Ephesians 2:17-21
May 21, 2006
Clayton Presbyterian Church
You have heard the saying, "It is not what you know, but who you know that counts." This is most often heard when it comes to getting a job. You may have the best qualifications, the right degree, the right experience, the right demeanor, only to find that someone else gets the job because their uncle works for the company. Who you know, or are related to, trumps other qualifications. This is true not only when you get a job but also in the spiritual life as well. It is not what you know or have done, but who you know that matters.
We see this in our text this morning which comes from Ephesians 2:17-22. Listen to God's Word to you.
2:17 So [Jesus Christ] came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; 18 for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, 20 built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 21 In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; 22 in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God. (NRSV)
This passage again confirms the truth that it is who you know and are connected to that matters. But before we look at how, I want to tell you a story reported by ABC News.
Marty Johnson knew he was the product of two young college students who had a brief affair. Neither parent was prepared to deal with raising a child, so Johnson was given up for adoption and grew up in a loving home in Minnesota. Years later as an adult, he started digging through past records and got in contact with his birth-mother.
Then a letter arrived one day that said, "Welcome to the Ogike dynasty! You come from a noble and prestigious family." The letter went on to explain that Johnson was the next in line to inherit the position of village chief from his biological father, John Ogike, the current chief of Aboh village in Nigeria.
Johnson flew to Nigeria to meet his new family. He went from having no knowledge about any blood relatives to a noisy celebration in the village. There he was united with brothers and sisters, numerous aunts and uncles, cousins, and of course, his father.
In one moment Marty Johnson went from being of humble origins to being royalty and part of a dynasty. He is the son of the chief. As part of that dynasty he discovered that he had sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, and cousins that he never knew.
This is what has happened to us in Christ. In the moment of the resurrection we have been taken up and made a part of the King's family. The passage from Ephesians we read just a moment ago declares this very thing. We were strangers and aliens. We had no rights of citizenship. We had no family connections. But in Christ we have been made citizens and members of the household of God, that is, his family. Jesus is God’s wonderful surprise letter declaring that we are his sons, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.
In Christ we learn that God is our Heavenly Father. We hear this so much that we have lost how revolutionary this is. Late in the Old Testament God is pictured of being like a father to Israel, or like a mother tending her young. But Jesus called God his father. And since we are in Jesus, he gave us the legitimacy to call God our Father as well. In other words, God is our Father, because he is the Father of Jesus Christ. So when Jesus taught his disciples to pray, the prayer began with these words, "Our Father, who art in heaven..." We learn that God is our heavenly Father. Do you think that this is a big deal? You should.
I want to read a quote from a wonderful book called, Knowing God, by J.I. Packer. Packer writes,
You sum up the whole of New Testament teaching in a single phrase, if you speak of it as a revelation of the Fatherhood of the holy Creator. In the same way, you sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one's holy Father.
Packer is saying that if you want to get the to kernel at the heart of the New Testament teaching about God, it would be that he is our Father. He is not a impersonal force, like in Star Wars. He is not to be equated with the world in general. Nor history by calling him Fate or Morality. God is not force or fate, but is called Father. He is not a principle, but a person. And not just any person, but one that loves us the way only a perfect father could love a child.
Packer continues,
If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all." (182)
Packer asks hard questions. How do you see God? Do you think of him as far-off, remote, waiting on the sidelines to see how things play out. Or do you see him as fate that sweeps the world along like a huge wave. Neither one of these is the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is the one who is our loving Heavenly Father, who creates us, who is patient and kind, who at times gets angry with our sin and disobedience, and who buys us back from our self-inflicted troubles so that we can live life with him and he can live life with us. And because of this we live differently in the world. Our faith leads us to obedience. Our love leads us to the service of him and of our neighbor.
In some ways I think that the most Christian thing that we could do in the world, the thing that we could do that would serve as the best witness to who God is, is adoption. When a family takes a child that is not theirs and loves it and provides for it and nurtures it, it is the most Christian thing. The reason that it is the most Christian thing is that it is exactly what God has done for each of us. He has taken each one of us who were outsiders and orphans and made us part of his family, his household as it says in Ephesians. When a family adopts they are saying to the child, "We don't care who your parents were. We don't care about where you come from. We just care about you and want to love you." Because as we see in our passage, we were all spiritual orphans until God adopted us.
And once he adopts us we become part of his household, or his Kingdom. The two are the same thing. It is like in the story of the African tribe: being a part of the family is being a part of the kingdom and under the authority of the chief. You can't belong to one and not the other.
But in God's Kingdom everything is different. All of our ideas about ruling, power, and kingdom are turned on their heads. In God's kingdom it is not about all the things that the world things are important: wealth, ivy-league schools, country clubs, jobs for Fortune 500 companies. In fact, it doesn’t matter what your nationality is, whether your rich or poor, male or female, young or old, employed or unemployed, guilty of a felony or not, and the list could go on and on. None of those things make a difference in God's family.
You could sum all of this up by saying, "It is not what you know, or what you've done; it's who you know." The only thing that matters is that you know God as Father through Jesus Christ, because knowing him means being his child and heir. We are a part of his dynasty. And part of his family.
This family is the church. As the church we are to model these values to the world. We do our best to love and welcome everyone who enters our doors. Even more than that, we want to invite people to come and join us who might never enter those doors all on their own. There are people that don't know what a Presbyterian is, and might be afraid of one if they saw one. There are people that don't feel worthy.
I know a woman who seldom goes to church because she feels unworthy and feels like she doesn’t have enough money to contribute. She needs more than an invitation. She needs someone to pick her up and bring her and to assure her that she is just as much a part of the family and just deserving to be here as any one else.
There are others who have moved here and have no family in the area. They may know some folks at work. They may or may not know their neighbors. But they need a family and a community.
Bob Ahlert and I heard Steve Biggs, the town manager speak about the growth of Clayton. He told us some fascinating things. First, the town of Clayton has about 12,000 residents currently. In 20 years that number is projected to be 60,000 people! Where will they be? He said that the whole north side of town will be rooftops.
He also said that the property values of Clayton are currently at 900 million dollars. What does that mean? That was the property value of the town of Cary 16 years ago. In terms of development we are 16 years behind Cary. That causes many people here to recoil at the thought that we are on the road to become just like Cary. Steve cited some major differences, like their proximity to RTP and the fact that they are bisected by Interstate 40. But, he said that the most important thing for us as a town in retaining our identity is community and connection. If those 48,000 people move in but don't develop relationships with others, to find a sense of community and belonging, if they aren't connected with their neighbors, then we will be just like Cary.
It is clear that we as a church have a unique role to play in this. We have a community. We have a reason to gather, to share, and to care for each other. We are a family, but we are a family that gets better the larger it gets and the more members it adds. The bigger the dinner table the better.
We are even the kind of family that can disagree with one another without having a falling out. The reason for this is that it is not our interests or our preferences that holds us together. It is the fact that we all belong to Christ that holds us together. And nothing can break that bond. This commonality then gives us the freedom to disagree with one another and to embrace difference and diversity.
We have the gift of family and community to offer our fellow Claytonians because God has given us this gift in such a way that it can never run out. The more we open our doors, the more we pour out love, the more that there is. And the people outside are longing for it.
A freelance reporter from the New York Times once interviewed Marilyn Monroe. She was aware of Marilyn's past and the fact that during her early years Marilyn had been shuffled from one foster home to another. The reporter asked, "Did you ever feel loved by any of the foster families with whom you lived?"
"Once," Marilyn replied, "when I was about seven or eight. The woman I was living with was putting on makeup, and I was watching her. She was in a happy mood, so she reached over and patted my cheeks with her rouge puff. For that moment, I felt loved by her."
This is a poignant story. It is sad because she only experienced love once. That is a tragedy, because we who know God have love lavished on us each and every day. God fills this world with goodness, truth, and beauty. In each way he is telling us that he loves us. But it is also a powerful story in that we are reminded of the power of one action. What that woman did was just to treat young Marilyn as if she were her own daughter. In that playful act, she communicated that Marilyn belonged there.
We should be encouraged that this is all we are called to do: to treat the people around us as though they were a part of God's family. In so doing we tell them that are important. For that is what God does to us, he welcomes us with open arms, he adopts us and treats us as he own family. We are called to extend that love to our neighbors.