“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus-Christ, the Father of Glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know Him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance among the Saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power”
That’s not my prayer, well that’s also my prayer, but that is the opening of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (1:18-20) that we have just heard, a letter we believe Paul has written when he was already in jail in Rome, at the end of his ministry. I think a lot of us use to think of Paul as a brilliant but somewhat boring theologian, a theoretician a bit hard to follow, a teacher who could be at times dogmatic and a little arrogant and we often forgot that, in spite of that or in the midst of that, as he went from places to places to build the church, Paul also had the heart of a pastor, he really loved his people. If we take time to savor his words, generally at the opening of his letters, when he greets the people and pray for them, this is kind of touching to see the affection he had for them, how sincerely he prayed for them and blessed them. So I wanted to highlight that this morning, as we celebrate our church homecoming, to be reminded of one of Paul’s prayer for the church: I pray that the Father may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which He has called you.
Why did you get up this morning? What makes you come to church Sunday after Sunday, or maybe every so often, busy with life, and yet drawn back again and again over the years? I often hear some of you whom I see almost every Sunday say: If I don’t come on Sunday, then something is missing. Not just the one the hour I should be at church, but all week long, something is missing. And sometimes, Christians don’t come so often but they cannot imagine a Christmas or Easter without the church. So what is it that makes church special? For a lot of us it’s family, friends, community. And it is certainly important. Yet, we can visit our families and friends and go out with them, we find community at the bowling alley. So maybe it’s the desire to support and help each other? But we can volunteer at the food pantry or at the local nursing home without going to church. In the same way, if we have problems, we can talk to a social worker or a therapist, we don’t need a priest. So what’s so special about church, if we can also find around us companionship, love, support, counsel, an opportunity to do good, and to make the world a better place? Well, I think we have the answer in Paul’s prayer this morning: We come to church because that’s the place where we can find hope. And not any kind of hope. Not the hope that tomorrow will be a bit better, that we will be able to pay our bills, or even that we may save our marriage or recover from this disease. No, the church gives us a very specific hope, ultimate hope.
Paul says he prays that [the Ephesians] may know what is the hope to which [God] has called [them], what are the riches of His glorious inheritance, and then he adds: God put [his] power to work in Christ when He raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. The hope we are given in the church is the hope of Resurrection, of Eternal life, something we certainly remember on All Saints and All Souls Day. Paul says it very plainly in another letter (1 Corinthians 15:20–23): If Jesus has been raised from the dead, it means that we are all called to be raised too:
“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being,the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order:Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.”
Although I was baptized as a child and grew up with a religious education, I think I remember the day I finally understood what the church was really about. I lost my Dad when I was still fairly young, and I remember people trying to comfort me. Sometimes we say that people always say the wrong thing to people who are mourning, but I don’t remember that. I remember I received a lot of love and my friends really showed up for me. But that’s all they could do, bring me comfort. Only the presence of the priest at the grave made me feel like when there is nothing left for the world to say, the church is here, and the church has something to say by, in Paul’s words: enlightening the eyes of our hearts with wisdom and revelation so that we may know the hope of the glorious inheritance and the greatness of God’s power. The church brings us a hope nobody can bring to us.
Yes, that’s what church is about, it brings us hope and not any kind of hope, ultimate hope, the hope beyond all hopes, the hope of Resurrection, of being united to God and reunited to all those whom we love. If you’re not sure you understand everything that Paul the theologian and theoretician has to say, this is it in a nutshell: The foundation of the church is the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus-Christ.And that is really unique to us as a church, ultimate hope has been given to us and that’s why we have to go out and proclaim it because nowhere else, people are going to receive this message.
Now before you do that, you need to know: there’s a catch. There’s a catch if we pretend that being Christians is all about the life and the world to come. Because does it mean that we should just sit around and wait? And tell all other to do the same? What kind of hope do we provide to people in pain if we suggest that this life may be bad, but wait, the next one will be perfect? It’s sadly often how the Gospel we have heard today has been interpreted. Yes, the poor and the hungry are blessed because there is a pie in the sky waiting for them. But if we know the prophetic tradition Jesus is alluding to, it has nothing to do with that though. Jesus makes us promises so we have the strength to endure, to resist and to make changes and even to love our enemies. This is the prophetic tradition we find in the book of Daniel (see first reading). Daniel was given visions of God’s final victory so he could serve the Kings of Babylon while resisting their evil and remain faithful. If you have ever read the book by Viktor Frankl “Man’s search for meaning”, it is a beautiful example. He survived the camps because he clang to the hope that his wife was still alive.
We are given the hope of Resurrection so we have the strength to endure, resist and change the evil around us and also inside of us, so we have the strenght to renounce what the world is after. And indeed, if we think this life is all there is, then let us just eat and drink and be merry. Let’s laugh and have people speak well of us, let’s look for entertainment and seek people’s approval. But if we believe in the Resurrection not only we rise on the last day, but we can rise right now above this self centered and indulgent way of living that creates so much evil: Lust for money and power, lies and cover up, social injustices and racism, destruction of the ecosystem, human trafficking and abuse, or even plain laziness, addictions. I had one day a wise person telling me that selfishness is the root of all evil. The hope we bring should be more than soothing words, we have to show this hope by loving and courageous acts of love and resistance. Jesus did not only have words for people, he did healing and fed them as evidences of the kingom. Actually, what we concretly do is the test for our hope, the proof that we are who we claim we are. Indeed we can ask ourselves the question: Why do we come to church? Jesus asks us tough questions today. He asks us:Does your church give to the poor? Do you feed the hungry? Do you denounce the wrongs of your times and oppose them? Or are you discples that have forgotten about the kingdom to come, and gathers only to fill themselves, socialize and compliment each other,instead of trying to grow, correct your behavior, find ways to help and share the Gospel? Again, Jesus’s words, not mine, and note how Paul prays that the Ephesians receive hope by learning wisdom and understanding the Revelation. They have to put in the effort. They needed to change.
Jesus gives us the hope of Resurrection, but it’s not just the hope to live again and again and repeat all our mistakes. Who would want that? Sometimes it makes me a bit sad the way we wish we will be reunited with our families for the great banquet of Eternal life, and yet even when we have genuine affection for each other, there is always this cousin or sister in law with whom we can barely sit for a Thanksgiving dinner. So how are we going to stand each other for eternity? Jesus gives us the hope of a life that does not just go on for ever but that is transformed, purified from sin and division, where real repentance and reconciliation happen. The hope of Resurrection is framed by both Daniel’s and Paul’s vision: He has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church (Ephesians 1:22). Our hope isn’t cheap hope, it’s about incarnating God’s victory in this world, it’s about making hope real.