Today we begin a series of sermons on the letter to the Christians in Ephesus; a series which will take us into the season of Lent, but will finish before Easter. Although some have suggested that this letter was not written by St Paul, the document itself makes that claim, both in ch1 and ch3, and it is simplest to take that at face value unless we find any evidence to the contrary. Similarly, the author mentions at least twice being a prisoner, and while that might be a metaphor for his service to Christ, it can also be taken at face value. Acts tells us of Paul being imprisoned a number of times, although rarely long enough to write such a letter - but there were lengthy imprisonments in Caesarea and Rome, so the letter could have been written in one of these places. You may recall from reading Acts that Paul visited Ephesus towards the end of what is called his second missionary journey (Acts 18:19-21), and returned for a lengthy stay which punctuated his third journey. We are told that he taught for three months in the synagogue, until some of the Jews there became hostile, and then he held daily discussion in the lecture hall of Tyrannus for two years - presumably a building which he was able to hire for the purpose. (Acts 19:1-20) The city of Ephesus was a major centre of the ancient world:

capital of the Roman Province of Asia, a province that covered the west of  what we would now call Turkey

a commercial centre, with a sheltered inland  port a few miles upriver from the Mediterranean sea; such that much of the trade between Asia and the rest of the Empire would pass through it

a cultural centre, with a big theatre.  It could seat 25000 people, so bigger than any theatre near Woodford - think sports stadium rather than theatre!

a religious centre with the temple of goddess of hunting: known as Artemis to the Greeks and Diana to the Romans.  Acts tells us that Paul’s teaching was so successful that he dented the profits of the silversmiths associated with the temple.

Ephesus was a thriving city, and attracted residents from all over the known world - a cosmopolitan place such as London or New York today. The church that Paul founded there, as we shall see later in the letter, included both Jews and Gentiles. Unlike some of his other letters, which often react to problems that have arisen in the church to which he is writing, this letter seems to be a well-planned essay to encourage the readers with the big picture of what God has done, and to exhort them to live the kind of lives that God wants. In the first part of the letter, which we have read this evening, Paul greets the Christians of Ephesus, and calls them ‘saints’, the holy ones of God. He then sets them in their place on God’s cosmic stage, as people blessed and chosen by God.
Gallons of ink have been spent discussing the tension between God’s power to predestine the future, and our freedom to choose our own future. Philosophers and theologian explore the issues in learned works, and science-fiction writers explore them in novels and movies.
For Christians the question is: if God has chosen only some human beings to receive the gift of eternal life, what freedom does that give us to accept or reject it? And do we need to share the good news of his love with others, if their fate has been determined from before the dawn of time?
Part of the difficulty here is that God exists in eternity, seeing the whole of creation from beginning to end, as a sculptor sees a statue as a whole from head to toe, or a film producer sees a whole movies as a series of clips of film on his bench – or perhaps these days as files on his computer screen. We human beings on the other hand, experience time moment by moment, hour by hour. Our inability to see things from God’s perspective means that any explanation I offer here will not completely satisfy. I will try, nevertheless!
In scripture we see God’s servants, from Joshua to Jesus, from Peter to Paul, urging people to make the right choices. This tells us that our choices do matter - that we contribute to the whole story by the choices we make. If God, looking from the outside, can see all our life choices, that does not mean that he is forcing us to make those choices in a particular way.
From his perspective however, God chose to create a universe in which people had freedom to sin, and in which he intervenes through Jesus, to put right the damage that sin caused, knowing that some would be saved and some not. If a farmer has a field full of cows, and in the morning he opens the gate into the next field; he can reckon that by evening a proportion of the cows, but probably not all, will be found in the other field. Daisy might have gone, and Clarabel might not; the choice is theirs. Paul says that it is God’s choice that some at least of mankind would be saved: but my understanding is that he does not coerce particular individuals into one state or the other. Paul rejoices that his readers are in that condition; and he encourages them to rejoice in it. Through Paul’s preaching, and through putting their trust in Jesus, they have been adopted, redeemed and forgiven. Let’s expand briefly on each of those words

• in Christ we have the forgiveness of our trespasses. We have been let off. We will not be held to account, or punished for our wrong choices in the past. This is a free gift that we do not deserve.
• we have redemption through his blood. Using the word blood, Paul is pointing us back to the death of Jesus on the cross, the sacrifice to end all temple sacrifices. The word redemption refers to the contemporary practice of freeing of a slave by the paying of a fee: Jesus paid for our freedom with his life.
• not only we have been freed from captivity to sin, we have been made part of God’s own family, we have been adopted as his children. No longer alone, lost, separate – we are part of God’s household.

All of this is part of God’s long term plan: a plan formed If we had Paul with us tonight and we could challenge him on this, I am sure that he would point us to the Isaiah passage that we read: as well as to other passages in the Old Testament. The coming of the wise men from the east to see the baby Jesus was the beginning of the fulfilment of that prophecy; the response of the gentiles to the preaching of Paul continued to fulfil it. The words of the Nunc Dimmitis, sung at Evensong, have the same message: Simeon knew that Jesus would be In the opening of his letter, Paul has set his readers on the God’s cosmic stage, and encouraged them to see themselves as part of God’s long term plan. We too can claim that place, and see ourselves as participating. As we continue reading the letter, the implications will become clear.