Introduction
In the last year we’ve all heard of people moving and relocating—some of that moving happening because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Pew Research Center recently released findings of a study it conducted, showing that “about a fifth of U.S. adults moved due to Covid-19 or know someone who did.”
While some moves were to flee areas with high infection risks, other moves were caused by the pandemic only indirectly. For example, a young adult might have moved back home because her college dorm closed and classes became virtual to prevent virus spread.
Still, demographers say people generally move for life-stage reasons— because of things happening internally in their lives— so some of the relocating had little or nothing to do with the virus. Moves driven by the virus have skewed the numbers, but the fact remains many people are moving because life has come to a point where it is simply time to change course and move in a new direction.
And moving is certainly a good thing, especially when we move in faithful directions.
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The major theme of our reading from Ephesians is the grace of God, but woven within the text is the thematic sense that moving is crucial to the message Paul is giving to the Ephesians: Verse 5,“… even when we were dead through our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ” Verse 6, “[God] raised us up with [Christ] and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. …”
These words have an otherworldly ring to them, and if we move too fast by them, we may assume they are about eternal life. But the death and life to which they refer is about what the season of Lent guides us to do—repent; turnaround from our sinful ways; go a new direction—the direction God is showing us. And that movement is implied when Paul says, “raised us up with [Christ] and seated us with him.” This is a call to move from an earthbound perspective on life—that is often wrought with sin— to a heaven-inspired perspective that is, of course, by God.
Paul is not speaking of life-after-death here because he concludes this passage by saying, “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.” Paul is emphasizing that the way of repentance, the turning a new direction, the new life found in Christ is to be lived here and now in our daily lives.
Yes, being “seated” with Jesus in “heavenly places” doesn’t sound much like the usual experience of daily life, but Paul is using the vaunted language of exaltation to convey the idea of looking at our lives from above, from God’s perspective, and being motivated in our daily actions by such a perspective.
Paul is telling the Ephesians, and us, this message because he wants us to embrace the truth that because of Christ, we have come to a time when we must change course in life, and move in a new direction—a direction led by God that will take us, and others, to the better days of new life in Christ.
Move 1
We all have had our share of moves. We’ve moved from our parent’s home to the college dorm room, or first apartment, or maybe a military barracks. And from those places we moved to other places.
The first moves are the easy ones right? You might be single, don’t have much stuff, so there’s not much to move and it can be done with a car—or maybe just a large duffle bag.
The next move—maybe that requires your buddy who has a pickup truck—and subsequently regrets buying a pickup truck because people are always asking him to help them move. But still, that move is done pretty easily.
During my time between college and seminary I worked in my home town, living in a dumpy one bedroom apartment. After about a year there I moved into a different dumpy one bedroom apartment—with the help of my buddy who had a pickup—getting it all done in about a day.
The move to seminary was a little more involved as it required moving out of state, with a large rental truck, and into a much nicer apartment, but a third of the size.
From there, my moves each got harder and harder—the hardest being the move my family and I made a little more than a year and half ago from our first home in Cuyahoga Falls to our new home here in Stow. I had no idea our family of four had been able to fit so much stuff in our little house.
But our stuff was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg of a colossal mess I made of that move. I messed everything up from truck rental, to moving out, to moving in, to settling down. Fortunately, I had the help of my amazing wife, good family, and good church family to all help me pick up the pieces of the mess I had made.
The point being, the further we get into life, the harder it becomes to move—literally and physically, but also mentally and spiritually. We’ve accumulated “stuff” that weighs us down—bringing into reality author Chuck Palahniuk who said, “The more stuff we own, the more our stuff owns us.”
Beyond the stuff though, we have acclimated to the world around us, made friendships, put down roots, all of which has made us exceedingly comfortable and content. And that’s great—these are among the aspects of life that makes life good.
What we must be careful about though is becoming too acclimated to the world, too comfortable, too content in our own little world—because when we get too comfortable and too content we often lose sight of the other world God is leading us to—a world that is beyond ourselves, a world where all of God’s children are comfortable and content.
The question becomes then…How do we move to such a place?
Move 2
Ignatius of Loyola, the 16th-century priest who founded the Jesuits, developed a process of spiritual discernment for Christians who wanted to learn what God intended for them so that they could move, literally and spiritually, in the direction God was calling.
An important principle of that process is this: “The love which moves me and makes me choose something has to descend from above, from the love of God.” Meaning, we are to seek God’s will and then be moved by God’s love in how we do anything.
This is Paul’s premise when he says we were saved by grace—which is not our doing—but the doing of God’s love for us. And this love that saved us is to be at the core of our good works.
This kind of moving, however, doesn’t come naturally to most of us though. We don’t always choose our daily activities and responses based on what we think God wants of us. To make these kinds of moves we need to make a conscious effort; an intentional effort that can at times be arduous and difficult, something we might even get wrong—something akin to the effort required to move our household to a new home. But here’s the thing about being moved by love… Even if we miss the mark we have still acted in love. And acting in love is always faithful.
Move 3
This past year has been a year none of us could have imagined. As a result, in one way or another, we all have moved. Maybe we moved literally to a new home—maybe even a new town. Maybe we moved back home. Maybe we moved jobs. Maybe we moved to making visits to loved ones through windows—giving new meaning to the term pains of glass. Maybe we were moved to tears of anguish for loved ones lost—or for the more than 500,000 lives that have been lost.
No matter how you come at the last year, we all have moved and been moved in some way or another.
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Recently I was on a Zoom call with a group of ministers from around the state and we were discussing how we had been moved over the last year. Rev. Dean Phelps, one of the visiting Regional Ministers, and interim Regional Minister in Kentucky made a remark that struck me, saying, “God didn’t bring us this far, to bring us this far.” Meaning…to me anyway…that we all have been moved, and we have been moved by God, but God is not done yet. We are still moving—moving in a Godly direction.
I know this because evidence of that movement sits before me in the pews of this sanctuary. I know this because of the continued faithfulness of those who tune in to Facebook and YouTube. I know this because of how our ministries have continued, adapted, and even expanded in these pandemic times.
All of this, and much more, assures me—and I hope it assures you—that as long as we keep our faith focused on God’s path, then God will keep moving us forward.
Conclusion
Yes, much of the moving we have done in the last year has not been welcomed. It has been, to borrow a phrase of the season—a wilderness wandering. Which is why we would do well to drill deeper into all of this moving—from the literal and physical, and the mental and spiritual perspectives, and strive to see how God has been moving within it all—moving us as God moved the Ephesians and the early church—moving us with grace and love and compassion to a place beyond this world to a place that gives us the perspective that this world is not as it is meant to be and that God is still at work. God has not given up, and neither should we.
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So may we continue to move through the season of Lent—moving toward a deeper repentance, turning away from sin, and moving closer to God. May we find comfort—not in the complacency of where we are—but in the hope for the better days of new life that are surely coming by clinging to the truth that God is moving us to new life.
This is the truth, because “God didn’t bring us this far, to bring us this far.” Amen.
Pastoral Prayer, March 7, 2021
God of new life, we step before you on a day deep within the wilderness wandering of this Lenten season. You have moved us forward from the ashes, and are moving us toward a bright and glorious day of resurrection. But because you know what we need, you take us on a journey that demands we go deep into the places we would rather avoid—places that would have us look within ourselves and own those parts of ourselves that are entrenched within the ways of this world rather than the ways of Christ.
Lord God, we could make a special list of all the possessions most dear to us. We cherish these objects, these treasures, almost more than life itself. Much of our culture demands that we get more and more of objects, commodities, and then encourages us to throw away items because their value decreases so rapidly.
Unfortunately, we far too often treat our relationships with the same attitude. We enter relationships for what we can get, and when we feel we have gotten all that we can, we discard the relationship.
This is not the way you call for us to move through life. Jesus came to teach us a new system of values, in which people and hope and faith are treasured. He demonstrated graphically what can happen, even in God’s house, when greed takes the place of faith.
Forgive us, patient Lord, when we allow our greed and comfortableness to rule our lives. Forgive and heal us when we have treated each other with careless abandon. Forgive us, then turn our lives in a new direction in which following you and serving your world are our dearest treasures. Move us to be the Disciples you would have us be, in the places you have placed us.
And in all that is, may you keep us ever aware that though we are wandering in the wilderness, you are there with us, moving us toward the better days you have promised.
We ask that you would hear now the prayers of our hearts as we lift them to you in this time of Holy Silence.
All this we pray in the name of the one who leads us through the wilderness wandering, Jesus the Christ, who taught us to pray, saying, “Our…”