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I Love a Mystery |
Ephesians 3: 1-12
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© John Ewing Roberts |
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INTRODUCTION I Love a Mystery was a 1940's radio program that scared me half to death. Raise your hand if you remember listening to I Love a Mystery - I'm interested in seeing how many of you have been spinning around on this planet as long as I have. Each night of the week just before dinner time I would I would prepare to listen to I Love a Mystery. I would wedge myself into an overstuffed chair in the corner by the big radio. The chair's back was safely against the wall; the left side was snug against the radio; I had only two sides to protect that way. The theme music came from the spooky opening passage of a piece whose name I later learned was Jean Sibelius' Valse Triste. The opening notes still give me goose bumps. Sure I was scared, but I loved every minute of it. We all know what that kind of a mystery is, but every now and then the word "mystery" pops up in the Bible. Surely, it can't mean the same thing. THE MEANING OF MYSTERY In everyday language people often say, "God moves in a mysterious way," usually delivered with a baffled and resigned shrug of the shoulders. Those words comes from a hymn text by William Cowper. Again, how about a show of hands if you ever have actually sung that hymn in a service? Today we will all sing it at the end of the service, but don't worry if you don't know it; you'll be all right - the tune will be the familiar one for O God, Our Help in Ages Past. We will not sing one remarkable verse, found not in the brown hymnal but in the red hymnal. It goes like this: "God's purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour: the bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower."[1] My purpose this morning is to prepare us for communion by learning how to love the mysteries of the Bible. If we can do that, our lives will be enriched; our spirits are lifted; our Christian lives made stronger. Markus Barth in his exhaustive, two volume commentary on Ephesians explains that in epistles like Ephesians mystery refers to God's decision to include the Gentiles among the elect people, and the need to make this clear in the whole world.[2] But the word can be used of any secret rite, as in the Greek mystery religion where the secrets were known only to the initiated, or secret thought or matter could be called a mystery. In the Septuagint, the Old Testament in Greek, the word could mean the secret of a king or a friend that must remain enclosed in the heart of the one who knows about it.[3] The church fathers used the term for baptism and the Lord's Supper, sacred tires of the church which they sometime equated with a sacramentum, the oath taken by a Roman soldier. Eph. 5: 32 refers to marriage as a mystery, and I suppose even the best marriages must retain an element of mystery in the husband-wife relationship. Again I call for a show of hands - raise your hand if you completely understand your spouse without any element of mystery. I will be available for counseling appointments in the morning for all of you who actually think you completely understand your spouse.[4] There are other uses of the word mystery: Israel, the resurrection, evil.[5] For theological inquiry, the trinity, the two natures of Christ, the justification of the sinner and many other things remain a mystery, prompting appropriate awe, which remain inscrutable. Romans 11: 33-34a sums it up like this: "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are this judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord...?" But this one secret in Ephesians is far from unknowable, and here it is: God has made known his heart, for Paul and for all of us to make it known. This mystery, this secret, this plan is at the heart of the gospel, the good news, the evangel. It is the motive for mission. On Epiphany we celebrate the visit of the wise men from the east as representative of Gentiles who are now included in the plan of God. The wisemen represent us - the Gentiles; they come with a mixture of wisdom and superstition, astronomy and astrology, the same kind of mixture of paganism and enlightenment that characterize our culture. LESSONS Let me briefly comment on some insights from this text on mystery, reasons to love the whole process in which God involves us in his plan. Paul believed that what he did, his ministry, depended on the revelation of God's secret, in the "cosmic" service of the church, and its confirmation in courageous suffering and endurance.[6] In verse 13 because of this point of view on his ministry and its grand association with God's mystery, he was able to connect the tribulations he suffered with glory. Paul would affirm the powerful prayer of the Spanish mystic, Miguel de Unamuno, "May God deny you peace and give you glory."[7] Intercession is such an important part of what Paul does, that it begins (v. 1) and concludes any doctrinal or narrative section.[8] In other words the beginning and the end, the surrounding medium for all Paul does in fulfilling God's plan is prayer. When we begin and end a meeting or service with prayer, we are not engaged in a mechanical, automatic habit; we are following a splendid example. In verse 6, Paul speaks of the now disclosed mystery of God as revealing that we Gentiles are connected now with Israel, as "joint heirs, members in the same body, fellow beneficiaries in all that is promised." Markus Barth wrote in that same great commentary on Ephesians that "...no Gentile can have communion with Christ or with God unless he also has communion wit Israel...the Gentiles are grafted onto Israel" (Romans 11: 17)[9] We dare not underemphasize the importance of this insight. When I or others in our congregation who have taken part in activities of the Institute of Christian and Jewish Studies share our excitement with you, we are not simply passing on stimulating and fresh takes on old texts. We are stressing some fundamental and basic to our experience as Christians: "...no Gentile can have communion with Christ or with God unless he also has communion with Israel...the Gentiles are grafted onto Israel" (Romans 11: 17) In verse 7, Paul describes himself and by extension all of us who share in the mystery we love, as "a servant of the gospel." To be a servant of the gospel is to be humbled and honored simultaneously. The great conductor Toscanini once began a rehearsal of a Beethoven symphony by saying to his orchestra, "Gentlemen, I am nothing; you are nothing; Beethoven is everything."[10] They were the servants of composer's music. The concert pianist of the last generation, Claudio Arrau, was once asked by conservatory students about his concerts as creative art. He sternly replied that he was not a creative artist, but a recreative artist. He too was a servant of his music, even as Paul was of his message. In verse 10, Paul speaks of the "manifold wisdom of God." The Greek word for "manifold" (KJV) or "varied" (NRSV) is polypoikilos - multicolored, intricate, cunning. The word "manifold" probably denoted originally the character of an intricately embroidered pattern, e.g., of a cloth or flowers."[11] The lesson here has to do with the varied of God's mysterious plan. It includes in its encompassing embrace all sorts of God's children. Multiculturalism, pluralism may stylish in our time, despised by some as politically correct, embraced by others as positive signs of the time, but however you feel about such issues, know that the word of God, the Bible, 20 centuries ago, taught that the wisdom of God was multicolored. We honor this truth every Friday when the ESOL program meets, every Sunday when William Chin leads the Cantonese service, every Monday when he leads the Cantonese Bible study; and every school day when our WEE classes assemble. Verse 11 reminds us that God has a plan; he is not without purpose, intention and the will to bring it to pass. In this year our Future of the Church Committee will seek to help us discern God's plan for Woodbrook, how God's varied gifts to us match up with challenges and opportunities for ministry. Verse 12 says "confidently we make use of our free access to God," a cue for us to be more bold in our approach to our mighty God. Yesterday near the end of the Clemson-Carolina basketball game (sorry 'bout that Greg!), the announcer castigated a Carolina player for having an open 15 foot jump shot and passing off, not because he was unselfish but because he lacked confidence. The commentator said that this was no way to play as a starter on a ranked team. "You have to want to take the shot." The same principle of confidence was at work in the legendary days of the Knights of the Round Table who asked King Arthur for danger to face and dragons to conquer.[12] CONCLUSION The abiding thought from all of this talk of the beloved mystery of Gentile inclusion in God's plan comes two ways: in a story from architecture and in a favorite quote. First the story. Do you know the song from Mary Poppins, "Feed the birds?" Mary Poppins sings about feeding the birds "all around the cathedral" with its "saints and apostle." The setting as "all around" St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Now the story. When Sir Christopher Wren was building that magnificent building, he made a tour of the work in progress. He came across three workmen, and asked each in turn what he was doing. "I'm cutting this stone to a certain size and shape." "I'm earning some money at my work." "I'm helping Sir Christopher Wren to build St. Paul's Cathedral."[13] That story tells us how to think about our work for building the Kingdom of God through the Woodbrook Baptist Church. When the Nominating Committee seeks you out, you can think of the job as a duty to be wearily accepted or a task to be dodged. Or, you can remember the third workman who understand himself to be helping Sir Christopher Wren to build St. Paul's Cathedral; you can think of yourself as having an opportunity to join with the Holy Spirit in building the church of God, an outpost of his kingdom. Now for the quote, one that my middle school principal (an active Baptist layman) used to open school each year. It comes from Daniel Webster: "If we work with marble, it will perish. If we work upon brass, time will efface it. If we rear temples, they will crumble into dust. But if we work upon immortal minds and instill in them just principles, we are then engraving upon tablets that no time will efface, but will brighten and brighten to all eternity."[14] Notes: [1] William Cowper, "God Moves in a Mysterious Way," No. 466, A New Hymnal for Colleges and Schools, Jeffrey Rowthorn and Russell Schultz-Widmar, editor [New Haven: 1992] [2] Op. cit., p. 123 [3] Op. cit., p. 124 [4] After the service several persons suggested that persons married to individuals who thought they understood them completely were in need of counseling to provide support! [5] Rom. 11:25; I Cor. 15: 51; II Thess. 2:7 [6] Markus Barth, Ephesians 1-3, Anchor Bible Commentary, Vol. 34 [Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co,] 1974, p. 327 [7] Barclay, p. 145 [8] Ibid. [9] Op. cit., p. 337 [10] Barclay, p. 147 [11] Op. cit., p. 345 [12] Barclay, p. 146 [13] William Barclay, The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians [Philadelphia: The Westminster Press] 1958, p. 142 [14] Tyron Edwards, A Dictionary of Thoughts Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations [Detroit, Michigan: F. B. Dickerson Co.] 1905, pp. 347-348 |