All Saints Sunday -- Daniel 7:1–3, 15-18; Psalm
149; Ephesians 1:11-23; Luke
6:20-31
A homily by Fr. Gene
Tucker, given at Trinity
Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois, on Sunday, November 3, 2013.
“GOD’S LAYAWAY PLAN”
(Homily text: Ephesians 1:11-23)
Before you
read this homily, may I encourage you to get your Bible and read the passage
appointed for All Saints Sunday from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians? In fact, since the writing is dense, and
since it contains so many very important facts about our lives in Christ, may I
encourage you to read and then reread it several times over? (As you do, new details will emerge with each
reading, things that may have been missed on the first pass through this
passage.)
That said,
the phrase that strikes me the most (I could choose many to focus on, by the
way…this passage is so chock-full of wonderful statements!) is this one:
“Having the
eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he
has called you, what are the riches of
his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable
greatness of his power toward us who believe….”[1]
It seems
like Paul is trying to widen the Ephesians’ scope of vision, to get them to see
the bigger picture of God’s purposes.
Paul uses
the word “inheritance”.
I think
it’s worthwhile to apply our human understanding of what an inheritance
involves to the ways in which that concept informs our understanding of our
place in God’s scheme of things.
We are familiar,
I suspect, with the ways in which inheritances work. Suppose, for example, that we have an elderly
relative who’s gone about the business of drafting a will (an excellent thing
to be doing, for all of us, by the way!).
In the will, the relative bequeaths some possession(s) to us, stating
that part of the inheritance is to be given while the relative is still living,
and the remainder of it is to be transferred once the relative has passed into
eternity.
So, in
reality, all of the inheritance is ours to possess, to use, to enjoy. But we have actual possession of only part of
it.
Perhaps we
could say that this is a little like the layaway plans that were very common in
a time gone by, before credit cards made it possible to buy something and pay
for it later. (In fairness, it must be
said that some stores still maintain layaway plans.) There is a difference from the traditional
layaway plans that stores use in Paul’s description, however….Paul maintains
that, though we possess all the fullness of God’s inheritance, given to us, we
have already taken possession of part of it in the here-and-now.
Scholars
have come up with a term to describe this reality: “Realized eschatology”
At first
glance, this word might cause some confusion and might prompt some mystifying
reactions. So it would be good for us to
unpack it a little:
- Realized: something that is a reality in the present time and place,
- Eschatology: That word (coming to us from the Greek) which pertains to the “last things”[2] of God’s eternal purposes.
So
“realized eschatology” means that we already have as a reality in this life
what we will possess in all its fullness once this life is over.
That hope
is central to our life as Christian believers….that God has chosen us, has destined
us to receive all the riches of His grace, mercy and peace.
We have
been invited by God to come into the very inner life of God. We are folded into the very inner
relationship of love that exists between the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit.
Wow!
What
awesome stuff is this, to know that we matter so much to God that He took the
initiative to reach out to us in the person, the work, the teachings, the
miracles, the suffering, the death, the resurrection and the ascension of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
It is God
who has done all these things. Our part
consists of responding to God’s overture of love.
That’s how
we become saints, by recognizing God’s love in Christ, by accepting it, and by
realizing that we have been named in
God’s will, having been given God’s possession of love as a down payment
on the fullness of God’s love and presence that we will know when we see Him
face-to-face once this life is over.
As a result
of this new reality, everything in life has changed.
Our
problems should been seen in a different light, now that God has come to take
control of our present and our future.
As St. Teresa of Avila once said,
“All things shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well”.
Our
relationships with others should reflect the reality of God’s love and mercy,
made known in our lives, as we share that love and mercy with others….This, of
course, is the second part of the Lord’s summary of the Law, that we should
“love our neighbors as ourselves”.
Our
relationships with those things we own should also change, as we recognize that
all that we have is a gift from God, given into our hands for careful tending
and wise use.
To say
these things is to realize that, as saints, we live according to a different
set of standards than the secular world around us does, for we are God’s
possession, His prized possession. We
are beneficiaries of God’s love, mercy, grace and peace.
And that
changes everything!
