We Interrupt This Broadcast

Scripture — Ephesians 1:15-23 (NRSV)

I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Devotion

When I was a kid (in the previous century, as my kids like to keep reminding me), the television landscape was very different. We had three commercial networks, plus PBS (it was a big deal when Fox became the fourth commercial network when I was in high school). We didn’t have streaming news channels (or the Internet), and all the networks shut off at night after playing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” When there was breaking news, someone would appear live from wherever the network was headquartered and break into the already scheduled taped program with the words “We interrupt this broadcast.” Then they would tell us whatever the breaking news was, of course.

That’s a bit of what’s going on in the Scriptures I’ve chosen for the next two days. One of the great and ancient feasts of the church, All Saints’ Day, is coming up on Saturday, November 1, and so I’ve interrupted my own broadcast and paused my usual choices of Scripture from the regular Sunday lectionary in order to talk about the All Saints’ Day readings.

One question that it’s worth asking about the readings chosen for any given feast day is “Why these?” Sometimes—when the feast celebrates an event in the life of Jesus or the history of the early church, for example—this is pretty easy to figure out. But All Saints’ Day—first celebrated in the fourth century, first celebrated in November in the ninth century—is a bit more theoretical and conceptual than that. Not just remembering the life of one saint, it asks us to recall the lives of all of them. And in this reading from Ephesians, it asks us to recall something else—“the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints” (1:18).

Saint stories by themselves are interesting, of course—sometimes awe-inspiring, sometimes fun, sometimes puzzling. But what does it mean that Jesus is the glorious inheritance of all the saints? Paul aims in this passage to remind his readers of the tradition in which they stand, the community which they serve, and the place of Jesus as ruler and head over the tradition and the community. Paul often uses the term “saints” for people still alive; we don’t do this as often, but you still may hear folks talking about the “saints” of their local congregation who have lived long lives in service to Christ.

But there is more. Paul is praying for his readers that they would continue to grow in wisdom, revelation, and hope, so that they could see, more and more, how all this is possible. The Christian life is not something that stays static. We should all be growing, every day, into people who are more and more like Christ. We cannot do this without the grace of God, of course. But we should never spurn the grace that enables us to do it. We, too, can become saints.

And that is worth interrupting any broadcast for.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: God’s Grand Plan: A Theological Vision (Ephesians 1:1–3:21).