• Book notes: “Grace and Work: Ephesians 2:1-10,” Chapter 5 of Eugene Peterson’s Practice Resurrection

Chapter Sum

To arrive in the charmed life that is the opening chapter of Ephesians – to enjoy the destiny in God’s glory – we must live with an acquired passivity: acquired because in this world the glory goes to the energetic and ambitious. But once you learn how to receive grace you become like an Olympic swimmer gliding while afloat atop the water. And in your good work you will truly be a conduit of God.

Reflection

Sure the Olympian swimmer is “working,” but she is also harnessing the power of the water, and her body. Indeed, a good swimmer will often be described as “graceful” – as is the cheetah while running, or anyone doing what they are best at. Meanwhile I can work very hard in the water and not come close to anything that would be deemed “graceful.” And so our secular vernacular is embodying a biblical truth that is so often difficult to explain, this relationship between grace and works. A Christian can be working very hard at many things that might be deemed noble, without coming within miles of grace, or harnessing the power of God. I think the call for us is to endeavor prayerfully, to slow down enough to ask God to really enlighten us and show us his grace, to be the wind in our sails or the very water upon which we are afloat, and then and only then will we embody grace in our, so that we may truly “do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10).

Notes

Train-ride metaphor

After the exhilarating opening chapter of Ephesians there is the abrupt first verse: “You were dead” (2:1). The concept of resurrection life is one thing. Living in it is another. It’s one thing to look at it as if from a passenger train, enjoying the scenery, the ups and downs, the wilderness and cities. It’s another thing to go out into it and live it. I think we need to see that the call daily is to move from the passenger car out into the landscape of the resurrection life with its promise and peril, not being spectators. As Peterson says this takes “a patient, long-suffering reorientation in the resurrection conditions that prevail in this country, living into the ‘full nature of Christ’ (4:13), our resurrection pioneer and companion. (p. 90)

Acquired Passivity

Culture not conducive to grace

Passivity has a “bad odor” in our culture.

“Energy and ambition, single-minded purpose, an undistracted and unswerving race for the finish, and e7ye-on-the-ball concentration go a long way in making money, acquiring academic degrees, winning wars, climbing Mt. Everest, and hitting home runs. This is undisputable. But such goals, all of them much lauded by our culture, have very little to do in themselves with living a mature life, living ‘to the praise of his glory. (p. 90)

“Competitive ambition and the accompanying disciplines that bring about its achievement can be pursed, without conscience, without love, without compassion, without humility, without generosity, without righteousness, without holiness. Which is to say, quite apart from maturity. Immature entertainment celebrities are on display on every street corner. Immature millionaires routinely walk out on their families. Immature scholars and scientists who collect Nobel Prizes make do with estranged and godless lives. Immature star athletes regularly embarrass their coaches and fans by infantile and adolescent, sometimes criminal behavior. (90-91)

“These are the men and women who set the standards for a life fueled by ambition, getting to the top, making a name for themselves, beating out the competition. … we realize how radically different they are from the life of Jesus and the resurrection life of Jesus that Paul uses as his text for living a mature human life.” (p. 91)

Unfortunately the successful American cross-breeds with the Christian to beget “a hybrid: American Christian, Christian America.” The best of the modern world, American, and the best of the biblical world, Christian: hybrid Christians.”

Our Christian forefathers however lived beside Hebrews and Greeks who shared the ambitious values of modern Americans; but the biblical standard is that God’s people live markedly different lives.

“The stories of Abraham and Moses, Elijah and Jeremiah, Daniel and Esther are all energetically countercultural. Our pioneering Christian ancestors lived as neighbors alongside the descendants of the highly civilized and accomplished Greeks and Romans, and they participated in the economies that were provided for them and the learning that was accessible to them. At the same time, they were uncompromising in their rejection of the divine pretensions and sexual profligacies of their leaders in government and the arts, and the superficial idolatries in all the so-called best families.” (p. 92)

The cross is a stumbling block and folly a culture in America that worships self indulgence and power and divinizes human achievement. Breeding American ambition and Christian values begets a tame Christianity without a cross – without Jesus. The image of God in humans is lost. (p. 93)

Like learning to swim

“Grace is everywhere to be experienced but nowhere to be explained.” It is like water. One can exert all the energy possible, struggling mightily, and still die in its presence. Or one can relax and learn to float, miraculously buoyant.

Hence our shift from ambitious to grace-led comes when we realize it is not what we do, but what we participate in. We participate with “a willed-passivity.”

I think of Jesus’ language of the kingdom of heaven, which is in our midst, and his directive to deny ourselves, lose our life and then we gain it. Peterson is using different terms, inviting us to acquire a willed passivity while “giving ourselves up to what is previous to us, the presence and action of God” (p. 95).

“But that terra firma, feet-on-the-ground self is hard to give up (95). … In fifty years of being a pastor, my most difficult assignment continues to be the task of developing a sense among the people I serve of the soul-transforming implications of grace—a comprehensive, foundational reorientation from living anxiously by my wits and muscle to living effortlessly in the world of God’s active presence.  The prevailing North American culture (not much different from the Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Persian, Greek and Roman cultures in which our biblical ancestors lived) is, to all intents and purposes, a context of persistent denial of grace.” (96)

Grace and Works

In Ephesians 2:10 grace and good works are at home together. We do not work for our employers. We work for God. We were created for his work, which he performs through us by grace. Creation itself was a good work. We see that God in essence is at work, and as image bearers we too are at work. We learn from his creative act of Genesis in that 1) each day God looked at his work and said it was good; 2) God rested. (99-101)

Seven times in this week of work, God paused, looked over his work, and pronounced it good. The final ‘good’ was intensified to ‘very good.’ Good work, indeed.” Peterson, p. 101

All work is a gift. God’s work was a gift. We are a gift. The work we do is a gift. We complete the circle. A gift is free. It is not out of necessity or demand. See your work as a gift. Float on the water of work.

Work as a Form of Glory

Jesus embodied this marriage of grace and work. He was the beginning (John 1:1). He was “full of grace” (1:14). He was doing the Father’s work (5:36, 10:25). Ironically, it was Jesus’ work – feeding the hungry, healing the sick, prophesying in the synagogue – that provoked criticism and rejection. “His contemporaries found it far easier to believe in an invisible God than in a visible God.” (p. 102)

Formed in submission and obedience by Genesis rhythms and images, we mature into a life of ‘good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. … Good work and good works are to grace what a pail is to water: a container to get it from the well to the super table. God’s grace is the content. Our work (after the manner of Jesus) is the container.” Peterson, p. 103

There are two distortions of work: secularized and pietist. The secular distortion fails to be attentive and meditative about work; failing to keep it in the context of Genesis and God’s ideal of goodness, rest and purpose. The pietist fails to observe and listen carefully regarding Jesus’ context for work.

“The secularist romanticizes work. The pietist spiritualizes work.”

“In the practice of resurrection we live not in terms of what we make of ourselves but in terms of what God makes us.” (104)

Work is romanticized when it is a way of significance, a way to be known or have lots of money, a way to be godlike without dealing with God. Romanticized work is glamorous and focuses on heavy payoffs, a high adrenalin content, satisfaction – reaching “full potential.” But observe Genesis work week:  Each day is matter-of-fact, without embellishment, simply “good.” The worker is invisible. The work itself – the container – is what is seen.

Reflection: This is too often a problem in the church. Too often in the name of God we are being romantic workers for the purposes described above: to draw attention to ourselves, to be gods, to have a big payoff.

“The most conspicuous distortion among romanticizers comes through the omission of Sabbath.” The work itself is never done. No wonder we drink so much coffee. (p. 104)

Pietistic  work fails to see how Jesus went about his work. It spiritualizes work. Pietistic work is desecularized and religious: prayer, evangelism, worship. It is the work of the pastor, missionary, preacher. It despiritualizes what is the majority of work, the cleaning of clothes, preparing of food, carpooling, worker for hire, assembly line, grunt work. Church work is seen as “the Lord’s work.”

But such a view is only accomplished by ignoring the work of Jesus. His work was ordinary, everyday, seeds and bread, people, birds, widows and children. His time was spent with the non-religious, fishermen, tax collectors, lepers, prostitutes. Meanwhile he openly disregarded religious practices such as fasting, praying in public, conventional Sabbath ritual.

By Lori. Click for her page.