Note: In the “B” Cycle of the readings, the Letter to the Ephesians figures prominently in our Sunday Liturgies. This is a wonderful Letter and tells us so much about what the Christian life is all about. In posts on the web, the following three homilies which I have given recently are on the Letter to the Ephesians.
15th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)
1. Because God wants to communicate with us he has no choice but to speak our language. Thus we can say, God’s word, in human words, expressed in literary form in the sacred scriptures, has a two-fold context: first, a particular writer, under the grace of the Holy Spirit, speaks to a particular group of disciples at a particular time in the later decades of the first century Church. That very teaching, always under the grace of the Holy Spirit, is now addressed, especially in and through the liturgy, to us who follow Christ here and now, gathered in prayer in Wellesley Hills. What the author of the Letter to the Ephesians once said to the Ephesians is now addressed to you and me here and now at this very liturgy. Thus we read – We are what God has made us to be, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared for us beforehand to be our way of life. In other words, the Ephesians yesterday and we ourselves this very day are admonished to walk always worthy of the crucified Christ.
2. Paul writes to the Ephesians – God chose us in Christ before the world began. One wonders what impact these words had when they were first heard in ancient Ephesus. What sort of people were the Ephesians? They were not like the sophisticated Athenians among whom Paul was least successful in his evangelizing efforts. The Ephesians were probably very much like the Corinthians to whom Paul once wrote – “Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many very powerful, not many of noble birth, rather God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and the weak of the world to shame the strong, and the lonely and despised of the world, those who in the world’s eyes seem to count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who think they are something so that no human being might boast before God.”
3. For what purpose did God choose the Ephesians, and why us today? He called them and us to be holy and blameless in his sight, to be full of love. They were predestined to share through grace in God’s own life and thus to praise the glorious favor God has bestowed on us all in Christ Jesus. He chose them and us to live in the world, to bring the Gospel to the world by living the Gospel in the world so that the Lord’s words can be fulfilled – “He who sees you sees me, and whoever sees me sees the Father who sent me.”
4. Why in the world would God call the Ephesians and ourselves? They were Gentiles much given over to idolatry. Like ourselves they were sinners. The Letter to the Ephesians tells us that God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for the Ephesians and for us, even when we all were dead in our transgressions, God brought us to life in and with Christ. By grace we have been saved through faith. And this does not come from the Ephesians or ourselves; it is the gift of God. All this doesn’t come from what the Ephesians or we ourselves have done, so no one may boast. We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them.
5. It is in the Letter to the Ephesians that Paul makes known God’s eternal plan for the salvation of all peoples everywhere. Paul reminds the Ephesians that they were at one time without Christ and alienated from the community of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise. They were without hope and without God in the world. But now, through the apostolic preaching which has brought them into the life of Christ, they who once were far off have become near by the blood of Christ. This is all very true about ourselves. The Letter to the Ephesians announces the revelation of God’s plan for human salvation, a plan revealed and made clear to Paul himself in his apostolic office, a plan of course revealed to all of Christ’s first apostles, that the Gentiles are co-heirs, members of the same body and co-partners in the promise of Christ Jesus through the Gospel. As Paul himself phrases it – “Of this divine plan I became a minister by the gift of God’s grace. To me, the very least of all the holy ones, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the inscrutable riches of Christ and bring to light for all to hear the good news that salvation is for all peoples everywhere – Jews and Gentiles.”
6. Many of us who were born into Catholic families could very well reflect on the mysterious ways of God’s providence. God calls us as God called the Ephesians to be his New Testament people, members of Christ, members of the Church, temples of the Holy Spirit, bearers of God’s word to the world. Adult converts understand these obligations very well – they are so grateful for the gift of faith, they treasure their new and great love for the Church, they cherish their liberating faith that gives them a new vision of the world and a new approach to their brothers and sisters in the human family, a new way of existing as God’s leaven in human society.
7. Receiving the gift of God’s truth has little to do with being comfortable with the Church’s teachings. It strikes me that many today, both inside and outside the Church, judge the Gospel and the teachings of the Church in terms of their comfortability with such teachings. If we are comfortable across the board with the Church’s teachings, then either we should be canonized right away or something must be wrong. We are sinners. Therefore, we will always find ourselves uncomfortable with aspects of our faith. In fact, my own definition of heresy goes like this – Heresy results from one’s fruitless efforts to make oneself comfortable with the Gospel. After all, some aspects of the Church’s teachings are not easy to understand, and, as we all know from experience, the Church’s moral teachings are often difficult to practice, even with the help of God’s grace. As we reflect on Paul’s words to the Ephesians – “God chose us in Christ Jesus”, we can profitably allow the Opening Prayer of today’s Liturgy to inspire us: “O God, who shows the light of your truth to those who go astray, so that they may return to the right path, give all who for the faith they profess are accounted Christian the grace to reject whatever is contrary to the name of Christ and to strive after all that does it honor.”
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