Predestination

Chosen (Predestination)

“In him we were also chosen, having been predestined… for the praise of his glory.” Eph 1.11f

Frogs in Cream p.90

Two frogs fell into a can of cream,
Or so I’ve heard it told.
The sides of the can were shiny and steep,
The cream was deep and cold.

“Oh, what’s the use?” croaked number one.
“Tis fate, no help’s around.
Good-bye, my friend! Good-bye, sad world!”
And weeping still, he drowned.

But number two, of sterner stuff,
Dog-paddled in surprise.
The while he wiped his creamy face,
And dried his creamy eyes.

“I’ll swim a while at least,” he said,
Or so I’ve heard he said;
“It really wouldn’t help the world,
If one more frog were dead.”

An hour or two he kicked and swam,
Not once he stopped to mutter,
But kicked and kicked and swam and kicked,
Then hopped out, via butter!
(TC Hamlet)

Well, that’s as good an introduction as any on a hot summer’s morning, to the subject of predestination. Is our eternal fate already fixed? As v4 puts it, ‘he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.’ Or can we, like frog number two, work out our own salvation?

Remember the expunged verse of All things bright and beautiful...

“The rich man in his castle,
the poor man at his gate;
God made them high and lowly,
and ordered their estate.”

Is it God who orders our destiny? Prince or pauper? Famous or infamous?

Is our vocation and ministry - the words of our opening collect; ordered by God’s governance - the words of the final collect?

In that wonderful legal ecclesiastical language, Rowan is Archbishop of Canterbury by Divine Providence; whereas poor Richard is Bishop of London, merely by Divine Permission.

A cynic of course might say that both phrases boil down to: ‘by Tony Blair’.

I’m not preaching on John the Baptist today (Fr Alan has a fine sermon on him delivered at St George’s Windsor recently, and due for a re-run here) but he was a very odd choice for the forerunner of Christ. He would certainly never have got through our Anglican selection processes!

Amos himself admits what an odd choice he was to bring the prophetic message of judgment to Israel. As he admits in the last verse of this morning’s reading: “‘I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees.'” (7.14)

This is all part of a very disturbing theological principle of the Judaeo-Christian tradition: divine choices often leave both the subject of the choice and those who observe it, bemused or bewildered.

In the words of the book of Proverbs: “Man proposes; God disposes.”

Or in our Lord’s words: “You did not choose me; I chose you.” (John 15.16)

The doctrine of predestination was an unsuccessful attempt to give theological shape to this part of the character of God, that is basically unfathomable.

This is the ‘u’ in ‘TULIP’ - the little mnemonic for remembering the central tenets of Calvinism: total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible calling, perseverance of the saints.

But if you’re not careful, you can end up with a capricious and almost vicious god, and a view of life that is fatalistic – que sera sera. (Like the Calvinist who fell down stairs and said “Thank goodness that’s over with!”)

Paul begins to get to the nub of the matter when in the next chapter he talks of God’s choosing in the same sentence as he says - lest any man should boast.

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Eph 2.8, 9)

There is at the heart of God’s dealing with humanity, a desire to confound; and at the same time to reveal. It seems it is the only way to deal with us in order to save us from self-destruction - both individually and perhaps as human kind; and perhaps the only way for us to maintain our integrity and freedom.

So at Babel there is the confusion of languages, the confounding of the superstate’s plans, in order, Genesis 11 tells us, to save humanity from the dangerous consequences of its own folly.

Our Lord quotes the prophet Isaiah when explaining why he uses parables. “That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.” (Mark 4.12)

You see the principle at work in weak King Herod: “When Herod heard John he was greatly puzzled; yet he liked to listen to him.” (Mk 6.20)

To confound and to reveal - this is the mystery of our faith; the mystery of this Sacrament. It is what calls us to walk by faith rather than by sight. (2 Cor 5.7)

But, unhappy with the loose ends our faith throws up, we attempt to justify everything; to square the circle. At one level that is what theological debate and trying to understand life is all about. But part of our childlike faith is being able to accept that there are some things, however hard we struggle, that we will never understand.

Mortals are contingent to the universe. They are not the authors of it. We rightly wrestle to increase our knowledge of the way things are. But that knowledge, by definition, can never be exhaustive. In the scientific world this is known as Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle.

Sometimes we try to justify God by saying he chooses ‘the good’ for special blessing and special purposes. There seems to be lots of evidence in Scripture for this, especially in the OT.

It’s the righteous who are blessed and used.

But even Scripture struggles with this and isn’t it in the book of Hezekiah that we read that the rain falls on the just and the unjust, but mainly on the just because the unjust have stolen their umbrellas?

The wisdom literature of the Bible knows that plenty of bad things happen to good people.

And Scripture is also brutally honest in showing us that many of the saints were bigger sinners than you and I will ever manage to be.

We cannot ignore the plain truth that the men and women that God has chosen to do remarkable things in the history of the world, have by and large been flawed humans - sometimes ordinary, sometimes exceptional, but always flawed.

The fact is, that there is no justification of God. His dealings with us are always mysterious.

But we also use this same argument to try and justify ourselves. And by this I mean that we say, we’re not holy enough or good enough to be used by God, or even to be Christians, or part of the church.

We keep a sort of mental hierarchy of whom God will bless and use - Our Lord - Mary - saints & martyrs (especially virgins) - bishops - missionaries - priests - deacons - churchwardens - PCC members - right down to advertising executives.

“God can’t use me.” And that lets us off the hook.

Paul is so excited by the fact that we are all called by God, and all used by God, that he dictates the twelve verses of today’s epistle as one long, complex Greek sentence – and the burden of the sentence is the praise of a loving God.

The mystery of why we are Christians, why we believe when many of friends and family don’t seem able to believe, should lead us, certainly not to pat ourselves on the back; but to praise God who is beyond all praising.

I’m very bad at noticing engagement rings, but when I met my friend’s daughter and her boyfriend the other day, it was the smile on each of their faces that made me immediately look to the ring finger. And there it was!

The modern Greek word for engagement ring is αρραβων, and Paul uses the word in the last verse of today’s epistle to describe the Holy Spirit as the pledge, the αρραβων, of our inheritance in Christ. It should bring a smile to our faces and praise to our lips.

“In him we were also chosen, having been predestined… for the praise of his glory.” Eph 1.11f