Eclipsing Hostility, Christ Is Our Peace

I feel honored to be standing here with you:
for, I am aware that,
this pulpit … saves lives.

This is my 10th anniversary of worshipping in this space with you;
This pulpit has saved me.
So, with fear & trembling & gratitude,
Let us break open the Word together,
shall we?

Please pray with me:
May the words from my mouth,
and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight,
our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
I.  Wednesday Afternoon Pottery
In the summer of 2003,
I did a summertime reading course with Gaylord Noyce
about “Pastoral Care with Aging Men”.
 
I spent Wednesday afternoons with Gaylord in the Noyce living room
at The Commons, up the road from here a couple miles
(a living room, I later learned,
which hosted so many Monday afternoon Spring Glen bible studies).

Gaylord and I talked about Pastoral Care… church life…. UCC history…
Aging issues… faith journeys…

And we read lectionary lessons from the Epistle to the Ephesians together,
as I prepared each week to preach at a rural UCC church I was serving in Meriden, NH.

We developed a habit that I read the odd verses out loud
and Gaylord would read the even.

We then would do some pottery together.
I would throw some bowls on a wheel in New Hampshire
and bring the unfinished bowls with me on Wednesday afternoons.
Gaylord and I would sponge down these roughly thrown bowls,
smoothing them out as a we talked.

After we had gotten to know each other a bit
and we had explored this letter to the Ephesians for several weeks,
he asked me,
“Would you carve a phrase onto this bowl?
A boiled down version of this letter to the Ephesians?”
I said, “Sure.”
“Eclipsing hostility, Christ is our peace.”
* * *
I love reading scripture out loud with folks;
I love the feel of the words and phrases on my tongue. 
It’s summertime, the “living is easy”
and this scripture is about God lavishing grace on us, wanting to enjoy creation.

So, I ask you to indulge me:
Will you read this Epistle to the Ephesians with me?
I’ll read the odd verses; you read … the even.

* * *
Ephesians 1:1-14 (NRSV)
1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus:
2Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
4just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.
5He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will,
6to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace
8that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight 9he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ,
10as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
11In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will,
12so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory.
13In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit;
14this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

II.  Good News
This is a theologically hardcore passage.
It’s as though the author of the letter
 is doing what Randy Pausch did delivering his “Last Lecture”
– giving it whatever one has, not keeping anything in reserve, “leaving it all on the field”.
This passage, then, translated in these thick, heady NRSV words is a bit overwhelming.
Consider with me, then, the version of this letter
written in the current American vernacular by Eugene Peterson,
a contemporary Presbyterian preacher
who recently retired following three decades of pastoring Christ Our King Presbyterian Church  (PCUSA) in Bel Air, Maryland:

Ephesians 1:3-14 (The Message)
The God of Glory

 3-6How blessed is God! And what a blessing [God] is! [God] is the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before [God] laid down earth's foundations, [God] had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of [God’s] love, to be made whole and holy by [God’s] love. Long, long ago [God] decided to adopt us into [God’s] family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure [God] took in planning this!) [God] wanted us to enter into the celebration of [God’s] lavish gift-giving by the hand of [God’s] beloved Son.
 7-10Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we're a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! [God] thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans [God] took such delight in making. [God] set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.
 11-12It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, [God] had [God’s] eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose [God] is working out in everything and everyone.
 13-14It's in Christ that you, once you heard the truth and believed it (this Message of your salvation), found yourselves home free—signed, sealed, and delivered by the Holy Spirit. This signet from God is the first installment on what's coming, a reminder that we'll get everything God has planned for us, a praising and glorious life.

III.  Theology Like Chocolate
“Designs on us for glorious living”…
“signed, sealed, and delivered by the Holy Spirit”…
“This signet from God is the first installment on what's coming,
a reminder that we'll get everything God has planned for us,
a praising and glorious life.”

These words go down pretty easy,
like a spoonful of sugar.
I have a better understanding of a friend of mine saying,
“Doing theology is like eating chocolate. Delicious. Lavish. Glorious.”

“Over-the-top good.” This is what God wants for us. 
“Summertime-and-the-living-is-easy. Fish-are-jumpin’-and-the-cotton-is-high very good.”

Not the hostility that festers our lives;
The prejudices, bondages and resentments
that are like “drinking poison in order to harm the other”.

And yet, the reality of the human condition is:
hurt, rage, prejudice, hostility beyond comprehension…

As much as we are formed through Original Blessing,
This original joy and goodness available for all….
The longer I serve as a Chaplain at the VA hospital here in West Haven,
The more I recognize the unescapability
of ambiguity, dilemma and moral injury
of being a human person relating with other fallible, quirky human persons.

 As Jesus said, “Ye who has not sinned… cast the first stone.”
 
And so God dwells among us
as the Incarnate One, the Crucified One, the Risen One
To teach us the Way to Freedom.

God takes on hostility so that we need not.
In Old Testament language, “Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord.”
If there is to be vengeance, that vengeance is God’s to enact.
Vengeance is God’s realm
Not the job of human beings.
Our job is to hand-it-over…. To pray the Lament Psalms, to vent to God and to let it go.
This is no easy task – and so half of all the Psalms in the Bible are… Lament Psalms.
“Eclipsing hostility, Christ is our peace.”
IV. Bittersweet, Like Chocolate
Chocolate, like the Cup of Salvation, is bittersweet.
We’ve tasted sweet.
The Way of Freedom,
drinking the Cup of Life to the dregs,
includes tasting the bitter of life.
To remain faithful amidst the bitter
demands courage.

This Christ who eclipses hostility…
is the Source of courage,
our model for courage…
 to the face the bitter of life,
the unescapable violence of living in this blessed and broken world.

Jesus Christ is this Rock & Redeemer in whose name we pray,
upon whom we find solid ground amidst the shifting sands of a world of moral quandaries.

I invite you,
between you and God,
to consider a hostility in your life
that you would like Christ to eclipse.

On one of the yellow prayer cards in your pew,
Write that hostility … or draw a scribble… or carve an X to mark the spot.
Put it in your pocket
to remind yourself that you have let it go,
that you are turning it over to God
in prayer.

V.  Reverse B – I – N – G – 0
When Jesus gathered with his disciples
for a final meal, he said to them:
“My peace I give to you; a peace the world cannot give”

A peace beyond anything you have ever known.

Gone but not forgotten:
Hostility eclipsed by the Prince of Peace,

The God of Love who enters the fray,
is sentenced, descends to hell
and is the Risen One who draws all near.

* * *

 11-12, 14 It's in Christ that we find out who we are
and what we are living for …
a praising and glorious life.”

* * *

“Eclipsing hostility, Christ is our peace

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Eclipsing hostility, Christ is 

Eclipsing hostility, Christ 

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