Ephesians 1:15-23 · Thanksgiving and Prayer
Doing Christ’s Work
Ephesians 1:15-23
Sermon
by Nancy Kraft
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My mom's hands were never idle. She was always doing some kind of needlework or craft. She would go from painting Christmas ornaments to crocheting an afghan to knitting baby booties to embroidering a pillowcase. She did it all. Whenever we sat down to watch television together, I was always amazed that she could pay attention to the program and count stitches at the same time.

When I was a young girl, my mom taught me how to do all the basics: knitting, crocheting, and cross-stitching. I never really got into it and I quickly forgot whatever she had taught me.

Then, when I was 28 years old, my mom died very suddenly. My sisters and I went to her house after her death and we were poking around and found a huge trunk beside her bed that was full of craft kits. They were mostly needlework pictures that she had picked up. No doubt, mom thought she was going to be around longer than she was because she had enough of these kits packed away to take her through several years.

When my sisters and I saw these kits, something inside us clicked and we felt compelled to finish the work that our mother had left undone. We quickly divided them up and each of us took some of them home. Over the next year, I found myself working on the kits I had taken until every single one of them was completed and framed. No doubt it was a way for me to work through my grief, but it was more than that. It was also a way for me to do what my mother could no longer do, to become her hands. There were several occasions while I was working on a piece that required needlework that I didn't know how to do. That was when I was really angry with myself for not paying closer attention while my mom was alive. I had no idea how to do this stuff and I was figuring it out the hard way. If only my mom had still been around to guide me through it. Of course, while she was around I hadn't been interested.

I wonder if this was part of what Jesus' disciples might have felt after his ascension. He wasn't going to be around anymore, but his work wasn't finished. So, now it was up to them. They were going to act as his body in the world.

Of course, Jesus' disciples had something that my sisters and I didn't have after our mother died. After Jesus ascended to heaven, they weren't forced to find their own way by trial and error as we were. God came to live with his disciples in another way, through the Holy Spirit. So, they didn't have to fumble around in the dark as they were figuring out how to be Christ's body in the world. The Spirit came to them and gave them a special kind of wisdom that transcended the conventional wisdom of the world. The Ephesians passage for today describes this as an enlightenment that came from of the eyes of their hearts. Through the eyes of their hearts they could see the hope to which he had called them, "the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and the immeasurable greatness of his power for all those who believe, according to the working of his great power" (Ephesians 1:18-19a).

There is a wisdom that comes with the eyes of our heads. We look around us and we see what is available for everyone in this world to see. But the Holy Spirit gives us the ability to see with the eyes of our hearts. We see beyond the wisdom of the world around us. We see things from God's perspective.

The writer to the Ephesians sees the church as the body of Christ, who is the head of that body. That means as Christ's body, we need to be very careful that we don't lose our head. Later in the letter to the Ephesians the author says that as the body of Christ we need to "... grow up in every way into him who is the head ..." (4:15). I always picture a puny little body, like a baby's body, with an adult head on it. The goal is for the body to grow up so that it matches the head. The work of the church is to grow up into our head, Christ.

That's the work he leaves us with. We're here to carry on his ministry, to be his body in the world. Sometimes when I think about that, it seems almost ludicrous that people like us should be the best God has to work with now. God's mission to the world went from Jesus to people like us. It causes me to wonder if God is all that wise after all. But that's when I'm thinking with the eyes of my head. By the power of the Holy Spirit, when I'm able to see with the eyes of my heart, I know better. I know that although we may be an unlikely body for Christ, when we allow the head to guide this body, God's will can be done through us.

Paul's prayer for the church in Ephesus was that they grow into the fullness of Christ. It's still the best prayer for the church. Amen.

CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Sermons for Sundays in Lent and Easter: Genuine Hope, by Nancy Kraft