Untitled Sermon, Jan. 2010

Eph. 1:3-14, Jn. 1:1-18 + Christmas 2 + January 3, 2010
Plymouth Church UCC, Milwaukee
D. Ross-Jones

I generally cringe when I hear the phrase “Bible-based.” For our Christian tradition, to apply the descriptor “Bible-based” is a half-truth, and disguises just how dramatic Jesus’ birth is to the world. It takes the focus off the Word of God, capital W and G, and places it instead on words, little W. Certainly our tradition includes written words, both in a canonized scriptural fashion – the Bible – as well as in the books of theologians and church leaders through history and now, such as Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, Lombard, Barth, West, and De La Torre.

But the miracle of Jesus the Christ cannot be limited to mere ink on a page – or, for me, mere characters illuminated on an LED screen. We need to reclaim and celebrate the Word of God made flesh, who lives and works on this very earth among us – the very divine, holy creation where we make our home.

Please pray with me.

Reconciling God, we thank you for the opportunity to gather together as your community and approach you through your Word. I pray now that the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts here in this place be acceptable in your sight, O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Today’s text from Ephesians is typically used as one basis for the theologies of Predestination and Election, taking cues from the fourth and fifth verses. In short summary, those theologies establish an “invisible church” of those particular individuals God has chosen, or elected, to bestow salvation and eternal life. The rest of creation is condemned to spiritual death. No human – either those who are chosen or those who are not – has any knowledge of their status on God’s list, nor any influence over the outcome, either by faith, will, or works.

This outlook is commonly attributed to the Calvinist family of Reformed theology – one that has deeply shaped and influenced our own tradition of Congregational and United Churches. And so, while it seems outlandish to many modern progressive Christian ears, it is important that we recognize how it has contributed to our faith community in this way.

At the same time, this passage has been used to defend imperialism and political manifest destiny. As God’s chosen people, following the unification of Christianity and many Western governments, the theft of land, perpetual imprisonment and ownership of other human beings, has been defended in part by this text from Ephesians.

Depressing stuff for the Second Sunday after Christmas! As the song goes, today I’m supposed to get Nine Ladies Dancing – though that brings up an altogether different set of issues.

New Zealand-born theologian William Loader describes the best intent of this text as a love song, similar to that which might be sung between lovers, “You were always the one for me.” Viewed through the lens of the first chapter of John, today’s passage from Ephesians takes on an inclusive voice – an intentional partnership between Creation and its Creator through the being of Jesus of Nazareth, the Word incarnate.

But oh how we have limited creation and our Creator! One of the presenters at the Parliament of the World’s Religions I attended last month challenged us not to think about ourselves as women and men, as members of the West or East or global North or South, or even as human beings – our location and our identity is even deeper than that. We should think of ourselves as earth beings, rooted in the very soil under our feet, connected to the very plants and animals that sustain us, responsible citizens not of any political definition, but of our planet. Only in such a transition, the presenter maintained, can we seriously consider our influence in climate change and environmental sustainability.

His call for an earth-based identity transforms the cosmic language in this Ephesians text in a way that the pre-industrial reformers, perhaps, couldn’t imagine, and I think the early industrialists wouldn’t have dreamed. For the former, genetic engineering and trans-national food distribution systems would have been unfathomable to their low-earth social location. Food was delivered from no more than a couple dozen miles at most, and the seasonality of produce was a given. For the latter, the ramifications of greenhouse gasses, carbon emissions, and toxic waterways were incomprehensible.

As industrialization and development has progressed, we have lost our foundational identity in the earth, in the “stuff” of life. We move further and further away from the beauty of Creation, at best limiting it to a commodity to be visited, and at worst exploiting it for the benefit of a small few.

I have a friend who, whenever possible, walks barefoot. At first, this seemed quite odd, and many of us give her grief over her decision. Even when she must wear footwear – say when going into a business or when there is snow and ice on the ground – she wears simple, $4 Old Navy flip-flops. Once I decided to ask her, “There must be a reason why you never wear shoes, what is it?”

“I feel disconnected from the earth, from where I come,” she responded. For her, the self-imposed separation was as profound as layers of sock and shoe. Walking barefoot was more than just a personal preference, it was a yearning for connection, a response to the divine handiwork that embraces her and all things.

And that, I think, is exactly what I take away from this passage today. The Ephesians writer is not talking about Jesus as the Great Reconciler of just those who agree with him, nor is it a human-exclusive salvation narrative as has been usually taught. This Jesus, the Christ, the Word made flesh to dwell here on this very earth, among this very Creation, calls us into reconciliation in the same place, and along the same radical line. Our lives and our God are here on earth – in and among the stuff of earth, and Jesus, in his being, is the one that reconciles both the heavenly and earthly domains.

And how appropriate, then, to consider the Christmas story in light of this earth-rootedness: an unwed mother giving birth to a child, surrounded with the stuff of earth. No sterilized hospital maternity ward high above the ground. Not even in a sleeping room of a boarding house. Instead coming into this world in a stable, among animal and straw.

I think, also, about the feast we are about to celebrate around this table here. We celebrate this reconciliation between humanity and God through the grain and fruit of earth. This simple meal extends our expression of community – of communion – beyond the human and metaphysical into one of unity with all that has been created.

Our other core Christian celebration of baptism, the initiation into our faith community, focuses on water – the basic foundation of all that is earthly and natural. How can we ignore this promise of an earth-based existence?

This is our inheritance, this here and now. This beautiful creation established for our home. We are gathered, all things in heaven and on earth are gathered in the one who continues to live and dwell and work on this great, beautiful Earth.

That is the blessing of the Christmas story.

Soli Deo Gloria. To God alone be glory. Amen.