God of the Second Chance
From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul
GOD OF THE SECOND CHANCE: Dr Raymond Pelly
Ephesians 1:3-10
The Letter to the Ephesians takes us through a three-step process.
It begins with God’s overall purpose in Creation, ‘With all wisdom & insight [to make] known to us the mystery … that he set forth in Christ: a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth’. [1:8-10]
There’s a big story, God’s; & a lot of little stories, ours. Or we could say, ‘all the creatures (us) stem from God, and what they share is an invitation to return to God’ (Aquinas), the God who is ‘the love at our beginning and without end’.
The question is, how do the little stories – with all their failures and shortcomings – become part of the big story? Here’s how Ephesians addresses that issue:
[Once you were] aliens … and strangers … having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his body he has broken down … the hostility between us … that he might create in himself one new humanity. 2:12-15
Christ, in other words, is the invitation to join our little story to the big story. It’s not a cheap, easy-come-easy-go kind of invitation written on a piece of paper (or sent by e-mail). Rather it is the costly gift of God’s very self in Christ. It comes, as it were, written in blood, precious blood. It’s a love so powerful that it is the meaning of life itself; one that re-creates people to be what they were intended to be: the children of God, the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. Seized by this love, they can move from hostility to reconciliation, find peace through being touched by God in their heart of hearts.
So what kind of people are we talking about in this wonderful world created and re-created in God’s love? The answer is surprising. It’s all about struggle, about standing fast, about taking on the world in its alienation from God, the world that hasn’t yet got the message.
Finally, be strong in the Lord … Put on the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness … Therefore take up the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to withstand … evil … to stand firm.
The passage continues:
Stand therefore, fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all these, take the shield of faith … Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 6:10-17
If there is a key word in this, it’s ‘recapitulation’ or ‘gathering up’. What Ephesians is trying to convey is that God is the ‘God of the second chance’; that God is concerned to gather up all the broken fragments and, like an inspired artist, make something infinitely beautiful out of them. Christ, in other words, has taken on the whole human condition and lived it ‘from woe to go’ so that it can become whole, healed, vibrant, switched on to God. Christ accepts all our failures, uses them as the raw material for new and transformed lives. We are ‘accepted in the Beloved’ (1:6), people with a second chance, destined for an open-textured ‘maturity’ which is ‘the measure of the full stature of Christ’. This in turn means to be ‘rooted and grounded in love’. 3:17
To make this contemporary, to check whether this is real – real for us, that is – we might ask ourselves some questions:
At what point did (or can) my little story enter the big story of God? What is the vision by which I live? What is the story I tell about myself? Who am I? Where am I going?
Or, in the spirit of Ephesians: Where do I stand? Who do I stand with? What do I stand for? How do I withstand evil in myself or in others?
