Amos 7: 12-15 (RM) or 7-15 (RCL); Psalm 85; Ephesians 1: 3-14 (RM and RCL) or 3-10 (RM); Mark 6: 7-13 (RM) or 14-29 (RCL).
One wonderful result of the liturgical reforms that resulted from the Second Vatican Council is that Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants now share almost the same readings of the Word of God on the same Sunday, or at least the same Gospel. On this Sunday however, the Gospel reading in the Roman Missal is Jesus’ instructions to the disciples he sent out on mission, while the Revised Common Lectionary uses the text that follows, the beheading of John the Baptist.
But the first reading from the prophet Amos, and the second, the New Testament reading from Ephesians, are almost the same. Amos protests that he’s not a professional prophet, but one called by God. When we couple this with the cosmic scope of the Ephesians passage, we’re taken up into breathtaking theological and spiritual imagery. This is the God who calls.
Ephesians was not written by Paul, though possibly by an associate of his, and it does not carry the heading “To the Ephesians” on all ancient copies. This suggests that it was a sort of open letter meant to be sent around to a number of late first-century Christian communities. And in Greek, our eleven-verse reading, Ephesians 1: 3-14, is all one sentence. It definitely needed an editor.
We can begin by pulling out some of the beautiful phrases that identify us — first-century Christians, 21st-century Christians, and everyone in between.
“God … has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens … chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish … destined us for adoption through Jesus Christ…for the praise of the glory of the grace … granted us in the beloved.”
And that’s just the first section.
“In [Christ] we have the forgiveness of transgressions” (Greek scholars translate this simply as “lapses”), “in accord with the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us. In all wisdom and insight, he has made known to us the mystery of his will … as a plan for the fullness of times, to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth.”
It is the cosmic Christ in whom we are called to live more deeply and more visibly in the mystery as an open invitation to all who choose to follow. Yes, all.
The theme of adoption, or being chosen by God, recurs throughout this reading, and can be a stumbling block if we assume that only a select number are chosen. This is not about God’s favoured few surviving the end times, in fact it’s not about the end times at all. It’s about baptism. We know that baptism is meant here by the last part:
“In [Christ] you also, who have heard the word of truth … and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit which is the first installment of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s possession, to the praise of [God’s] glory.”
We are baptized as the result of an invitation. A baptized baby receives lifelong membership in the community intimately identified with Christ, supported by loving family, teachers and companions. An adult who chooses baptism has normally made a personal journey of faith, and responded to the invitation of a living faith community to “Come and see.” The invitation ultimately comes from God, and is open to all. Repeat, the invitation is open to all. Predestination is for the whole of humanity, in fact for the whole of God’s creation. This may be about as close to a universal call as we’re likely to find in the New Testament.
Look at the unabashed lavishness of God’s generosity:
“every spiritual blessing… the riches of [God’s] grace lavished upon us.” An old hymn says, “Our God is a spendthrift God.”
This is what our sacraments should look like – not token, half-hearted, barely-there symbols, but a rush of water, a drizzle of oil, followed by a generous banquet represented by the bread and the wine by which Christ promised to remain with us always.
Wisdom and insight, although divine in origin, can be subject to the restrictions of time and culture. Later in Ephesians we find the infamous household codes (“Wives be subject to your husbands.”) Ephesians stresses ecclesial community like a family, but a patriarchal family limited by the conventions of its own era. It need not limit our understanding or perspective, not when we welcome all spiritual seekers into an inclusive community of faith, and not when we allow our spirits to soar with the “praise of the glory of God’s grace, granted us in the Beloved.”
© Susan K. Roll
A somewhat different version of this Reflection appears this week on the website www.GodsWordManyVoices.org
Susan Roll retired from the Faculty of Theology at Saint Paul University, Ottawa, in 2018, where she served as Director of the Sophia Research Centre. Her research and publications are centred in the fields of liturgy, sacraments, and feminist theology. She holds a Ph.D. from the Catholic University of Leuven (Louvain), Belgium, and has been involved with international academic societies in liturgy and theology, as well as university chaplaincy, Indigenous ministry and church reform projects.
