The last aspect for our reflection and internalization as we “Sit” in God’s gracious presence is the third of our five “M’s” in Ephesians: a model. The mystery of God’s gracious plan has kindled in us a white-hot faith. The memory of God’s great and climactic twofold defeat of sin and death and division has channeled that white-hot faith into an enduring commitment to God’s cause, his subversive counter-revolutionary movement. Here Paul responds to our need for a model, an embodiment of living out this faith in the movement God has called us to participate in. This correlates well with the third critical aspect all movements need: contagious relationships. Paul narrates his story in vv.1-13 and then offers a beautiful prayer that his churches be enabled to join him in living out this story in vv.14-21.
Model
An apostle like Paul, who covered large areas in his work, could not be present at every place he was needed at any one time. In the first century, a crucial and effective way to establish one’s presence with a group was to send a letter to be read through a appointed delegate to the group. Our letter, which, as we have seen, Paul probably sent as a circular a number of different churches in Asia Minor, serves as his presence with these churches, mediating his relationship with them. Thus he puts himself forward as model for his readers. As Gombis puts it, Paul “demonstrates how God’s triumph in Christ is performed in a person’s life.” We could perhaps use the contemporary buzz-word “mentor” for Paul’s role here but all in all the word model serves best here.
3:1-7
Paul shifts the spotlight to himself and his role in “the commission of God’s grace” (v.2) that he was given by the emphatic position he gives the pronoun “I” in the Greek (“I Paul,” v.1).
But in a surprising turn he declares himself a “prisoner of/for Christ Jesus” (either translation is possible). Does Paul see himself metaphorically imprisoned to Jesus and his purposes and mission? Or is he literally describing his life-situation – he is actually in prison? As we have seen before, there is no reason to have to choose one of the other. Why could Paul not be playing on both senses of “prisoner”? He is Caesar’s prisoner only because he is Christ’s prisoner. I think this is exactly what he is doing.
And I think he does this because his actual life-situation as a prisoner of Caesar needs to be re-framed for his readers. If God has been so gloriously victorious as Paul has just claimed, why is he imprisoned? How has divine victory benefitted him? According to the logic of the Greco-Roman world of his time, such a situation would mean that the deities of Rome were superior to and had defeated Israel’s God. Thus, Paul must re-frame his circumstances in light of God’s purposes.
That’s why I believe he intends us to read his “of/for” phrase in both ways. As I put it earlier, Paul claims he is Caesar’s prisoner only because he is first and foremost Christ’s prisoner. “This is the reason,” he begins his re-framing. Not only is this not a loss or defeat for God or Paul. On the contrary, it is the outworking of Paul’s being bound to Christ Jesus (the metaphorical sense of the phrase) that he is bound over in a Roman prison (the literal sense). This is part of the “commission” Paul received from God as the strategy for his implementing the “mystery” of the inclusion of the Gentiles in the church as the centerpiece of his plan to “gather up all things in Christ” (1:10)!
Paul is in prison, then, not by Caesar’s will but by God’s will; and he is there as prisoner of both “for the sake of you Gentiles.” There is no reason, then, for Paul’s readers to be disquieted or depressed by his residence in a Roman cell. He is just where he needs to be. Like David before Goliath, Paul refuses to foreclose on God’s penchant for using unlikely people who simply make themselves available to be used for God’s glory. rides the wave of the future, God’s future. This is a new day. The hidden purpose of his plan (the “mystery”) has now been revealed by the Spirit (v.5) and is being worked out in and through Christ. The victory has been won. Like Paul, God’s subversive counter-revolutionary movement, need only move forward in that confidence, making themselves available to the Spirit to implement the mystery that is at the very heart of human and divine longing.
For the third time in as many chapters, Paul brings out a triad of sun-words to profile God’s people in light of what God has done for them. I’ve gathered them in the table below. The first set in 2:5-6 speaks to God’s binding us together with Christ in his resurrection and exaltation. The second set in 2:19-22 speaks to God binding us together with each other (Jew and Gentile). The final set here in 3:6 speaks to the result of God’s work for us. In a way each of these expressions picks up on crucial notes from earlier sections: “fellow-heirs” picks up the emphasis on inheritance in 1:3-14, “members of the same body” picks up similar language from 2:11-22, and “sharers in the promise” echoes the mention of hope in 1:15-23. In this way Paul draws the main threads of his keynotes in this “Sit” section together. We might paraphrase it like this: We are together, across all lines of division and separation, living proof that God’s promises are true and can be trusted, that Jesus Christ is Lord of all and is even now in process of gathering all things to himself. That is who we are and what we about in this world – this is our gospel (v.6), the revelation of the mystery of God’s gracious intentions for all creation (vv.3-5).
Eph. 2:5-6 Eph. 2:19-22 Eph. 3:6
alive together with Christ citizens with the saints fellow-heirs
raised us up with him joined together members of the same body
seated us with him built together sharers in the promise
Despite many translations which put v.7 with the next paragraph (NRSV, NIV), grammatically and conceptually it belongs with the first paragraph. Paul’s self-description has moved from “prisoner” (v.1; both metaphorical and literal) to one who implements (or stewards) God’s plan (v.2) to “servant” of the gospel (v.7). From the intentional ambiguity of the first description Paul gradually dissolves that ambiguity by casting himself as right in the center of God’s plan for him and for his work. Thus his readers should not be dismayed that he is incarcerated but rejoice with him that even in this God’s plan is unfolding “by the working of his power” (allusion to God’s resurrection power in 1:19).
We Practice “Sitting” as God’s Subversive Counter-Revolutionary People (4)
Ephesians 3:1-7
Paul has and will continue to hammer away at the audacity and urgency of God’s plan to bring together Jew and Gentile (that all of us, folks!) in one harmonious and interdependent community. Further, this has always been God’s intention, his dream in creating this world and us, its inhabitants. In these first three chapters of this letter Paul has laid this before us for our reflection and prayer. In the many and varied ways and images he has used the Apostle has confronted us with the centrality of Jesus Christ not only as the ultimate gathering point for all things (1:10) but even now, crucially, the victor over the powers of sin, evil, and death, who offered his life on the cross as a sacrifice that creates peace between divided and fractured humanity. In him, the gathering process becomes visible as Jew and Gentile find peace together in commitment to this Jesus and his people. This community, peace-ed together by Jesus, becomes the vehicle through whom the good news of Jesus’ victory is declared and demonstrated to those yet unaware of or uncommitted to this gospel. Issues of peace in every dimension of life that affects human and creational well-being will be perpetual matters of central concern for this community.
Nearly forty-five years ago my tradition, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) wrote a confession, “The Confession of 1967”. Its main theme was reconciliation and it included a section on “Reconciliation in Society”. Even today, four and a half decades later, these sections sound very contemporary. Others matters that have become issues since then might be added (for example, issues of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered persons). Nevertheless, they stand as a representative display of the kinds of issues that break and threaten the unity we are to have in Christ. I’ve reproduced these sections here for your reflection. As you read them, bear in mind Paul’s message in these first three chapters of Ephesians. Bring together what you have heard so far from Paul with issues from these sections of the “Confession of 1967” (the paragraph numbers are from the PCUSA’s Book of Confessions) that resonate with you and imagine a world free of such blights and what God might be calling you and your church to do as part of his subversive counter-revolutionary movement.
9.43 In each time and place, there are particular problems and crises through which God calls the church to act. The church, guided by the Spirit, humbled by its own complicity and instructed by all attainable knowledge, seeks to discern the will of God and learn how to obey in these concrete situations. The following are particularly urgent at the present time.
9.44 a. God has created the peoples of the earth to be one universal family. In his reconciling love, God overcomes the barriers between sisters and brothers and breaks down every form of discrimination based on racial or ethnic difference, real or imaginary. The church is called to bring all people to receive and uphold one another as persons in all relationships of life: in employment, housing, education, leisure, marriage, family, church, and the exercise of political rights. Therefore, the church labors for the abolition of all racial discrimination and ministers to those injured by it. Congregations, individuals, or groups of Christians who exclude, dominate, or patronize others, however subtly, resist the Spirit of God and bring contempt on the faith which they profess.
9.45 b. God’s reconciliation in Jesus Christ is the ground of the peace, justice, and freedom among nations which all powers of government are called to serve and defend. The church, in its own life, is called to practice the forgiveness of enemies and to commend to the nations as practical politics the search for cooperation and peace. This search requires that the nations pursue fresh and responsible relations across every line of conflict, even at risk to national security, to reduce areas of strife and to broaden international understanding. Reconciliation among nations becomes peculiarly urgent as countries develop nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, diverting human power and resources from constructive uses and risking the annihilation of humankind. Although nations may serve God’s purposes in history, the church which identifies the sovereignty of any one nation or any one way of life with the cause of God denies the Lordship of Christ and betrays its calling.
9.46 c. The reconciliation of humankind102 t h rough Jesus Christ makes it plain that enslaving poverty in a world of abundance is an intolerable violation of God’s good creation. Because Jesus identified himself with the needy and exploited, the cause of the world’s poor is the cause of his disciples. The church cannot condone poverty, whether it is the product of unjust social structures, exploitation of the defenseless, lack of national resources, absence of technological understanding, or rapid expansion of populations. The church calls all people to use their abilities, their possessions, and the fruits of technology as gifts entrusted to them by God for the maintenance of their families and the advancement of the common welfare. It encourages those forces in human society that raise hopes for better conditions and provide people with opportunity for a decent living. A church that is indifferent to poverty, or evades responsibility in economic affairs, or is open to one social class only, or expects gratitude for its beneficence makes a mockery of reconciliation and offers no acceptable worship to God.
9.47 d. The relationship between man and woman exemplifies in a basic way God’s ordering of the interpersonal life for which God created humankind. Anarchy in sexual relationships is a symptom of alienation from God, neighbors, and self. Perennial confusion about the meaning of sex has been aggravated in our day by the availability of new means for birth control and the treatment of infection, by the pressures of urbanization, by the exploitation of sexual symbols in mass communication, and by world overpopulation. The church, as the household of God, is called to lead people out of this alienation into the responsible freedom of the new life in Christ. Reconciled to God, people have joy in and respect for their own humanity and that of other persons; a man and woman are enabled to marry, to commit themselves to a mutually shared life, and to respond to each other in sensitive and lifelong concern; parents receive the grace to care for children in love and to nurture their individuality. The church comes under the judgment of God and invites rejection by society when it fails to lead men and women into the full meaning of life together, or withholds the compassion of Christ from those caught in the moral confusion of our time.
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