A sermon by Bob Morse
Ephesians 1:3-14
Early in the 20th century, Carl Jung, a famous Swiss psychiatrist, made a trip to the
Southwestern part of this country where he spent time with a tribe of Native
Americans. He quickly observed that each morning before sunrise, the entire tribe
would awaken and begin a most elaborate ceremony complete with drumming,
dancing and many rituals – all of which was very impressive. However, as Jung got to know them better, he discovered this was something far more than just a ceremony. In fact, it was the belief of this tribe they had complete and total responsibility for the rising of the sun each morning. Without their ceremony and rituals, the sun wouldn’t rise at all. They certainly understood that without the sun, all forms of life would not exist – and it was their responsibility to ensure that the sun would continue to enable life on earth to exist for one more day.
From our western scientific understanding, together with our knowledge of the cosmos and the universe, this quite certainly seems very absurd. I can assume no one here this morning would believe that the sun rose solely because of this tribe and its ceremony earlier in the day. More than that, we would believe with certainty that if the entire tribe had decided to sleep in for several hours after the normal time of sunrise, it wouldn’t make a particle of difference. The sun would rise without them. In fact, we would even consider their belief to be utterly absurd.
However, I believe there is a much larger picture. This tribe had found a source of profound meaning for their lives. They were making (in their mind) a major difference in the lives of people by making certain the sun would sustain the possibility of their continued existence on this earth. This critically important role gave profound meaning to everything in that tribe and community. The purpose for their existence was very clear.
Compare that with the words of Andre Morois, a well-known British author, who wrote: “The universe is indifferent. Who created it? Why are we here on this puny mud-heap spinning in infinite space? I have not the slightest idea, and I am quite convinced that no one has the least idea.” Or consider the words of Macbeth in the play by Shakespeare: “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty place from day to day….. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
The UCC Maine Conference annual meeting took place about three weeks ago. The invited guest was Matthew Fox, a former Dominican priest in the Roman Catholic Church, who was removed from his priesthood by then Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. Matthew Fox is a prolific author with the central goal throughout all of his work surrounding the critically important question: How do we find meaning and purpose in our lives? He would say that many in this country (and equally so the world) are living with a great hole in the middle of their existence which is hungering to be filled. The tragedy is that people try to fill this enormous hole of meaningless-in- life in all the wrong ways, which are likely to be quite hurtful for them. Examples might be: conspicuous consumption, a determination that the one with the most toys or the most money wins, all kinds of addictions as an attempt to fill the void of meaninglessness, and the list could go on and on. Fox is one who has been grasped by the conviction that spirituality, understood and practiced, can make all the difference. It may have a foundation in something like an intuition, or a dream, even a voice, or something truly mystical, perhaps a mysterious prompting which has led to the certainty that our lives can be filled with profound meaning and purpose. He talks about the “Cosmic Christ” in our history, and the role that Christ plays in our faith tradition so that our spirituality can be the focus of how we find the meaning and purpose in life that we crave so much; One might say that his life work has been to share Jesus Christ with persons in profound ways that grasp those persons and make all the difference in their lives.
This could certainly be said about the author of the letter to the Ephesians in the words which I read this morning: “With all wisdom and insight, God has made known to us the mystery of his will according to the 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.” “Fullness of time” assumes gigantic connotations. For those of you who have stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon and learned that some of those rocks before you are 1 billion, 500,000 years old. Or for those who have looked into cosmic space, reflecting on the inconceivable distances and the millions, or even billions, of light years away represented. Does all of this have a purpose? And is that purpose a carpenter in Nazareth in an obscure corner of a now-vanished empire, whom his contemporaries nailed to a criminal’s cross? Are you and I, as Christians, members of a body, the church, which shares in the purposed end of all things? The Epistle to the Ephesians answers emphatically, YES!
As Christians, we are bold to assert that Jesus Christ is in the middle of history and that it is moving toward a far-off divine event which can already be experienced in Jesus. There is fulfillment and meaning which is expressed in the creative loving which brings all of creation together. This coming together in love is not one of uniformity, but it is a unity which accepts, and rejoices in the uniqueness of each individual. Each person brings what he or she is, and what he or she has, renewed and restored by the love of Christ, and in that diversity and completeness is the joy of knowing we are fulfilled. This is what the author of Ephesians is talking about. The bottom line is that we are wonderfully, uniquely, and deeply loved by God through Jesus Christ. And the bottom line is that Jesus has shared with us how we can love other persons and find a deep fulfillment and meaning in our own lives.
Few persons would be able to match the love for which Mother Theresa dedicated her life to the poor, sick, dying and homeless persons on the streets of Calcutta, India. During a large part of her time there, visitors saw hanging on the wall of her simple living space what have come to be known as the ‘paradoxical commandments.’ For years, it was widely assumed that Mother Theresa, herself, had written them. However, after her death, it was learned that they had actually been written by an American man named Kent Keith in 1968 when he was only a sophomore in high school. Since that time, he has had numbers of professions, always working with people. The dust jacket on one of his books states that “his mission is to help people find personal meaning and deep happiness in their lives and work.” The paradoxical commandments represent a much larger picture as way of life that any one of us can embrace. As I read these paradoxical commandments, I wonder if there could be dimensions of them which you might feel represent Jesus’ approach to persons of his time, and equally Jesus’ approach to us in our time.
• (1) People are illogical, unreasonable and self-centered: Love them anyway.
• (2) If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives: Do good anyway.
• (3) If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies: Succeed anyway.
• (4) The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow: Do good anyway.
• (5) Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable: Be frank anyway.
• (6) The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds: Think big anyway.
• (7) People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs: Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
• (8) What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight: Build anyway.
• (9) People really need help, but may attack you if you do help them: Help people anyway.
• (10) Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth: Give the world the best you have anyway.
There are so many ways for each of us to find a deep underlying purpose, fulfillment and meaning in our lives. These ten paradoxical commandments may be just one way, but they make a lot of sense to me as a much larger picture of a way to give to others, and potentially to receive even more ourselves. However, maybe the author of Ephesians said it in the most encompassing and succinct way: “God has made known to us the mystery of his will which God set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in God.” For us as Christians, this is really what life is all about. May each of us be able to find that fulfillment, meaning and purpose in the “fullness of time which God has set forth in Christ” for our own individual lives. Amen.