Words We No Longer Avoid: Mystery ~ Ephesians 3:1-12

 

There are some words we’ve learned to avoid. Not because they answer questions but because they seek to stop them. These are words that stop making sense. They leave a bad theological taste in our mouth or often hit painfully below the belt. They’re often good words but they’ve been misunderstood, misused, and leave deep bruises in our relationship with God and others. Mystery is one of those words.

And the strange thing is that mystery belongs in Christianity. We worship a God who has mysteriously been revealed, Paul says.  But often, when many Christians use the word they mean something very different from Paul. Someone dies unexpectedly, and we say, “It’s a mystery.” Someone gets cancer, and we say, “We just don’t know why God allowed this. It’s a mystery.” A child suffers. A marriage falls apart. A wildfire destroys someone's home. A terrible thing happens to a good person. And people say, “God’s ways are higher than our ways,” because we don't know what else to say. As if God is somehow the architect of misery but can’t be held responsible.

Mystery becomes a way of protecting theology or, even worse, protecting God. “God is in control,” they say to the parents whose child has recently died. “God has a plan,” they say to a tear-filled friend faced with divorce. If you ask why God didn't stop it? Mystery. If you ask how this could possibly be compatible with the goodness of God? Mystery. Listen there’s nothing wrong with questions. Nothing. But saying “mystery” in the face of real tragedy is not the answer.

Mystery is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for God. It becomes a way of silencing the very questions that suffering ought to make us ask. It’s a religious way of saying, “Don't look too closely.” And that's not what the New Testament means by mystery at all.

In fact, I think Paul wants to rescue the word for us. Because when Paul uses the word mystery in Ephesians 3, he isn't talking about why terrible things happen. He isn't talking about cancer, earthquakes, death, or suffering. He isn't saying, “God has a secret explanation for all the horrible things in the world, and someday we'll understand.” He says something much more beautiful: “The mystery was made known . . . it has now been revealed.” And what is that mystery? “The Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”

That's the mystery. And once you see that, the whole word begins to change. The Greek word mystērion doesn't mean exactly what our modern English word mystery means. When we hear mystery, we tend to think of Agatha Christie. A dead body. A locked room. A collection of clues. A puzzle to solve. Who did it? What happened? Can we solve it? But that's not Paul's word.

For Paul, the divine mystērion is something that was hidden and has now been revealed. It's not a puzzle that human beings are clever enough to solve. It’s something awesome that God has been doing all along that human beings could not see until God pulled back the curtain. The mystery Paul is talking about isn't “Why did God allow this terrible thing to happen? The mystery is: “Look at the amazing goodness of the God revealed in Jesus Christ.”

And that God is bigger and better than anybody imagined. Gentiles are included. Outsiders are brought inside. Those who were once strangers become fellow heirs. Those who were divided become members of the same body. The people who thought they were out discover that God has been making room for them all along. The mystery is the “boundless riches of Christ.” That’s God's “eternal purpose.” And Paul says that his job is to make everyone see it. That's what mystery means. Not something God is keeping from us. Something unfathomably good that God is revealing to us.  Richard Rohr gets at this beautifully when he says that mystery isn't something we cannot understand but goodness that is “endlessly understandable.

Mystery isn't the locked door. Mystery is the open door of goodness that keeps graciously leading somewhere, with doors that keep opening. It's not that God is unknowable. It's that in Jesus Christ God's mercy is inexhaustibly more. More grace. More beauty. More love. More truth. More of God than we have yet imagined.

I often encounter people who use a false sense of mystery to explain some terrible thing that has happened, in order to silence questions or to keep insisting that something cruel or heartless or terrible is somehow compatible with God or God’s plan. They claim that an understanding of “boundless” love is naïve. They love to quote Isaiah 55:8: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.” And they use that as a way of saying: “I know this looks bad but it isn’t. God does mysterious things.”

But if you look at the context of Isaiah 55, God’s “thoughts” and “ways” are not about being harsh, or mean, or arbitrary. It’s about God having mercy. God forgiving the wicked. God calling people we never expected. God offering material abundance like wine and milk for free. God's goodness being wildly more expansive than anyone imagined. According to Isaiah and Paul, the mysterious thing, the higher way, is not that God sometimes engages in problematic behavior. The mysterious thing, the higher way, is that God is always, astonishingly, good. The mystery is not that God is worse than we thought. The mystery is that God's love is bigger than we imagined. Let me be clear. I’m not saying that there aren’t real questions around suffering, evil, human existence, and God. I’m saying that the concept of mystery must never be used as cover for bad behavior that is supposedly attributed to God. Mystery says, in the face of tragedy and suffering, that we can bring all our questions precisely because we trust that God is fully revealed in Jesus Christ and God is good.

Think about how radical that would have been for Paul's first readers. There were stark boundaries everywhere. Jew and Gentile. Insider and outsider. Clean and unclean. Us and them. And Paul says: You thought those boundaries were permanent? Look again. You thought God was only interested in your people? Look again. You thought you read Scripture rightly? Look again. You thought you understood who belonged? Look again. The Gentiles are fellow heirs. They are members of the same body. They share the same promise. The mystery is that through Jesus God's purposes are boundless riches.

Christian faith does not give us a God whom we can finally contain. Every time we erect a border around God Jesus forces us to look again. He keeps surprising us with the mystery of God inviting us to look again. We thought God was primarily interested in the righteous. Jesus eats with sinners. Look again. We thought holiness meant keeping our distance from the unclean. Jesus touches them. Look again. We thought power meant domination. Jesus kneels and washes feet. Look again. We thought enemies were people God wanted us to defeat. Jesus tells us to love them. Look again. We thought God's answer to violence would be greater violence. Jesus absorbs violence without returning it. Look again. We thought death had the final word. Then Jesus walks out of the tomb. Look again. This is the mystery of Christ. And this is why mystery belongs in our series: Words We No Longer Avoid.

Christian faith isn't about knowing everything or explaining everything. Christian faith is about learning to trust what we know—and what we don't know. And what do we know? God is Christlike and better than we could hope for or imagine. It doesn’t mean we can’t ask questions. It doesn't mean we can’t wrestle with deep pain. It doesn't mean we just shrug our shoulders and give up. Paul is not advocating intellectual laziness. Quite the opposite. He has encountered something so profound that he commits to spending his life trying to understand it and help other people see it.

But he also understands that he does not possess God. He has received a revelation. He has not received a cage in which God can be kept. And maybe that's the humility that mystery gives us. We can say: I trust love. And: I don't understand everything. We can say: I believe God is good. And: I still have questions. We can say: I’m confident in Jesus. And: I am still willing to be surprised.

Because there is a difference between certainty and trust. Certainty says, “I have figured this out.” Trust says, “I don't have to figure everything out in order to keep walking.” And perhaps that is what Paul means when he says that the mystery has been revealed. God hasn't given us every answer. Through Jesus, God has given us enough revelation to know the character of the One with whom we are walking. A God who has been revealed. A God of Grace. Of Love. Of Inclusion. Of Sharing. Of Reconciliation. A God who is creating a new humanity. A table with more seats than we expected. A kingdom larger than our boundaries. A God whose mercy keeps surprising us. That is the mystery.

And there is one more thing in Ephesians 3 that I don't want us to miss. Paul says the mystery is not merely something we are supposed to know. It is something we are supposed to live. He says that God's wisdom is being made known through the church. Through us. We are part of the revelation. People who mysteriously should not naturally belong together belonging together. People with different histories, cultures, assumptions, and ways of seeing the world become one body in Christ who share the same boundless love. The mystery becomes visible. It takes flesh. It looks like hospitality. Reconciliation. Forgiveness. People making room. It looks like somebody saying, “I thought you were outside the circle. And now I know that God has already invited you in.”

Maybe that is why mystery is not an escape from reality or a cover for God. It is an invitation to see God and reality differently. To look at the world and wonder: What good thing is God doing here that I cannot yet see? Not: “What horrible thing is God secretly responsible for?” To look at the world and wonder: “Where is grace unfolding that I haven't noticed?” “Where is love breaking through?” “Where is reconciliation beginning?” “Where is God making a way where I assumed there was no way?” “Who have I mistakenly placed outside the circle?” “What if God's eternal purposes are larger than my imagination?” That is a different kind of mystery. And a mystery worth recovering.

Because the Christian claim is not that God has mysteriously hidden the truth from us. Or that God is somehow responsible for every terrible thing. The Christian claim is that God has mysteriously revealed God’s self as incredibly gracious and kind. God is Christlike and in God there is no unChristlikeness.

So maybe we don't have to be afraid of mystery anymore. We don't have to use it to shut down questions. We don't have to use it to justify suffering. We don't have to pretend that every terrible thing must secretly be God's will. We grieve what is terrible. We name what is wrong. We ask our questions. We say, “I don't know.”

And then we turn toward Jesus. And listen. And look. And pay attention. Because there is still more. More grace to receive. More love to imagine. More people who belong than we have been willing to welcome. More beauty than we have noticed. More of God than our little explanations can contain.

And we don’t solve it. We receive it. Enter it. Live inside it. Let it change the way we see God and one another. Because mystery isn't where faith ends. Mystery is where faith finally becomes spacious enough to breathe and capable to trust. And maybe the most faithful thing we can say is not, “I always understand God.” But: “I have encountered the goodness of God in Jesus Christ—and know that there is still mysteriously more.” Amen.

 

Words We No Longer Avoid: Prayer ~ Matthew 6:5-15; Ephesians 3:14-21

 

There are some words we have learned to avoid. Not because they’re hurtful, but because we secretly fear we don’t know how to do them—or we no longer can do them the same way, and we’re afraid to ask, to be vulnerable, to be seen as unsure. These words carry expectations and longing. They make us wonder whether we are doing Christianity correctly. Prayer is often one of those words.

Talking about prayer can sometimes feel a lot like talking about sex. Both are intimate and important, and often over-glamorized. We hear about people who pray for hours, who have extraordinary experiences of God, who seem to know exactly what to say and how to say it. And we begin to wonder, “What’s wrong with me?” Instead of prayer becoming a place where we encounter God, it becomes one more place where we feel like we’re failing or inadequate.

Maybe your prayer life doesn't look like much. Maybe you get distracted. Or you don't know what to say. Or you pray and nothing seems to happen. Maybe the word itself produces more guilt than desire. And yet something in you still longs for it. We ache to know and be known. We’re afraid but don’t want to avoid. We want to bring our whole selves and experience the presence of God rather than merely talk at God or think about God. So today is not one more manual about prayer. I don't want to tell you how to become a spiritual superstar. I want to suggest something much simpler and far more lovely:

Prayer is paying attention to the God who is already lovingly paying attention to us.

Mary Oliver once wrote, “I don't know exactly what prayer is. But I do know how to pay attention.” What if prayer doesn't begin with knowing exactly what it is or what to say? What if it begins with noticing, becoming aware and awake – to God, to ourselves, to one another, to all of creation—all in the presence of a God who is always awake to us?

That's important because we often think of prayer as a way of getting God to do something. We ask. God responds. We perform well enough, God rewards us. We pray with enough faith, God gives us what we want. We find the right words, God listens. And if nothing happens, we assume we failed.

But Jesus appears determined to dismantle that entire way of thinking. In Matthew 6, Jesus says, “Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.” And then he says something remarkable: “Your Father knows what you need before you ask.” Before you ask. Prayer isn't informing God. Prayer isn't getting God's attention. Prayer isn't persuading God to care. Prayer is the recognition that God is already attentive. God already knows. God already sees. God already loves. God is already there. Prayer is waking up to a reality that is already God-filled. What if prayer is not a battle of wits we can fail at? What if it’s more like becoming aware of the sun shine on our face and responding? Isn’t that what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 5? He became awake to the beauty and warmth of the sun and recognized it as the love of God poured out on all of us -even our enemies, he said.

And that's why Jesus’s first teaching on prayer was: You don't have to inform or perform. You don't have to pretend you're a prayer giant. You don't have to sound spiritual. You don't have to beg God to shine on you. And you don't have to find the perfect words. Jesus says, “Don’t heap up empty phrases.” Stop trying to crack the code. You don't have to manipulate God to love you. “Your Father knows what you need before you ask.”

Imagine a toddler approaching a loving parent. We don’t ask, “What's the correct way for a three-year-old to approach?” What's the right posture? What's the proper vocabulary? What's the acceptable length of the request? No good parent worries about that. And no child should ever need to ask. A child simply comes. Sometimes the child is articulate. Sometimes the child cries. Sometimes the child doesn't know what they want. And the parent listens and loves any way.

So wake up! The person God wants to meet in prayer is simply you. Not the polished version. Not the spiritual version. Not the version who has figured everything out. You. As you are. Which means that if you simply come as yourself, even in pain, or distress, or worry, you’re already doing it right.

My wife once experienced a painful season when she couldn’t seem to pray. The words would get stuck in her throat. So she went to our priest and poured out everything that was happening. The priest listened and gently said, “When you are rocking your child, just turn your attention toward God. That will be prayer enough.” Not another assignment. Not another technique. Just: Turn your attention toward God. It’s enough.

Jesus' invitation to go into your room is, in part, an invitation away from performance and toward presence. Sometimes the hardest thing about prayer is that we're trying so hard to pray, to produce an experience, to say the right thing, to stop our anxieties. And Jesus says: Be quiet. Be yourself. Be present.

The lovely Catholic priest Henri Nouwen spent much of his life writing about prayer. He said that prayer is not primarily accomplishing something for God. It’s about entering the presence of the God who already calls us beloved. It’s learning to pay attention to our belovedness—and to the belovedness of our friends, our family, our neighbors, our enemies, even strangers. Paying attention to belovedness is the heart of prayer. Not control. Surrender. Not manipulation. Attention. Not performance. Presence.

Prayer might mean saying, “God, I don't know exactly what you're doing. I don't know what you're going to do. I don't even know exactly what I need. But I trust that you are here. And I make room for your love.” That's why Paul's prayer in Ephesians matters so much. God is the one lovingly at work. God strengthens. God roots. God grounds. God fills. God works. And all of this more than we can ask for or imagine. And our response? Our response is the end of vs. 21: “Amen.” Amen is a paying attention word. It means, “Yes.” “I trust you.” “I agree.” “May it be so.” All rolled into one word.

Paul's prayer is essentially one enormous invitation for us to “amen” the inescapable love of God. To awaken to the notion that God is strengthening us. Amen. God is rooting us in love. Amen. God is doing something deeper than we can understand. Amen. Perhaps that's our contribution to prayer. Not brilliance. Not eloquence. Not spiritual performance. Simply: Yes! Yes, God. I am here. I'm paying attention. I'm listening. I receive your love. Amen.

And if prayer is paying attention, then prayer isn't limited to what happens when we close our eyes. It’s also what happens when we open them, when we work, or walk, or play. Prayer is noticing with God the loneliness in someone's voice. Prayer awakening to the loveliness of a tree that God created. Prayer is noticing a person God loves who has been overlooked. Prayer is awareness of your own anger before it becomes cruelty or noticing your sadness before it becomes numbness. Prayer is receiving beauty without needing to possess it. Prayer is seeing the stranger. Seeing creation. Seeing yourself. And bringing that recognition and awareness into the presence of God.

This is why I don't want to suggest that there is one correct way to pray. Some of you may attentively discover God in silence. Some while walking. Some through breath prayers, music, Scripture, journaling, the Psalms, or the Lord's Prayer. Some may pray while gardening, cooking, driving, rocking a child, sitting beside someone in a hospital room, or walking through the woods.

Some of you may need words. Some of you won’t. Some may need to cry. Some may need to yell at God. Some may simply need to breathe a name. The practice isn't the point. Presence is. The point isn't finding the practice that makes you look most holy. The point is discovering what helps you become more attentive to the God who is already shining on you and always has been. And this is what Jesus is doing with the Lord's Prayer. He doesn't give us a complicated formula. He gives us a little prayer that gathers up our whole lives.  So quickly become awake to a couple of phrases:

“Our Father in heaven.” Before we ask for anything, Jesus gives us relationship to God and others. Our Father. Not simply “my” Father. Our. Prayer reminds us that we never pray alone and that God doesn’t know how to be absent. The person we love, the stranger we don't know, even the person we would rather avoid—all of them are included by “our Father.” Everyone is family.

“Hallowed be your name.” To hallow means to recognize something as holy. Prayer becomes attention again. It’s hallowing the world while we walk through it. This person belongs to God. This body belongs to God. This tree belongs to God. This stranger belongs to God. This difficult person belongs to God. This world belongs to God.

“Your kingdom come Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Now prayer becomes attention to what is not yet as it should be. We notice what is broken. We awaken to injustice, suffering, loneliness, hunger, and the places where love seems absent. And we ask, “God, make this world look more like your intention. Make our lives look more like your love.”

“Give us this day our daily bread.” Notice how physical the prayer is. It invites us to become aware of spiritual things like bread. Bodies. Food. Need. Forgiveness. We are not escaping the world in prayer. We are becoming more attentive to the world.

And then: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Again, prayer changes the way we see one another. Jesus is teaching us a prayer that is less about controlling God and more about becoming attentive to others. Prayer gives us a way to acknowledge and bring our whole selves: our longing, our hunger, our guilt, our relationships, our fears, our desires, to God.

Bring it. Bring your whole self. Because God doesn't want the edited version of you. God wants you. The distracted you. The cynical you. The grieving you. The joyful you. The exhausted you. The skeptical you. The you who knows exactly what you believe and the you who isn't sure anymore. That is the person God is attentive to.

Prayer is the practice of refusing to avoid ourselves. We don't have to hide the parts of ourselves we find frightening. We don't have to clean ourselves up before we come to God. We don't have to make ourselves spiritually impressive. We come as we are. And we trust we are being “rooted and grounded in love.”

And eventually, almost without noticing, love begins to grow through us. The goal of prayer isn't simply that we would become people who pray. The goal is that we would become people who love attentively like God, who see wholly like God, who act responsively like God. People who pay attention. People who listen. People who notice. People who can sit with another person's pain without immediately trying to fix it. People who can receive beauty without possessing it. People who can encounter mystery without demanding an explanation. People who have become so rooted in love that they begin to become love. That's why prayer matters. Not because God needs our prayers. But because we need to become aware of and receive the love God is always giving so that we can offer the love God is always offering.

I think Mary Oliver is right. None of us knows exactly what prayer is or what it does. But we can learn to pay attention. And perhaps when we pay attention—really pay attention—we discover and experience that the fullness of God we have been trying so hard to find has been with us all along. And we whisper: Amen. I’m here. I see. I’m listening. I receive your love. I’ll give it away. I’m making room. Amen.