Saint Margaret’s
Anglican Church
Budapest, Hungary
Exodus 16:2-4,9-15; Psalm 78:23-29; Ephesians
4:1-16; John 6:24-35
Pictured: Ephesians in Papyrus 92, circa 300.
There is one body and one Spirit…
The Psalm assigned for Morning Prayer
yesterday, Saturday, was by chance Psalm
Sixty-Eight, a fairly lengthy psalm, but one
which commentators also describe as, well,
“obscure” and “difficult to classify;” which
annoys the experts, I suppose, but does not distract from the beauty of the Psalm
itself; although it does sometimes make its text difficult to fathom.
Somewhere in the middle of Psalm Sixty-Eight, for instance, the Psalmist seems to
describe the triumph of God over the enemies of Israel. God in this image ascends
a high mountain in his victory; and the Psalmist proclaims to the Lord, “You
ascended the high mount, leading captives in your train and receiving gifts from
people, even from those who rebel against the Lord...”
A beautiful thought, to be sure, but without context, difficult to interpret. What high
mount, we might well ask. What captives…? The Psalmist does not tell us. Still, it
would likely have been a familiar image to those who first ever heard this Psalm
spoken or sung to them. For, conquerors in the ancient world would no doubt have
led captives in their train as they ascended a high place in their victory. They would
have welcomed gifts and tribute. For the Psalmist then, this is a fitting description
as well of the triumph of the God of Israel.
Now, it is just to this short verse, verse nineteen to be exact, from Psalm Sixty-
Eight, written centuries before, that the author of the Letter to the Ephesians, in our
second Reading this morning, turns in explaining who Christ is and what that
should mean for us. And for him, the verse is redolent of the conquest over sin and
death represented in Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension, events which, as every
Christian knows, have changed the human universe as we know it and the meaning
of life itself. “Therefore, it is said,” the author of Ephesians writes, ‘When he
[meaning Christ] ascended on high, he made captivity itself a captive. He gave gifts
to his people.’”
The somewhat obscure verse from the Psalm telling of God’s ascending a high
mountain of earthly victory becomes now in Ephesians the ascendant and spiritual
victory of Christ’s Resurrection. The poor captives led away in the Psalmist’s
vision are now set free, as are we, free from sin and death. And rather than await
gifts from conquered peoples, the Lord himself now showers his people, and us,with gifts. But not gifts of gold and precious objects, but with gifts of the Spirit. A
variety of gifts which yet makes us one in Christ.
And that is important. Christ’s coming down to earth and dwelling among us, his
people, the Incarnation in other words, make this spiritual victory possible and,
more importantly, made us all one in Christ, all one in his Resurrection. “He who
descended,” the text tells us, “is the same one who ascended far above all the
heavens so that he might fill all things.”
And it is from this fullness in Christ that the captivity of death and sin is overcome.
“There is one body and one Spirit,” the text explains, “one Lord, one faith, one
baptism, one God and Father of all…” A message as important to us today as it
was in the late first century.
Yet our oneness in Christ does not mean uniformity. The gifts given us in Christ are
that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors,
some teachers. The author could have added: some IT experts, some accountants,
students, street-sweepers, and day labourers. Women and men alike, Hungarians,
Brits, peoples from the nations of Africa, Canadians and Americans, and all the
peoples of the earth. In the teachings of the Letter to the Ephesians, our task is to
build “up the body of Christ” in this world “until all of us come to the unity of the
faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.”
That task is with us still today in a world of increasing fragmentation and special
interests; a world which cherishes gifts received more than gifts given; a world of
self-interest and fear of the other not like us. The migrant, the refugee, the Roma,
the poor, the homeless, and the outcast. It is only in Christ, in his Resurrection,
that we can be saved from that which divides and keeps us from one another and,
more importantly, from the love of God. The gifts given us, the gift of life itself, are
given us to share with others. This in turn is the only way we can be one in Christ
and be raised, with him, beyond ourselves.
Now, no one knows who wrote Psalm Sixty-Eight. It could have been David. Or not.
Surprisingly, no one knows for sure who wrote the Letter to the Ephesians either. It
could have been Paul. Or not. The experts are divided in their opinion. To make
matters worse, most of those same scholars nowadays also do not think that the
Letter to the Ephesians was written to the Ephesians.
Rather, the consensus seems to be that the Letter to the Ephesians was a kind of
circular letter, call it first-century Christian social media, a letter or message
meant to be circulated among the church communities of the first century in what
is today’s central Turkey. Somehow, the name of the community at Ephesus just
stuck. Well, I will leave it to the professors to decide the historical facts of the
matter, but I rather like the idea of this Letter, and its message, being universal, or
ecumenical as some experts call it, for its theme is also universal. I also like the
idea that the message, call it a meme, should be shared, should be circulated, far
and wide. As is still being done today.
So, go ahead, my friends. Post it and repost it on Facebook and LinkedIn all you
like: Tell the world what not even the Psalmist could have imagined, that there is“one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all and
through all and in all.
Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Frank Hegedus
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