There are few questions that I despise more than the question, “Do you believe in God?” Forget the fact that the word “believe” has become a really confusing word in our day. The main reason that I despise this question is because there is no such thing as ‘God’. You can search the Bible beginning to end and I guarantee that you will not find ‘God’ in there. This is because there is no such thing as ‘God;’ there is only ‘the God that…’ or ‘the God who…’ Do you see the difference? That word ‘God’ cannot stand alone without qualification; the word always functions to appropriate a particular kind of God who has acted in a particular way. This is why it can be said that anyone who uses the word ‘God’ has an implicit theology.



Throughout human history, going back to the earliest of all theistic cultures, the God to whom worship and trust was given was always the God who acted in some way or another. This is especially clear in the narrative of scripture: the God who brought you out of Egypt; the God who made a covenant with Abraham; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the God who created the cosmos out of love rather than battle with the other gods; and so on and so forth. Everywhere you turn, the scriptures offer qualifiers to what is actually meant by that word “God.” This is why I find the question “Do you believe in God?” both insufficient and boring.



Now before you think that I’m just venting my pet peeves, please understand that I raise this idea for a reason. The fact that there is always and only ‘the God who acts’ is central to the letter of Ephesians, especially the opening chapter. What we have here is an opening prayer in the style of the Jewish blessing called a berakhah. This prayer always began with the opening phrase, “Blessed be God who…” and would continue to recount God’s actions and their significance for those offering the prayer. In many ways the entire first half of Ephesians is an ongoing prayer of thanksgiving, but verses 3-14 are explicitly so as the author begins “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…”



I want to pause to note that I will be referring to the author of Ephesians and not Paul. There is no conclusive agreement that Paul wrote this letter and it seems more likely that he did not. The earliest manuscripts and fragments of this letter contain neither the word “Paul” nor the word “Ephesus,” which has led many scholars to believe that the letter was originally written by an author who intended to write in the styling Paul in order to remind its readers of the gospel that Paul had preached during his ministry in Ephesus. More than likely, the letter was meant not only for a community in Ephesus but also for many Christians throughout Asia Minor (modern day Turkey). Ephesus, being the capital city o Asia Minor was probably the first destination of the letter. That’s all I will say at this point. Hopefully we can continue to fill in the social and historical contexts as we explore the whole letter over the next few weeks. I just wanted to pause to explain why you won’t hear me referring to Paul specifically as the author.



Back to the opening chapter. As I was saying, the author opens the letter with an incredibly long and poetic prayer of thanksgiving to God. Believe it or not, verses 3-14 are one sentence in Greek, making it the longest sentence in the New Testament. With its lavish vocabulary the prayer offers a summary of God’s cosmic plan from beginning to end. The author emphasizes the “will of God” to “choose” and “destine” people for God’s “good purpose.” And central to this cosmic plan is the Christ Event: the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. No less than eleven times do we find the words “in Christ” or “in him” to underline the fact that God’s cosmic story plots straight through the heart of the crucified messiah who was raised to be seated above all powers so that all things in heaven and earth would be united in him. In what feels like a blink of an eye we are given a snapshot of God’s will from before the foundation of the world to the fulfillment of all history as heaven and earth are gathered into harmonious unity in Christ.



As I mentioned to some friends this week, this opening prayer to Ephesians is overwhelming. It is so huge and so rich that I find it almost too intense. And not just too intense but, in some ways, too straightforward or too abbreviated or something that I can’t quite describe. The fact that the author is summarizing something utterly unfathomable with what feels like certain confidence leaves me feeling kind of skeptical or outside. All of this language describing the acts of God and the significance of Christ for us, it almost of feels like a mystery that I don’t understand.



What’s funny is that the author describes it in just this way: as a mystery. Verse 9 reads, “…God has made known the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure set forth in Christ.” That word “mystery” appears six times in Ephesians to describe God’s cosmic plan to redeem all things in Christ.



The word “mystery” is interesting because it meant something a bit different in the Greco-Roman world. Today we think of mystery as a puzzle that needs to be solved; or perhaps a phenomenon so wonderful that it is unknowable and inexplicable. But in first-century Ephesus the word “mystery” (mysterion) had more to do with secret thoughts or plans that could not be known without proper initiation. And this idea was most closely associated with what were called mystery religions. The mystery religions had their origins in 7th century Babylon and continued to play a significant role in that part of the world until the 4th century after Christ. The mystery of these religions was a kind of secret knowledge that was possessed only by the initiated, giving them special privileges unavailable to outsiders. You might think of it as a first-century scientology.



If this is what the author of Ephesians means by “mystery” then I’m a bit concerned. Is the Christian faith just another mystery religion with secret knowledge and privileged insider groups? No doubt at times it can feel that way. Do you have to go to divinity school to understand it? Do you have to use big words like “eschatology” and “perichoresis” to prove that you possess the secret knowledge? Do you have to be born into it? Do you have to have some remarkable “religious” experience? I want to acknowledge that it often feels this way and Christians – including us – are not immune from creating our own brand of mystery religion.



I want also to acknowledge that in the opening prayer of Ephesians the author declares that these Christians – these “saints” - are, in fact, highly privileged because God has disclosed the mystery of his will to them. And yet, this mystery is one that can be proclaimed openly. The author adds that the Christian community has obtained an inheritance according to this mystery and yet this inheritance has a scope that goes far beyond the community or any exclusive claims it might be tempted to make for itself.



This is where the mystery of Ephesians begins to diverge from other mystery religions; and it is, I believe, why the author uses the word “mystery” repeatedly to describe God’s cosmic drama; it is the author’s way of trumping and turning upside-down the conventional notion of mystery.



The mystery revealed in Ephesians is not a secret to be hidden; it is the anti-secret that must be publicly proclaimed to the ends of the earth. And neither is this mystery the grounds for creating privilege and division; instead, it is the mystery that all things will be unified. It is the astonishing revelation that all people, Jew and Gentile alike, are destined for adoption into the unity of Christ. At the heart of the Christian mystery is no secret at all but the historic and public event of the naked truth that God loves the world and has destined us for unity in Christ.



We can see how this message would be an encouraging reminder to the Christians in Ephesus who lived in the busiest city of Asia Minor amidst all kinds of mystery, magic, commerce and class competition. Indeed, the reminder is that the mystery of Christ is emphatically not one of the mystery cults! It is the reminder that God has made known the mystery of a world where mystery religions no longer divide the human family based upon special knowledge and privileged classes. It is a mystery that declares its secret openly and to all people.



This is what got Paul into so much trouble in Ephesus when he was there. If you read Acts 19 you’ll discover that Paul’s preaching about the mystery of Christ interfered not only with the mystery religions, but with the economy that had been built around them.



This is a reminder that we could use today as well. In the so-called secular age where religion is relegated to the realm of private affair and supposed to function like a private mystery religion, the letter of Ephesians reminds us that the Christian faith is, in fact, not a mystery cult. It is not a private belief system structured around secret rites and classified knowledge. It is the public proclamation of an event remembered around an open table so that all and sundry may experience the mystery of God’s will.



I think we need the frequent reminder that the Christian faith is not a belief system, it is a trust rooted in the experience of an event; a trust that finds it origin in the Christ Event itself. The mystery of God’s will was revealed in the historical events of Jesus. And that mystery continued to be revealed in the historical experience of early church. And that mystery continues to be revealed wherever the unity of Christ is lived and experienced.



When I consider that the foundation of this great mystery is the very real experience of a unity unlike nothing else the world has ever seen, then I can begin to understand why this opening prayer is so incredibly magnificent. Whoever wrote it was someone who had experienced the impossible, a mystery beyond mysteries, the power above all powers, the power of God’s love revealed in Christ to break down walls and reunite the human family.



It begins to make sense that when the mystery of God’s love is experienced, the only thing to do is worship. The only response is praise. Indeed, the author repeats three times that our purpose is to live for the praise of God’s glory, and that is precisely what the author presents in the spectacular prayer of blessing.



May we who have experienced a taste of this inheritance, the riches of unity in Christ, may we proclaim the mystery of our experience and live for the praise of God’s glory. Amen.