Proper 10

Ephesians 1:3–14 (NIV84)

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9 And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. 11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

Preface

Okay, this is a beautiful, but dense passage.

At the heart of it is this encouragement:

You have been called by God to receive the gracious gift of new life and in doing so to participate in his restoration of all things.

And there’s a sense of thanks and celebration as Paul tells the church in Ephesus “God chose US to be a part of this!”

But the way Paul frames it opens up some big theological questions, right?

Namely, what does Paul mean that the Christians in Ephesus were “chosen”

Chosen for what? Salvation? Something else?

And if they were chosen for salvation does that mean others weren’t chosen?

And if others weren’t chosen does that mean they have no possibility of salvation?

I know deep theological questions like this aren’t exactly everyone’s cup of tea

But they are significant because they really do shape our understanding of the gospel and our sense of who God is.

So I want to go into slightly deeper theological waters than I typically do on Sunday and try to speak to some of this.

Exploring what it means to be “chosen” and maybe help us understand it in a fresh way.

God is sovereign.

I think the place we need to start is by asking how a sovereign God relates to humankind.

Yahweh is the creator and sustainer of all things. All power is his and there is nothing above him.

The question is: how does God exercise his power, especially in relation to human beings.

Is he just controlling everything, including you and I, to accomplish predetermined outcomes?

And if so, do I really NOT have free will, to make choices, to follow God or not?

(And I know some of you might already be tempted to check out, but please come with me.)

Some traditions would say, yes, God is in meticulous control of everything all the time, including human wills

Sovereignty is assumed to mean “absolute use of absolute power and absolute control at absolutely all times”

Which would mean, we totally REALLY have a say over whether we’re saved or not.

That’s good news if you are, bad news for everyone else.

Trouble is, I don’t think that jives with what we actually see in the scriptures.

What we see in the scriptures is God relating to human beings as free creatures who are accountable for their own choices.

And the biblical narrative is consistent with God being frustrated with people for making the choices they do and creating circumstances they do on earth.

One of the ways to account for that is to simply say that human beings are IN FACT free creatures.

That God has created us with a capacity for choice and empowered us to act on it.

If you think about it, the creation story STARTS with humankind being presented with a choice and then being held accountable for that choice.

Yes, there are passages that point to God over-riding human will, such as the hardening of Pharaohs heart.

But I would suggest that these passages are the exceptions to the rule.

They stand out to us BECAUSE they’re abnormal occurrences.

One commentator said that looking for free will in the bible is like looking for gravity, it’s just assumed and you don’t realize it’s there until it’s not.

In his sovereignty, God gives away power to humankind.

But can God still be sovereign and above all other powers if human beings are exercising free will?

Sure. Because God’s sovereignty allows him to choose how he will use his power.

God isn’t an impersonal force. God has a will.

And God doesn’t HAVE TO exercise meticulous control if he doesn’t want to.

Theologian Greg Boyd puts it this way.

Why should we assume that God desires to do everything he has the raw power to do? . . . Scripture makes it evident that though God could control us, he desires to empower us to be self-determining, morally responsible agents.

God is sovereign and has all power

But the scriptures reveal a God who actually self-limits (see the incarnation of Jesus)

AND a God who gives some of his power away to humankind allowing them to be free, morally responsible agents

If you look at the creation account in Genesis it tells us that God made humankind in his image, the Imago Dei

One of the things this concept of the Imago Dei is believed to point to is a practice where a ruler would place an image of themselves in a distant territory to indicate their rule from afar.

Humankind is a living image of God, serving as his ambassadors on earth.

And we are given a commission to fill the earth and cultivate it and care for it as God would.

So God created us to be free creatures who used our freedom to be totally dependent upon him as the source of life and then care for creation and for each other in alignment with his will.

God invites restoration, he doesn’t coerce.

The problem revealed in Genesis is that human beings like the independence part, but not the dependence part.

We wanted TOTAL autonomy.

So we opted out of dependance.

And when we did that we opted into death, because we took our freedom to untether from the source of life.

The beauty of the gospel is that God did not give up on humanity, he set a plan in motion to restore the relationship.

But to accomplish the restoration, God DID NOT go into manual override mode and initiate meticulous control.

He stuck with allowing free creatures to choose whether they will embrace dependance upon him or not.

And that is because when God calls people to himself he does not coerce.

He does not force himself upon us and does not force us to love him.

So to set things right, God doesn’t control us.

He continues to love us because God is love.

And he pursues us.

And he removes the barriers that would prevent us, like liberating us from sin.

And he gives his own Spirit to open our hearts and minds.

And he invites us back to that original dependence and connection.

God doesn’t coerce, he loves and invites.

Election is for mission.

OK, how then does this relate to what it means to be chosen?

If God is in override mode, then being chosen simply means that God tabbed some people to receive grace and the rest to not receive grace and if you’re chosen lucky you.

That’s certainly cause for thanks if you’re a part of the in group.

But as we’ve seen, that’s not how God really relates to humankind.

Plus, we have passages like 1 Timothy 2:4 that says God desires all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.

But if instead of simply controlling us to make us believe he is simply loving and inviting all people, then being chosen means something different.

And one of the clues to what it means is the nation of Isreal: God’s CHOSEN people in the Old Testament

By choosing Israel, God did not cancel the opportunity for other nations to know and trust Yahweh

In fact, it was the exact opposite

God CHOSE Israel to be his people so that they would be a light to the nations

Israel was chosen to display God’s saving activity in the world

And he gave them the law to form them as a people who learned to trust him again

And as a transformed people they were meant to embody the good news to the world

SO IT IS WITH THE CHURCH!

God has chosen some to experience his saving power and be transformed so that they can be a light to the nations and embody the good news.

God desires all people to come back to him and he continues to love and invite and one of the ways he does that is through a people.

Theologian Chris Wright puts it like this

Election [i.e., the choosing] of one is not rejection of the rest, but ultimately for their benefit. It is as if a group of trapped cave explorers choose one of their number to squeeze through a narrow flooded passage to get out to the surface and call for help. The point of the choice is not so that she alone gets saved, but that she is able to bring help and equipment to ensure the rest get rescued. “Election” in such a case is an instrumental choice of one for the sake of many.

In the same way, God’s election of Israel is instrumental in God’s mission for all nations. Election needs to be seen as a doctrine of mission, not a calculus for the arithmetic of salvation. If we are to speak of being chosen, of being among God’s elect, it is to say that, like Abraham, we are chosen for the sake of God’s plan that the nations of the world come to enjoy the blessing of Abraham.”

It’s good news for everyone.

If you read back through this morning’s passage you’ll see just how mission-focused it is.

Paul is saying: God has given us all we need, so that we (Paul and the church in Ephesus) who are among the first to believe, can participate in God’s plan, which is now revealed, to bring all things together again under Christ.

What a beautiful way to intro a letter that goes on to talk about how to embody that as a community.

How to submit to one another in love.

How to reconcile ethnic divisions.

How to learn to submit to the Spirit.

Those things are pictures of how God is setting things right and when the church embodies them it becomes a witness to the world and an invitation to join in.

Understood in this way, election is not good news for some and bad news for everyone else.

It’s good news for everyone.

It shapes our understanding of God as loving, non-coercive, desiring all people to be saved.

And it shapes our understanding of who we are as the church, God’s people offering a picture of his saving power, and extending an invitation to others to join in.

How beautiful.