I remember standing in the chapel of my Christian college during our required weekly worship service, looking at the hands raised around me, listening to the voices singing strong, I watched the projector slide going back to the beginning of the song that we were singing. And as I was thinking to myself, “Again? We’re going to sing this again?” I was also realizing that my faith was changing in a major way. The words of the song repeated, “Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart. I want to see you. To see you high and lifted up, shining in the light of your glory. Pour out your power and love, as we sing holy, holy, holy.” The first line is, of course, taken from our passage in Ephesians. And when I hear those words again, I’m transported back to that chapel: to becoming one of the first of what are now known as exvangelicals. We didn’t have the language for that then. I was beginning to make sense of a faith that privatized and individualized my experience of God by dwelling on my personal salvation, devoted almost solely to seeking a spiritual connection to God who reigns in the heavens. And at the same time, I was coming to see that faith used to build fences, and to wound people around me and around the world. If I’m honest, it makes hearing these words from Ephesians a little bit difficult.

The passage has a grand vision. Nearly every bible commentary notes the lofty language used here. So it’s perfect for a day like Christ the King or Reign of Christ Sunday, if you prefer. Our writer’s thanksgiving prayer over the faithful vaults us to the heights of spiritual experience and aspirations: the writer remembers the recipients’ faith and love, and then prays that they would receive wisdom and revelation, that as they grow in their knowledge of God that the eyes of their heart would be enlightened, that they would come to know the hope of their calling, and the riches of their glorious inheritance, and the immeasurable greatness of God’s power for them. And as if the writer isn’t laying it on thick enough, they paint the picture of God’s power resurrecting Jesus and elevating him to a cosmic throne exercising power and dominion and authority above all things now and in the age to come.

What a picture of God’s power in Christ on our behalf! No wonder people want to sing about the blessings and security they find in these verses. They are a warm hug for anyone searching for a word of assurance, anyone seeking some existential security about who we are and our place in God’s promises. We have landed in the right place if that’s what we’re looking for. And maybe I sound a bit cynical and a bit callous at this point. So please don’t get me wrong: I’m not opposed to remembering that God has called us and claimed us and swept us into God’s promises through Jesus, who the writer sees seated at God’s right hand.
But at the same time, it strikes me just as a bit false to wax eloquently about hope while many of us are experiencing eco-trauma as coastlines erode away. It strikes me as strange that we would focus so singularly on the riches of our glorious inheritance among the saints when some of the saints don’t have enough riches to feed their families the Thanksgiving dinners many of us will soon eat. It strikes me as hollow to measure out God’s power for our benefit when people in high places are invoking God’s power to kill and destroy and hate and demean. Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. But not too wide.

So I hope you’ll forgive me if there is some cognitive and spiritual dissonance, given where I come from and the spiritual landscape in front of us. Maybe you feel it too. This passage is beautiful and compelling. Its vision is undeniable. But if the opening of the eyes of our heart, our spirit of wisdom and revelation, the riches of our glorious inheritance, our perception of the hope of our calling, and the immeasurable greatness of God’s power are self-serving or even used as a weapon, then I think we’ve gotten it all terribly, immeasurably, and sinfully wrong.

So I think it’s important to remember that the church’s salvific benefits and Christ’s cosmic rule in Ephesians are only part of the story. It is a tricky thing to only read small pieces of Scripture at a time, to pluck out only a paragraph of a longer letter addressing a complex situation. So let’s acknowledge this: the letter does NOT end recounting the personal benefit of believers. It does NOT end with the glorious image of Christ the powerful cosmic ruler, with all things under his feet. End scene. Fade to black. Cue the credits. No, this thanksgiving prayer and grand vision are really the springboard – the fulcrum that propels the rest of the letter’s vision forward.

As the letter continues, the writer expresses a vision in which God’s power in Christ – resurrection power – does not stop with the church’s salvific benefits. For the writer of Ephesians, God’s resurrection power has not stopped. It is not contained by the heavenly realms. That power of the cosmic Christ isn’t limited to the throne: it is on the loose in the world through those who have received the hope, inheritance, and power of God in Christ. Chapter 2 verse 10 declares: “For we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” Chapter 2 verse 14 proclaims, “For Christ is our peace; in his flesh he has made both those groups [Jews and gentiles] into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” In chapter 4, the writer pleads with the hearers of the letter, “I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” The writer goes on to instruct the recipients to “clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” And to “be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

So, yes, friends, the hope of our calling. Yes, the riches of our glorious inheritance. Yes, the immeasurable greatness of God’s power for us. Yes, the image of the resurrected Christ seated with God in the heavenly places. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. This comes to us and dwells in us and assures us of who we are and who God is.

But Ephesians does not end there. It does not settle for individual salvation and a picture of Christ resting comfortably at God’s right hand. That same resurrection power that claims us also propels us toward the work of peace-making and reconciliation, toward a faith characterized by humility, gentleness, and patience, (which are in such short supply in our world these days) risking the work of bearing with one another in love – all characterized by the life, death, and resurrection of that one seated on the throne.

As we are swept into the promises of God in Christ, we are also swept into God’s resurrection power to bring peace, reconciliation, and love into this world.

When I was in graduate school, my spouse and I lived in Spring Hill, Tennessee – a town just south of Nashville. And one town south of Spring Hill is another town called Columbia, Tennessee, which used to be a sleepy little town. If you don’t know Columbia, that’s probably for good reason. While Spring Hill was famous for being where they made Saturn brand cars, Columbia was most famous for its grand celebration: Mule Day // where they parade mules down Highway 31. As Nashville expanded outward, so did the diversity of the people who lived in those places. Eventually a group of Muslims began an Islamic center in an old building in Columbia. One night back in February 2008, the news reported that the Islamic center in Columbia had been burned and spray-painted with hate speech. The pastor at 1st Presbyterian Church in Columbia was one of the first to respond to the leader of the Islamic center. In the tension of that moment, the pastor and the members of 1st Pres. took up a collection of money and made a copy of a set of the church’s keys. The pastor took the collection and the keys and delivered them to a representative of the center. 1st Pres. opened up their building and their lives to offer a place for these people to meet. Of course, not everyone in Columbia liked this decision. But 1st Presbyterian Church quickly committed themselves to this act and to this work as the way of Jesus. And in the months following, dialogue between the groups started to take place. They educated each other about each other’s faiths. Understandings grew. Friendships were fostered. And instead of hate, division, and brokenness going up, a dividing wall came down. Peace took up residence in an old church fellowship hall. Love became a set of church keys. And I can’t say for sure, but I’m pretty sure that an image of the cosmic Christ was hanging around somewhere in that church while people who were quite different from each other had coffee and doughnuts together.

I get the feeling that the people of 1st Pres. had read Ephesians before. Not just the part that celebrates the hope, the inheritance, and the power of God for us who believe. Certainly not just the picture of the cosmic reign of Christ. I get the feeling that they committed to read the whole thing. And when they did, they were propelled into the resurrection power of the cosmic Christ that Ephesians celebrates. I think the eyes of their heart were opened a little more fully. And I think they were energized by this truth: that just as we are swept into the promises of God in Christ, we are also swept into God’s power, God’s resurrection power to bring peace, reconciliation, and love into this world.

Open the eyes of our heart, Lord. But not just a little. Open them all the way. Amen.