title: Homily Proper 10
author: The Rev. Dale C. Hathaway
Homily July 15
Ordinary Time, Proper 10: Supply St. Peter’s
Two great themes of Ephesians
We will hear from this letter in the NT for the next 6 weeks, up through the end of August. A little introduction to it seems like it might be in order, to help train our hearts and ears to hear the word spoken through the rest of the summer. I will take all this personally to heart, because, in fact, I am in need of a word of hopefulness during these times that seem so dark and fraught. This letter takes a cosmic view of things. It is a classic view of Christ as the Lord of all creation. Creation is big.
- Christ has reconciled all creation to himself and to God, and
- Christ has united people from all nations to himself and to one another in his church.
In an almost trite sort of way, I can tell myself, “This, too, will pass away.” “In the scheme of God’s plan for creation, these times don’t even measure a blip.”
That message doesn’t always get through to our hearts, in the same sort of way that my mother’s admonition, “You ought to send a thank you note to your … (fill in the blank)” would often go in one ear and out the other. We had a vivid example this past week of how the wider world can lose its significance in the light of one powerful local example. The saga of the discovery and rescue of the Thai soccer club, deep underground for over 2 weeks, was extraordinary, poignant, tearful, and a good reminder for us of what is important and what is not.
The words from this letter from our New Testament aims to give us the same kind of message but from the opposite perspective. The author of this letter is taking a cosmic view of things and telling us that even from that perspective each of us has a part to play.
In the news this past week there was a science story about the identification of certain neutrinos as coming from “A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far Far Away…” The Washington Post started its story:
When the sun was young and faint and the Earth was barely formed, a gigantic black hole in a distant, brilliant galaxy spat out a powerful jet of radiation. That jet contained neutrinos — subatomic particles so tiny and difficult to detect they are nicknamed “ghost particles.”
Four billion years later,…
I found the story of some interest because I wrote a paper in my 2nd year of college about neutrinos. At the time they were mostly known as a theoretical particle that the physics theories predicted ought to be, but there was very little evidence for them because they are very difficult to detect. They are so small that most of them pass through the earth on their way to another part of the universe. In the intervening 50 years, of course, scientists have found ways to to detect them and the interesting part of last week’s story is that in addition, scientists can now determine what the origin was of the neutrinos that they detect.
Awesome and amazing.
That’s the kind of perspective the letter to the Ephesians tries to bring to us, coupled with the proclamation that we, insignificant human beings that we are, have a part to play in God’s awesome creation.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love …
Adoption
Many years ago when I was in graduate school I took a seminar on the theology of ministry. The basic method we used was to observe a variety of different ministries – I mean really different kinds of ministries – and then to come back to our group and to reflect theologically on what we observed.
We observed the usual kinds of things like Sunday worship, funerals, weddings, etc. But we also observed some less traditional ministries. In the early 1980’s that included radio ministry and that was mostly being done by conservative Protestant ministers. I didn’t feel particular affinity with them but I chose to approach my “research” with an openness based precisely on the fact that I didn’t know or relate to it.
I ended up listening to one program in particular that changed my life. Imagine that. It was by Chuck Swindoll. My recollection was that he was teaching on the prophet Hosea, but my memory could be faulty on that point. What is very clear to me is the theme. The theme was adoption. The narrative in the Bible was about God adopting the people as his own. In spite of everything …
The metaphor just hit me like a spear, penetrating to my heart. I somehow knew deep within me it was “adoption” that was most like the relationship between us and God. We are not God and we are not even part of his “family” except in so far as God created us to be like him. So the love that God has for us is not particularly like that of a biological father and mother, but more like an adopted father or mother.
At that point in my life, the birth of my oldest children had been the thing that awakened love within me. Little did I guess, however, that it would be the entrance of children more like adopted children that would really teach me about love. I went on in future years to be a host for a number of foreign students and invited young people to live with me for extended periods of time. There would be the older folks who became like aunties & uncles to me and the adopted children of other families that would become more like children than my biological children.
Paul was onto something when he greeted the Ephesians with the blessing we have heard this morning.
He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
Understanding the mystery of God’s will
With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
Throughout the years of my ministry I have continuously been in the presence of people who are suffering in any of a multitude of different ways. My desire and my calling has been to minister to them in whatever way I could figure out. Sometimes it was more obvious than other times. Many times I prayed, beginning with the words, “Lord I don’t know what to do. Lead me.” Then, typically, I would say the Hail Mary. Sometimes I would remember the words of The Rev. Peter J. Gomes, former chaplain at Harvard University (RIP). He told a group of us in Honolulu that before every sermon he preached he would say the words from the Hippocratic Oath: Lord, let me do no harm.
As I ministered with people in need and pain I struggled to find the right words. Often the words, “It will be all right” were not at all appropriate. If a grandchild or spouse was about to die, for that person, “It’s going to be okay” were platitudes and empty of significance.
But I am with Paul when he says that God has a plan for the fullness of time and that all things will be gathered up in him. Where are the words to say that? The gestures to show that?
All too often it’s not obvious, but that has been my goal. The message of hope, the good news, is not a platitude. It is a deep and awesome truth.
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