seemed on the verge of confessing something. But he let the moment pass and gazed out at the forsythia bushes, which swayed back and forth in the breeze like a dancing yellow fog.
"How have you been?" I finally asked.
"Fa-air," he said hesitantly, dragging the word into two syllables.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"I'm not even sure where to begin," he admitted, stabbing a cigarette into his mouth. "I've been kind of depressed these last few months. But it's like one of those equations we used to have in algebra class with nothing but variables; I can't seem to solve it."
I tried to gauge my response carefully, sensing that our conversation had now moved from a thick deceptive forest to more of a desert where my every step would leave a print. "I'd be willing to listen," I said.
He trailed his fingers cautiously along the table, as if searching for an entry point to the discussion. "I don't want to give you the wrong impression," he explained. "I have a pretty good life. I enjoy my work, I meet a lot of fascinating people, and I do a lot of interesting things. Except lately, for some reason, it all seems scattered and disconnected -- like pearls without a string."
I was about to weigh in with an observation, but he suddenly went on with a staccato burst of candor. "I think my problem is that I'm not committed to anything. There is no person, no organization, no principle or cause to which I am a hundred percent committed. I have all these ties, but none of them are binding." He leaned back in his chair and dismissed a plume of smoke, "Do you suppose that might be it?"
Having recently completed a building campaign at the church, I was immediately tempted to launch into one of my ready-to-preach commitment sermons. What I was going to say to him was something along these lines. You had better believe that's the reason you're so depressed. How can you possibly expect your life to have any meaning or value or purpose, unless you're committed to something? Now pull yourself together, and go out there and get involved!
That was the advice I was prepared to offer. However, there was something about the way the cigarette kept trembling in Fred's hand, as the smoke bled slowly through his fingers, which silenced my sermonic impulse. And I now think it was one of those grace-filled occasions when the Holy Spirit provided me with the right words, because what I ended up saying was: "You tell me that you're not committed to anything or anyone. But I wonder if the real issue is that you don't honestly believe that there is anyone who is committed to you?"
Tears began to percolate in his eyes. "You know, it is sheer hell," he whispered, "when you don't feel like you belong."
Have any of you ever experienced that feeling? Have you ever struggled with the sense that you don't belong anywhere -- I mean, really belong? It's one thing to be part of a group where everybody shares a common interest. But it's another thing altogether to know that someone out there is interested in you. I've met people who are members of a dozen different organizations, and involved in activities morning, noon, and night, and they still seem to carry around this emptiness deep inside. It's almost as if they realize that something is missing in their life, but they're not sure what. And worse yet, they secretly suspect that if they were ever missing, no one would even notice.
No doubt, we have all felt like that at one time or another, which is why I hope you were listening closely as the scripture lesson was being read just now. Judging by the way that the letter to the Ephesians starts out, Christianity is more than our making a commitment to God; it's also the recognition that God has made a significant commitment to us. In fact, according to Paul, this commitment began before we were even born. In the person of Jesus Christ, God chose us "before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless" (v. 4). The Almighty "destined us for adoption as children" (v. 5). Paul goes on to affirm that "in Christ we have obtained an inheritance ... so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory" (vv. 11-12).
In effect, this opening passage is like the reading of a will, in which we are all listed as God's benefactors. I don't know how many of you have ever been to the reading of a will. But I assume that even if you haven't, you have a vague idea of what happens at one. Typically, the family and relatives, as well as anybody else who expects to be involved in the distribution of the estate, gather together in a lawyer's office and wait for their names to be called. It can be a very exciting time for some, and I'm guessing, a very anxious time for others. After all, you don't want to show up if your name is not going to be mentioned. It would be rather humiliating to find out at that point that you didn't really belong.
And yet, within the history of ancient Israel, there were some folks who didn't need to be present when the will was read. They might as well have stayed at home, because their names would never be called. For starters, the widow didn't need to be there. Strange as it may seem to us, the law dictated that she was not to inherit a thing. She was a woman, and in those days, property was handed down strictly through men. It was father to son, uncle to nephew, brother to brother.
If you were a slave, you also didn't need to bother showing up. Your name might have been called, but it was more in terms of who was going to inherit you, not what you were going to inherit. Slaves were part of the estate, never the benefactors thereof. Likewise, if you were a foreigner, you could safely skip the reading of the will. Your name wouldn't be on the list. People who were not children of Israel were widely regarded as nobodies. They may have lived there, but in the eyes of the law, they didn't belong there, and so they got nothing.
That's just the way it was. Some folks were in; others were out. But then again, are things really that different today? The world is still largely made up of the haves and the have-nots. There are some who own vacation homes on three continents, and others who sleep each night on a park bench beneath a blanket of newsprint. There are some whose pantries and tables are laden with food, and others whose stomachs go empty. There are some who can't figure out which party to attend this weekend, and others who will sit in their apartments all alone. That's just the way it is.
But according to the Bible, that's not the way it will always be. The future is not merely an endless extension of the status quo. God is the One who holds the future, and God's future has a way of surprising and disrupting human expectations. In Isaiah 56, for example, there is a marvelous passage where the Lord says, "I do not want foreigners to say, 'I do not have a place among the people of God.' I do not want the eunuch to say, 'I am just a dead tree.' The day is coming," says the Lord, "when the stranger, the alien, the foreigner, the transient will all have a place in my house. And those who find themselves without children will have better than sons and daughters, because I will put their name on a marker in my house and everybody will know them forever. That day is coming," says Isaiah, "when God's house shall be called a house of prayer for everybody" (Isaiah 56:3-8).
Thomas Long tells the story of a faculty colleague, who once arrived at the airport early for a flight and decided to pass the time by grading papers in one of the waiting areas. His seat happened to be directly opposite a restaurant, and as he worked, he noticed that the restaurant was empty except for one man, who was sitting idly in the corner, with his head resting on the tabletop. It was obvious from his dress that he was one of the homeless folk who had taken up residence in the airport, and it was equally obvious from his manner that he was not in the restaurant as a paying customer.
After a few minutes, another man who seemed to be the restaurant manager walked firmly and swiftly toward the homeless man. It appeared as if a scene was about to develop, in which the manager was going to ask this street person to leave the premises. Surprisingly, though, as the manager walked by the table, he put a hot dog in front of the man. On the way back, he placed a cup of coffee beside the hot dog.
Thomas Long notes that, on the one hand, you could view this as a simple act of human kindness, somebody giving food to a hungry person. From another perspective, however, you could also see it as a glimpse into God's future -- a prophetic act that looked toward the day when everyone will sense that they are part of the family. Because when the manager gave this man some food and drink, not stopping to receive praise or to make the man feel like some debtor, what he said in essence was this. Friend, in a little while, I'm going to have to pretend that my main identity is as a restaurant manager and that your main identity is as a homeless trespasser, and I'm going to have to tell you that you don't belong here. That's just the way things are, right now. But, at least for a moment, let us assume the identities that we will surely have in the future of God. Here you are, brother, welcome to the joyful feast.1
In other words, in God's future, there will no longer be the haves and the have-nots. There will no longer be those whose names are called, and those who wait in vain for someone to notice them. There will no longer be people who are left out or overlooked. For we will all be brought together in God's house, and made to feel that we truly belong there. That day is coming, say the prophets. And what Paul wants to point out is that, in the person of Jesus Christ, that day arrived! The way he put it, when we first heard the gospel and believed in Christ, "We were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God's own people" (vv. 13-14).
Some time ago, I heard about a reporter who had toured the country interviewing the elderly about their earliest experiences. One of the people he happened to encounter was a man by the name of Bernum Ledford. He was a hundred-and-something years old, living in a nursing home in Kentucky, and he remembered as a child being introduced to his great-great-grandmother.
"What was it like meeting her?" this reporter asked. With a soft smile, Bernum said, "I'll never forget that day. It was a hot, humid Sunday afternoon, and it was a long trip. I had never met her before, and I wasn't real excited about going all that way just to see some old woman. To make matters worse, when we finally got to her house and went inside, I saw that not only was she old but blind, and not only blind but actually kind of mean looking. And so, at first, I was afraid of her.
" 'We brought Bernum along to see you,' my father said. She turned in my direction with outstretched arms and long, bony fingers, and said, 'Bring him over here.'
"They practically had to push me across the room," Bernum told the reporter, with a chuckle. "But when I eventually got there, I found that those same hands, which I been so frightened by, were surprisingly gentle. She carefully traced the outline of my face, and ran her fingers through my hair. And then, in a voice filled with love and acceptance, I heard her whisper: 'This boy is one of ours. This boy is part of our family. This one belongs to us.' "
I believe that what Paul is saying in this passage is that before we were first introduced to God -- or for that matter, before even the foundation of the world -- God's gentle hands reached out and chose us to be benefactors, the inheritors of the glory of Christ. In fact, if you listen closely to these verses, you can still hear the merciful whispers of the Almighty: "These ones are my children. These ones are part of my family. These ones belong to me."
____________
1. Thomas G. Long, "Preaching God's Future: The Eschatological Context of Christian Proclamation," in Sharing Heaven's Music, ed. by Barry L. Callen (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), pp. 201-202.
After an awkward pause, Fred fished a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. I noticed that he had taken to wearing a perpetual squint -- either from needing glasses, or smoking too much, or simply because he wasn't able to look at the world wide-eyed anymore. He seemed on the verge of confessing something. But he let the moment pass and gazed out at the forsythia bushes, which swayed back and forth in the breeze like a dancing yellow fog.
"How have you been?" I finally asked.
"Fa-air," he said hesitantly, dragging the word into two syllables.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"I'm not even sure where to begin," he admitted, stabbing a cigarette into his mouth. "I've been kind of depressed these last few months. But it's like one of those equations we used to have in algebra class with nothing but variables; I can't seem to solve it."
I tried to gauge my response carefully, sensing that our conversation had now moved from a thick deceptive forest to more of a desert where my every step would leave a print. "I'd be willing to listen," I said.
He trailed his fingers cautiously along the table, as if searching for an entry point to the discussion. "I don't want to give you the wrong impression," he explained. "I have a pretty good life. I enjoy my work, I meet a lot of fascinating people, and I do a lot of interesting things. Except lately, for some reason, it all seems scattered and disconnected -- like pearls without a string."
I was about to weigh in with an observation, but he suddenly went on with a staccato burst of candor. "I think my problem is that I'm not committed to anything. There is no person, no organization, no principle or cause to which I am a hundred percent committed. I have all these ties, but none of them are binding." He leaned back in his chair and dismissed a plume of smoke, "Do you suppose that might be it?"
Having recently completed a building campaign at the church, I was immediately tempted to launch into one of my ready-to-preach commitment sermons. What I was going to say to him was something along these lines. You had better believe that's the reason you're so depressed. How can you possibly expect your life to have any meaning or value or purpose, unless you're committed to something? Now pull yourself together, and go out there and get involved!
That was the advice I was prepared to offer. However, there was something about the way the cigarette kept trembling in Fred's hand, as the smoke bled slowly through his fingers, which silenced my sermonic impulse. And I now think it was one of those grace-filled occasions when the Holy Spirit provided me with the right words, because what I ended up saying was: "You tell me that you're not committed to anything or anyone. But I wonder if the real issue is that you don't honestly believe that there is anyone who is committed to you?"
Tears began to percolate in his eyes. "You know, it is sheer hell," he whispered, "when you don't feel like you belong."
Have any of you ever experienced that feeling? Have you ever struggled with the sense that you don't belong anywhere -- I mean, really belong? It's one thing to be part of a group where everybody shares a common interest. But it's another thing altogether to know that someone out there is interested in you. I've met people who are members of a dozen different organizations, and involved in activities morning, noon, and night, and they still seem to carry around this emptiness deep inside. It's almost as if they realize that something is missing in their life, but they're not sure what. And worse yet, they secretly suspect that if they were ever missing, no one would even notice.
No doubt, we have all felt like that at one time or another, which is why I hope you were listening closely as the scripture lesson was being read just now. Judging by the way that the letter to the Ephesians starts out, Christianity is more than our making a commitment to God; it's also the recognition that God has made a significant commitment to us. In fact, according to Paul, this commitment began before we were even born. In the person of Jesus Christ, God chose us "before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless" (v. 4). The Almighty "destined us for adoption as children" (v. 5). Paul goes on to affirm that "in Christ we have obtained an inheritance ... so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory" (vv. 11-12).
In effect, this opening passage is like the reading of a will, in which we are all listed as God's benefactors. I don't know how many of you have ever been to the reading of a will. But I assume that even if you haven't, you have a vague idea of what happens at one. Typically, the family and relatives, as well as anybody else who expects to be involved in the distribution of the estate, gather together in a lawyer's office and wait for their names to be called. It can be a very exciting time for some, and I'm guessing, a very anxious time for others. After all, you don't want to show up if your name is not going to be mentioned. It would be rather humiliating to find out at that point that you didn't really belong.
And yet, within the history of ancient Israel, there were some folks who didn't need to be present when the will was read. They might as well have stayed at home, because their names would never be called. For starters, the widow didn't need to be there. Strange as it may seem to us, the law dictated that she was not to inherit a thing. She was a woman, and in those days, property was handed down strictly through men. It was father to son, uncle to nephew, brother to brother.
If you were a slave, you also didn't need to bother showing up. Your name might have been called, but it was more in terms of who was going to inherit you, not what you were going to inherit. Slaves were part of the estate, never the benefactors thereof. Likewise, if you were a foreigner, you could safely skip the reading of the will. Your name wouldn't be on the list. People who were not children of Israel were widely regarded as nobodies. They may have lived there, but in the eyes of the law, they didn't belong there, and so they got nothing.
That's just the way it was. Some folks were in; others were out. But then again, are things really that different today? The world is still largely made up of the haves and the have-nots. There are some who own vacation homes on three continents, and others who sleep each night on a park bench beneath a blanket of newsprint. There are some whose pantries and tables are laden with food, and others whose stomachs go empty. There are some who can't figure out which party to attend this weekend, and others who will sit in their apartments all alone. That's just the way it is.
But according to the Bible, that's not the way it will always be. The future is not merely an endless extension of the status quo. God is the One who holds the future, and God's future has a way of surprising and disrupting human expectations. In Isaiah 56, for example, there is a marvelous passage where the Lord says, "I do not want foreigners to say, 'I do not have a place among the people of God.' I do not want the eunuch to say, 'I am just a dead tree.' The day is coming," says the Lord, "when the stranger, the alien, the foreigner, the transient will all have a place in my house. And those who find themselves without children will have better than sons and daughters, because I will put their name on a marker in my house and everybody will know them forever. That day is coming," says Isaiah, "when God's house shall be called a house of prayer for everybody" (Isaiah 56:3-8).
Thomas Long tells the story of a faculty colleague, who once arrived at the airport early for a flight and decided to pass the time by grading papers in one of the waiting areas. His seat happened to be directly opposite a restaurant, and as he worked, he noticed that the restaurant was empty except for one man, who was sitting idly in the corner, with his head resting on the tabletop. It was obvious from his dress that he was one of the homeless folk who had taken up residence in the airport, and it was equally obvious from his manner that he was not in the restaurant as a paying customer.
After a few minutes, another man who seemed to be the restaurant manager walked firmly and swiftly toward the homeless man. It appeared as if a scene was about to develop, in which the manager was going to ask this street person to leave the premises. Surprisingly, though, as the manager walked by the table, he put a hot dog in front of the man. On the way back, he placed a cup of coffee beside the hot dog.
Thomas Long notes that, on the one hand, you could view this as a simple act of human kindness, somebody giving food to a hungry person. From another perspective, however, you could also see it as a glimpse into God's future -- a prophetic act that looked toward the day when everyone will sense that they are part of the family. Because when the manager gave this man some food and drink, not stopping to receive praise or to make the man feel like some debtor, what he said in essence was this. Friend, in a little while, I'm going to have to pretend that my main identity is as a restaurant manager and that your main identity is as a homeless trespasser, and I'm going to have to tell you that you don't belong here. That's just the way things are, right now. But, at least for a moment, let us assume the identities that we will surely have in the future of God. Here you are, brother, welcome to the joyful feast.1
In other words, in God's future, there will no longer be the haves and the have-nots. There will no longer be those whose names are called, and those who wait in vain for someone to notice them. There will no longer be people who are left out or overlooked. For we will all be brought together in God's house, and made to feel that we truly belong there. That day is coming, say the prophets. And what Paul wants to point out is that, in the person of Jesus Christ, that day arrived! The way he put it, when we first heard the gospel and believed in Christ, "We were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God's own people" (vv. 13-14).
Some time ago, I heard about a reporter who had toured the country interviewing the elderly about their earliest experiences. One of the people he happened to encounter was a man by the name of Bernum Ledford. He was a hundred-and-something years old, living in a nursing home in Kentucky, and he remembered as a child being introduced to his great-great-grandmother.
"What was it like meeting her?" this reporter asked. With a soft smile, Bernum said, "I'll never forget that day. It was a hot, humid Sunday afternoon, and it was a long trip. I had never met her before, and I wasn't real excited about going all that way just to see some old woman. To make matters worse, when we finally got to her house and went inside, I saw that not only was she old but blind, and not only blind but actually kind of mean looking. And so, at first, I was afraid of her.
" 'We brought Bernum along to see you,' my father said. She turned in my direction with outstretched arms and long, bony fingers, and said, 'Bring him over here.'
"They practically had to push me across the room," Bernum told the reporter, with a chuckle. "But when I eventually got there, I found that those same hands, which I been so frightened by, were surprisingly gentle. She carefully traced the outline of my face, and ran her fingers through my hair. And then, in a voice filled with love and acceptance, I heard her whisper: 'This boy is one of ours. This boy is part of our family. This one belongs to us.' "
I believe that what Paul is saying in this passage is that before we were first introduced to God -- or for that matter, before even the foundation of the world -- God's gentle hands reached out and chose us to be benefactors, the inheritors of the glory of Christ. In fact, if you listen closely to these verses, you can still hear the merciful whispers of the Almighty: "These ones are my children. These ones are part of my family. These ones belong to me."
____________
1. Thomas G. Long, "Preaching God's Future: The Eschatological Context of Christian Proclamation," in Sharing Heaven's Music, ed. by Barry L. Callen (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), pp. 201-202.
