“The Mystery of God’s Will”

Ephesians 1:3-14

Dr. Stephen K. Nash

Before my message on this morning’s text, rather than give any farewell remarks, I thought it better to use my time to share with you one of the many things that I know about Marty that you might otherwise never hear. So since I’m out the door and no longer subject to retribution – or at least firing – here’s one of the jewels that I’ve been keeping to myself.

You know that Marty is a pilot and used to fly a lot. Even had his own plane. So do you ever wonder why he isn’t up there in the heavens flying lately? There’s a good reason.

It seems that a few years ago he got tired of the long car trip from the airport to their cottage up in New England that is situated on a lovely lake. Marty got the idea of equipping his plane with pontoons so he could land right in front of their cottage. But on his first trip up to the cottage with his newly equipped plane, he headed for a landing at the airport just as he had always done in the past. Old habits are hard to break. But as he was going in for the landing it dawned on Sandy what was happening and she yelled, “Marty, what do you think you’re doing? You can’t land this thing on the runway. You don’t have any wheels, you’ve got pontoons on it!”

Fortunately, her warning shout was in time and he pulled up from his landing pattern, swung the airplane around and headed for a landing on the lake.

After the plane landed safely on the water he heaved a really big sigh of relief and turned to Sandy and said, “That’s about the stupidest thing I’ve ever done!” And then he turned, opened the door, and stepped with a huge splash right into the lake.” Ever since, Sandy hasn’t let him fly a plane.

Just ask me if you want more stuff. It’s all fair game now.

Despite the fact that many homes have put their decorations away for another year, it is still Christmas you know. The eleventh day – and I hope that your true love delivered the pipers piping today, and yesterday the lord’s a leaping, and especially Friday the nine ladies dancing . . . that’s my personal favorite day of Christmas.

Today is not only the last day of my employment with this wonderful congregation, but it is also the next to last day of the season of Christmas. It’s difficult for us to think about because so much of what we hear and say and experience would lead us to believe that Christmas is a day. On December 26th the newspaper arrives with the advertisements for the “After Christmas” sales. All the presents are opened. No more anticipation. No more surprise. Only the church stubbornly thinks that it is still Christmas.

I don’t know if this is true or not, but I suspect that as the church year began to evolve as a way of telling the story of Jesus, someone came to the conclusion that one day was not enough to contemplate the mystery and significance of Jesus’ birth. In a sense, we spend the entire year - and the truth of the matter is, we spend an entire lifetime - thinking about who this person, Jesus of Nazareth, is and what his presence means for us and for the life of the world.

That is what Christian faith is about - thinking about Jesus, wondering about Jesus, daring to draw close to Jesus, having the courage to watch him and listen to him, let our lives be shaped by him. All of the beautiful, beloved stories of the Christmas season simply point to the deep, deep understanding that this baby will become someone ultimately important.

Why is Jesus of Nazareth important? We know that no understanding of Jesus understands it all. We know that no statement of faith captures everything that is to be known and said and affirmed about this person. We know that faith is not just a collection of ideas and doctrines about Jesus. I wish it were that simple. I wish that it could be said - all that you have to do to be a Christian is to believe this and this and this and then you’ve done it. You’ve got it made. You’ve done it all. But faith is not ultimately a matter of doctrines, even doctrines about Jesus. Faith is a matter of placing our trust in something or someone else. Now we do put our faith in someone because we believe certain things about that person. But there is a big difference in believing and in having faith. The difference is like the difference in believing that a parachute will float me safely to the ground from thousands of feet in the sky, and actually jumping out of a plane with the thing on my back.

No understanding of Jesus understands it all - and yet we try and try and try to give voice to why we think he is important. That is the Christmas question. That is the Christian question. Why is Jesus of Nazareth important? One of the reasons we come together week in - week out is to share our incomplete understandings, to listen to others who struggle to put into words their sense of the significance of this infant. We bring different perspectives. We put different accent marks on the story. We describe his significance in different ways.

And this conversation has been going on for a long, long time. The New Testament is the record of how Christians of the first generations tried to find the right words to answer that question - Why is Jesus of Nazareth important?

John, the gospel writer, said that Jesus was the light of the world who brings enlightenment to our darkness. Matthew wanted us to understand that Jesus is like a new Moses, who gives new teaching, new wisdom, that under girds the life of the New Israel. One New Testament writer called him the image of the unseen God. And the metaphors can be multiplied. There are many rich ones in Scripture and it should not surprise us that different writers use different metaphors to describe Jesus’ significance. The author of Ephesians from which today’s scripture lesson is drawn put it yet another way.

A Sunday School class of young adults in a congregation that I was serving a number of years ago asked me to be the resource person for their annual retreat. I agreed, then asked the leaders of the class what they wanted to talk about. I probably should have asked that question before I agreed. They said that they wanted us to address the question: How can I know the will of God for my life?

On the one hand I think that is a good question for us to ask. It acknowledges the fundamental assumption of faith that although we are perfectly free to live life on our own terms, it’s not a good idea. It is not the way it’s supposed to be. Faith begins in the assumption that God has some intention for your life - that it matters to God what you do with your time, your energy, your material resources. It matters to God if you’re indifferent to the pain of others or if you’re caring and compassionate. It matters to God if you are greedy, if your goal in life is to simply accumulate as much as you can or if you’re inclined to use some of your resources to make the world a better place. To ask “what is the will of God for my life?” means that we know that how we live, what kind of person we are, makes a difference.

Two brief human-interest observations. First: One evening in a restaurant the owner of the restaurant stood in the dining room the entire time we were there. And with a scowl on his face that seemed to be carved in stone (it never flickered, it never changed), he watched every move as his servers took orders and delivered food and cleared tables. The only kinds of things I heard him say were things like - Hurry up... Get that order over there... Clear that table quickly. He yelled and he criticized and he was totally negative the whole time we were there. The truth is I almost could not enjoy my meal. Almost. That’s one way of relating to other people. You experience people like that in many different contexts, don’t you?

The second interaction is not one I observed, but read about recently. It’s a neat story -- a wonderful story about a famous research scientist who had made several very important medical breakthroughs. A newspaper reporter interviewed this scientist and asked why, in his opinion, he was so much more creative than the average person.

This scientist answered that he believed it was because of an experience he had with his mother when he was about two years old. He had been trying to get a bottle of milk out of the refrigerator when he lost his grip on it, spilling its contents all over the kitchen floor. It created a veritable sea of milk!

When his mother came into the kitchen, instead of yelling at him, giving him a lecture or punishing him, she said, "Robert, what a great and wonderful mess you have made! I have rarely seen such a huge puddle of milk. Well, the damage has been done. Would you like to play in the milk for a few minutes before we clean it up?"

Robert thought that was a great idea. After a few minutes, his mother said, "You know, Robert, when you make a mess like this, eventually you have to clean it up. So, how would you like to do that? Would you rather use a sponge, a towel, or a mop?" He chose the sponge, and together they cleaned up the mess. His mother then said, "You know, what we have here is a failed experiment in how to effectively carry a big milk bottle with two little hands. Let’s go out to the back yard and fill the bottle up with water. Then we’ll see if you can figure out a way to carry it without dropping it." The little boy learned that if he grasped the bottle at the top with both hands, he could carry it without dropping it. It was a wonderful lesson!

This renowned scientist then remarked that at that moment he knew he didn’t need to be afraid of making mistakes. Instead, he learned that mistakes were just opportunities for learning something new, which is, after all, what scientific experiments are all about. Even if the experiment doesn’t work, we usually learn something valuable from it.

What a wonderfully creative, effective, kind and human way of dealing with a child – or any person for that matter. The kind of forbearing and redemptive attitude toward others who are as human and imperfect as we are.

Diana and I took a break from packing one night last week and rented the movie Seabiscuit. What a beautiful film and a powerful story of redemption that portrays on many levels this attitude of forbearance and second chances and redemptive love. We highly recommend the movie if you haven’t seen it yet. If I were going to be around for another season of Saturday Night at the Movies, it would sure be one flick that would be on the agenda.

Now, I don’t want to make too much of this. I’m sure that none of those people – the restaurant owner we observed or the mother of the child who would become a scientist that I read about, or the character played by Jeff Bridges in Seabiscuit, were thinking about God or what God’s will was for their life. But if our sense of what God wants of us does not play out in the little, seemingly insignificant interactions of life - the way we treat the people we live with and work with and play with and worship with - what difference does it all make?

What is the will of God for my life? On the one hand that is a good question. We need to think about that question in relationship to the way we treat other people, because that is the stuff of which life is made. That is the essence of life.

On the other hand, I had to tell these friends who wanted me to lead their retreat that there were several things that I found troubling about the question. In the first place, does it assume that there is a simple way for me to discover God’s will for my life apart from a lifetime of prayerful contemplation, study, thought, worship, conversation in a community of people who are trying to discern the same thing?

Does the question assume that I could discover God’s will for my life apart from mistakes, sometimes horrific and painful mistakes, apart from taking the wrong path, apart from discovering that I have turned in the wrong direction and found myself going again and again seeking either forgiveness or direction or enlightenment or healing or reorientation -- seeking some sense of newness in my life?

Does the question assume that God has some kind of specific blueprint or script for my life and that if I ask the question in just the right way that script will be revealed to me? Go to college. Go to seminary. Become a minister. Get married. Have two children. Is the call that Diana and I feel to go to Dewitt Community Church something that is self-evidently and perfectly clear -- the only legitimate option that is open to us if we are to be true to God’s calling. Well, maybe. But I’ve never found that knowing the will of God is a simple or easy thing or that there is one and only one correct answer.

And here’s my real problem with that question. How can I know God’s will for my life unless I first have some understanding of God’s will for all of humankind and for all of creation?

Let’s be honest. It is a typically western, North American way of asking the question, rooted in the pervasive, self-absorbed individualism that is a part of the air we breathe that we talked about in last week’s sermon. What is the will of God for my life? As if that were, somehow, the most important question. I’m not sure the Bible asks the question that way. The question the Bible asks may be - What is the will of God for the community of people who seek to live in faithfulness with God? What is God’s will for humankind - for all creation? And if those are important questions for us, then we must ask ourselves - how does God make that will known to us?

This, said the author of Ephesians, is why Jesus of Nazareth is important. In the sentences we heard read just a few moments ago, he talks about the significance of Jesus in several ways in verses 3 through 8. But then in the climax of the text – and this is what I want you to think about - he says that Jesus is important because in him we catch a glimpse of the will of God.

By that I mean the will of God for each of us personally, and the will of God in its largest, broadest, deepest, social, political, cosmic sense. “With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time.”

This is why we celebrate Christmas. This is why we believe that Jesus is important, ultimately important - because in this person we see, as clearly as we are able, what God has in mind for God’s creation. And what is that? What is the will of God? What yet-to-be-discovered reality intrigues us, draws us, empowers us, causes us to live in the world in a peculiar and particular kind of way?

The author of Ephesians thought that this is the will of God - this is what we see God doing in Jesus Christ, this is what God would do in you, in me, in the church, and in all humanity ...the mystery of his will... “to gather up all things in himself - things in heaven and things on earth.” All people - all creation - gathered up, summed up, made one in God - things in heaven and things on earth.

There is an echo here - did you catch it? - of the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done... on earth as it is in heaven. We know that the will of God is being done when no one can tell the difference between earth and heaven.

We are not there yet. I can tell the difference, and so can you. On earth there are people who are hungry, and lonely, and afraid, and oppressed - not in heaven. On earth some people act out of greed, and a desire for power, and a desire for revenge. On earth, people devise weapons of destruction and then use them.

Whatever your opinions about social and economic policy or military strategy or the proper approach to domestic and international affairs; whatever your opinions of the events that have unfolded in the world in recent history and will continue to unfold in the months and years to come, whatever they may be – only remember this: We are Christians, we follow Jesus of Nazareth.

And so we know the will of God. We have seen it in the one whom we follow. We believe that in him heaven has never come closer to earth. And so, as we live our way through dark and troubling times, our first responsibility is to hold before ourselves, and our neighbors, and our friends, and our enemies, and our political leaders, our country and all the peoples of the world - the vision of life as God intends it to be. All people - all things gathered together in God, things in heaven and things on earth until no one can tell the difference.

Let us pray.

Oh Gracious God,

Thank you for this company of people met here today, that though imperfect, still so beautifully and powerfully embody your will and seek to follow your vision for them in your world. Thank you for their powerfully redemptive presence in Diana’s and my life. Would you bless each and every one of them individually and all of them together as a church in a special way in the year to come, and would you help us all to everywhere and always be true to the mystery of your will, whether in Syracuse, New York, or Loudon County, Tennessee. And so we pray together again today as we gather around the banquet table of your kingdom, “Lord, make our church an instrument of your peace . . .”