Giving Thanks

Ephesians 1: 15-23

 

 

           Next week, people all over the country will celebrate Thanksgiving. We will cook turkeys and make stuffing and bake pies and gather in homes and churches and restaurants as families and friends. We will break bread together and give thanks for another year of plenty, another year of success.  We will feed veterans and the homeless. We will share our wealth for a meal in a great showing of generosity.

          That will happen on Thursday. We will get done just in time, for the very next day is Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year and the kickoff to the Christmas season. It is the day when supposedly, retailers go in the black to stay for the rest of the year, thanks to the seemingly endless consumerism of Americans. If you’re a Walmart customer, you can get Black Friday prices on top deals a whole week before Black Friday even arrives.

          I’m not much of a consumer. I have clothes older than many people’s cars and a car too old to recall.  If retailers need my business to get in the black, our country is in for a long recession. It’s confusing to keep up with all the messages. Religious seasons and national holidays are used as promotional events rather than times of honor and remembrance. It’s a long way from the original intent of Thanksgiving, a day set apart for the praise of God’s blessing through another harvest.

          Ephesians is in many ways a letter of thanksgiving… thanksgiving for unity in Christ and for the Church’s place in God’s plan to bring about that unity.  It is one of the four so-called prison letters written by the apostle Paul. It was probably written to be circulated among the churches in the region surrounding Ephesus. It does not deal with particular problems in any particular church. The theology is high and the phrasing, while very long, is beautiful. It has been called the “Queen of the Epistles” because of its devotional treatment of Christ.

          In the opening verses of Ephesians, Paul invokes a blessing for God and Christ. In one sentence, he praises God’s election, adoption, God’s will, forgiveness, grace, God’s divine purpose, God’s plan, unity of heaven and earth, and Christ. Paul can get a lot of mileage between periods. He then tells his audience that they were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we receive it.

          Then, in todays’ passage, Paul offers a thanksgiving. He offers the kind of thanksgiving that teaches us about our Savior, our faith, our church and ourselves. The man writes from a prison cell with time on his hands, and one can just imagine him laboring over each phrase, milking each sentence to its theological summit.

          Paul writes to the church at large and says he never ceased to give thanks, that he remembers us in his prayers. He prays for God to give the church a spirit, but not just any spirit. Paul prays for the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him.  To Paul, nothing is more important than the proclamation of the Gospel. The gospel is the good news, and the good news is Jesus Christ. Christ has lived the sinless life, offered himself as the perfect sacrifice, died for our sins, risen from that death and ascended to heaven. That is the Gospel. To believe that is to be in Christ, and to be in Christ is to be in the family of God. He is both the head of the Church and the head of all things. So our wisdom, our revelation, is the knowledge of these things.

          Paul goes on. To have such wisdom and revelation is the key to having the eyes of our hearts enlightened. How do you see? Some things you see with your eyes. You come to a crosswalk and you look both ways. If you see a car coming, you stand still and out of harm’s way. Some things you see with your mind. You balance your checkbook and understand that you are down to fifty dollars, so you budget your expenses to make them last to the next paycheck. Some things you see with your nose. You walk in the house from work and you smell your favorite foods cooking, and you see a wonderful supper in your mind’s eye. And then there are those times when we see with our hearts. Babies are born; children are baptized. The eyes of our hearts are tearing with happiness. Sometimes it is even more special. Sometimes the eyes of our hearts are enlightened.

          Paul is giving thanks for the believers of the early church, whose eyes have been opened, not by the way of the world, but rather by the majesty of God. The eyes of our hearts are enlightened by hope, by inheritance, and by God’s power toward those who believe.  We gain our hope from the work of Christ, whom God has exalted above all others, all things and all time. Then, says Paul, God made Jesus Christ the head of the church. He made the church the body of Christ on earth. It is not an institution. It is an organism, as alive as Christ himself.

          In an explosion of high theology, Paul gives thanks to God for what God has given us, the church. When we use the word church, we are not referring to those who fill up seats in sanctuaries on Sundays, but rather those who fill up themselves with the Holy Spirit…the real believers in Christ. Why can Paul give such thanks? Because his audience is composed of those who show faith and love toward Christ and their own brothers and sisters.  These are the true marks of the church. For them, from Paul’s time until this very day, we give thanks to God as Paul did for the early church.

          We can thank the apostle Paul for this great thanksgiving, for showing us that the unity of the church is dependent upon the body following the direction of the head. Jesus is the head and from generation to generation, we the church must find our fullness in him. So while we can thank Paul for articulating our thanksgiving, we should also try to use the ears of our hearts to hear the mandate that lies implicitly behind that thanksgiving, for it is both compliment and command. If the church is to continue to act as the body of Christ in the world, it has a job to do.

          In his commentary on Ephesians, William Barclay tells of an old legend about how Jesus went back to heaven after his time on earth. Even there in heaven, one could still see clearly the marks of the Cross upon his body. The angels gathered around him and Gabriel commented: “Master, you must have suffered terribly for men down there.” “I did.” said Jesus. Then Gabriel asked “did they know all about how you loved them and what you did for them?” “Oh no,” said Jesus, “not yet. Just now only a few people in Palestine know.” Then Gabriel asked Jesus, “What have you done to let everyone know about it?” Jesus said: “I have asked Peter and James and John and a few others to make it the business of their lives to tell others about me, and the others still others, until the farthest man on the widest circle knows what I have done.” Gabriel hung his head, for he knew full well what poor stuff men were made of. “But what if Peter and James and John grow tired,” he asked. “What if the people who come after them forget? What if away down in the twentieth first century people just don’t tell others about you? Haven’t you made any other plans?”

          And Jesus answered: “I haven’t made any other plans. I’m counting on them.”

          Brothers and sisters in Christ, look around. We are them. He’s counting on us. Praise be to God.