Reflection Exercise
Introduction
Ephesians 5: 1-2: Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
With all the complexities of life that we are experiencing, what difference does the message of resurrection mean for us?
Reflection Questions
As we spend time in Ephesians during this season between Easter and Pentecost, we invite you to reflect on these questions that we offered in worship on April 18. Following the questions, we’ve provided some thoughts based on Ephesians 3-4.
Take time and sit quietly with each question and then take time to write, draw or speak out loud your response. You may want to do this multiple times and see what changes for you…
The virus surges now in India and South America. Even as more people are vaccinated now in the US, controversy surges! How do we face questions about the future while seeking to walk through each day as we continue to unearth deep rooted inequity and suffering? How does Resurrection empower us to live as imitators of God and live in love?!
Our scripture boldly asks us to ponder why resurrection matters in our daily living. It is not pie-in-the sky wishful thinking. Resurrection changes how we live each day.
Q1: What are personal limitations and struggles that you have faced through the pandemic?
Take time.
We have been called to live in new relationships, to let God work in and through us. To live in and reveal the power of God’s love. And we recognize that we all need God’s grace.
God is actively gifting us to give a taste of God’s reign to those around us. You can do this because of the Holy Spirit in you who empowers you beyond what you could do on your own.
Q2: What insight, gifts, or strengths has God gifted you with?
Take time.
Who do we say that we are? Sometimes we feel that we are not OK. We can be held captive in our world by lies, systems, falsehoods, and fear. At that point the cross captures that feeling and shows us that we are a new creation and we can live as transformed people.
Q3: What does it mean that Christ has rescued us from the captivity of fear and of lies about who we are?
Take time.
The invitation is towards freedom that Christ offers. You belong to Christ!
Q4: What do you appreciate about the Body of Christ and your part in it?
Take time.
You are rooted and grounded in love because of Christ Jesus.
Q5: Who is God inviting the Church to be (that includes you) in our current time and place?
Resurrection…
This is an event that is earth-shattering, heaven-extending, life-giving. An event that tells us that we do not live in a closed system; on a dead-end road with no hope for imagination of a new way.
God broke through what seemed a closed world system of violence, hierarchy, and fatalism – to SHOW God’s true character and LOVE --- God reached down to the lowest of places to lift all of creation to the highest of places.
Jesus Christ, who became ONE of us – human flesh -- and who entered the world to break down the walls of hostility and create a new humanity, is now our Risen Lord, advocating on our behalf.
Therefore…
Jesus Christ reveals the great size of God’s love for us –resurrection power.
Jesus Christ reveals God’s grace for all of us -- to be united.
We have access to God in boldness and confidence and through Christ, God’s power is working through us to do more than we can ask or even imagine!
And, who is the “us” through him God is working?
In Ephesians 3, Paul boldly says --- though Christ Jesus’ death and resurrection a mystery had been made clear.
Are you ready? The Church is how God, who creates all things and holds all things together chooses to bring Heaven and Earth together – to reveals God’s healing wisdom and God’s healing power of LOVE that restores and brings new life.
Now, we may say this is crazy! We are so aware of what the church has done wrong. The ways the church has been complicit in promoting segregation…monitored morality…communicated judgement.
Perhaps we’ve allowed a small, domesticated, picture of the church take hold of us and paralyze us from living intentionally as Christ invites.
Written from a prison cell, Paul is challenging us to let go of three wrong views that we tend to gravitate towards:
1) The church is static – never changing. What is your static view that needs to change?
2) The church is an IT – an institution, lifeless, impersonal. What is your institutional view of the church that needs to change?
3) The church is irrelevant or out of touch with the real issues of the world. What is your irrelevant view of the church that needs to change?
INSTEAD, Paul reveals through Christ
1) The Church is Dynamic and active for the NOW. A movement! A movement that reaches out to those who feel the least welcomed – and includes…extends LOVE that cannot be contained within the walls of a building or system
2) The Church is us, a living organism, in which God dwells and works to bring new creation – US -- united and linked with others throughout time and generations. Where we are the church is.
3) The Church is centered on a cross that extends GOD’s LOVE to all dimensions of this earth…. Bearers of Grace and new life… Revolutionary to bring transformation to unjust systems and power structures that oppress.
Grand language? Yes…but lived out this is a reality that is: gritty, a rolling up your sleeves, weeping alongside another human being, sharing of your suffering, facing your weaknesses, using your tangible gifts -- kind of faith.
We are invited into a shared faith that is lived out in the world in partnership with God.
Resurrection brings forth a new humanity to be a part of God’s reign which is done so – not through fear, or arrogance or dominance but by Love and service and sacrifice.
Therefore, our calling is a journey shaped by humble boldness and a bold humility; a journey of gentleness, patience and love – participating in what the Spirit is doing to change the world for GOOD. And, it is a journey that acknowledges our own pain…our limitations…our struggles. Our need for a Savior
Dear friends – we are connected to one another – by one Death, one Resurrection, One Spirit, One Faith, One hope, one Baptism, One Lord.
We are a BODY --- joined and knit together by Christ’s blood pouring through us…and by the Spirit breathing in us. We are the BODY of Christ – who needs each others strengths and struggles, gifts and hopes. We need each others uniqueness and difference to fully express the LOVE of God to the world that is stuck in hatred, violence, and despair.
When you say YES to Jesus you say YES to being a part of Christ’s Body. You are included and needed.
There is so much deceit and trickery in the world that seeks to pull us from our identity. When we try to live alone – think we can follow Christ without being a part of Christ’s body, we fool ourselves – we become vulnerable to the stormy weather that beats upon us.
Your uniqueness is needed alongside another’s beautiful uniqueness to reveal a new way of being together. We have witnessed this over and over through this pandemic. Some of you are encouragers, some of you are doers, some of you are prophets, some of you are healers.
ALL of us are invited together to be grace bearers to reveals that the hatred, the division, the discrimination, the name-calling, the despair in our WORLD is counter to the extravagant love of Christ that lifts people up and brings HOPE.
THE Hope of our calling is to be a part of God’s Kingdom…God’s reign…together!
Together we are a part of what God is doing in our world…. Amen!