The Rev. Dr. Tara W. Bulger
Ephesians 2:1-10
You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
Several years ago—I don’t remember exactly when—a prominent megachurch pastor made the news for doing something immoral. I don’t remember any of the details of what this person did, but I do remember this: I was cruising around the internet one day, and someone had posted, “Here’s what I know: if the apostle Paul were still alive, the church would be getting a letter!”
It is true that many of the epistles in the Bible were written because something had gone wrong in a church. There was some issue that needed to be addressed, and so a letter often arrived to correct that church. That is not the case with the letter to the church in Ephesus that we have before us today.
In fact, this letter really sets out a vision for what the church can be at its best. The first three chapters of the book outline that vision. The final chapters are exhortations, or advice, about the kind of ethic we should live by now that we are the church of Jesus Christ.
Our passage today comes from that first part, from that vision of what the church is and can be. The author begins by reminding people that there was a time before Christ. Before Christ came into the world, before his reconciling death and resurrection, all of humanity—Jews and Gentiles alike—was mired in sin and could never be made right with God. We could not do the right thing often enough to make ourselves right with God. The author calls this being “dead through our trespasses.”
We were a people who sinned. Yes, we still sin, but at that time, before Christ came into the world, there was no way for us to reconcile ourselves to God, no way to put ourselves in right relationship with God. And then, the author tells us, out of the great love with which God loved us, Christ came into the world—and something happened. Not only were we made right, not only were our sins forgiven, but by our faith in Jesus we are made one with Jesus. That is what the author means when he talks about being seated with him in the heavenly places.
We were made new. We were given a new identity as God’s people in the world, and we are to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the world. That is what the church is. Before Christ we could never be made right with God, but out of God’s great love, we have now been made right with God in Christ Jesus.
But here is what’s interesting about this passage: the author is very clear that we have been made right with God through Christ Jesus not by anything we have done, but only by faith. We have been made right only by what Jesus has done, and our faith in him unites us with him. The author is quick to point out that this is not our own doing. We have nothing to boast about. Through faith alone—not through anything we did—we have been offered this relationship with Christ Jesus.
So, if I were to sum up all that has come before in this passage, I would say that the first part reminds us that there was a time when we were bound by sin and its consequences. Then we are told that Christ Jesus came into the world, and we were freed from that sin and its consequences and made right with God. But the last part of the passage reminds us that we weren’t freed simply for freedom’s sake. We were freed for a purpose, and that purpose is this: “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”
We are freed from the consequences of sin and death for a very particular purpose, and that purpose is to be the church. The church is the place where the good works begin. You are also called individually to live a life of good works, but collectively, the church is the place where we learn that we have been made free, where we learn that it was God’s love in Christ Jesus that freed us. It should be the place where we practice the good works that we will then carry out into the world.
This is a reminder—not that we do good works so that we will be made right before God. That has already been done in the work of Jesus. Rather, we do good works out of gratitude for the gift and the transformation that have been given to us. We are so grateful for the gift of being set free that we do good works out of our love for Jesus and for God and for all that has been offered to us. We’re not earning anything. We’re simply responding with gratitude.
Today is the day when we talk about stewardship and consecrate our pledges to God for next year. But I think it is also an important time to remember that how we use our time, talent, and treasure should be about those good works. The time we have in this world should be used for good works. Our talents, the natural gifts we have been given, should be used for good works. And our treasure should be used the same way. All of these remind us of the gift we have been given, and all of them call us to respond with good works.
Now, here is what I love about the church. I was made aware of it while listening to a podcast with Angela Duckworth, the psychologist who wrote the book Grit. She was talking with someone about the enormity of caring for the world—how much work there is to do in helping the world become the place it should be, and how much work it is to care for one another. And Angela Duckworth said something like this: “Yes, there is a lot of work to be done. But what I love about churches and faith communities is that they don’t all have to do all of the things. Because they’re connected as the church around the world, somebody is doing a little bit of the work all the time.
The church is a place where we are called to do these good works, but we don’t all have to do them in the same way. We can each find our place within the church community to do the good works we are called to do, and we can entrust our Christian brothers and sisters in churches around the world to do their share of the work too.
This is the vision in Ephesians of what the church is: a people so grateful for what they have been given that they live their lives in good works—in as many different ways as there are people—with those good works at the very heart of who they are.
And so today, as we dedicate our offering and our pledges, and as we think about how we spend our time, talent, and treasure, I encourage you to remember that the church is the place where those good works begin. It is where the message of God’s love and our forgiveness is heard, and where people are transformed into the people Christ has called them to be. We don’t do it perfectly, but we move forward, slowly, into the image of Christ that we are called to live into.
Today is also Reformation Sunday, a day when Protestant churches around the world remember what happened in the Reformation. This passage from Ephesians was one of the church reformers’ favorites, because it contains the hallmarks of the Reformed tradition. The first is that we are saved by faith, not by any works we can do on our own. The second is that when we are saved, a transformation occurs. We are no longer the people we were before; we are now a people who live into the image of Christ set before us. And the third is the emphasis that all of it is a gift from God anyway.
f I had to sum up what it means to be part of the Reformed tradition—if I had to put into my own words what it means to be Presbyterian—it would be this: we are a people of response. We are a people so grateful for the love that has been shown to us in Christ that we can’t help but respond with all that we are. We are a people of response, and we live that out with our time, our talent, and our treasure, doing the good works that God prepared beforehand for us all.
May it be so.
Amen.