Inheritance
Ephesians 1:11-23
I found an interesting article on inheritance this week. It quoted
experts who claim that the baby boom generation in the
If this is the case, thanks to the hard work and good luck of the previous generation, a huge fortune is going to fall into the laps of many of us Baby Boomers. Good times are ahead.
Not so fast. According to this article, people who make such claims are mostly just blowing smoke. Current trends show that only 15% of Americans in my generation can expect to receive any inheritance at all beyond personal family belongings and keepsakes. And most of those 15% who do inherit are not going to get much.
The point of the article was that it is crucial to do some planning and saving, because in the vast majority of cases, the dream of getting rich through inheritance is largely an illusion.
In his letter to the Ephesians today, Paul focuses on the issue of inheritance. We believe that in baptism God claims us as God’s adopted children. In Ephesians, Paul reminds us that as adopted children, we are entitled to an inheritance.
In Christ we have obtained this inheritance, says Paul. The seal of the Holy Spirit, which we receive in baptism, is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s people. And Paul prays: God give you the spirit of wisdom so that you may know what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints.
So it appears that a huge fortune is going to fall into our laps. Good times are ahead. That is, of course, wonderful news. Unlike that wobbly promise held out to the Baby Boomers of material prosperity through inheritance, we can trust that God’s promise of an inheritance will come true for all of us.
Notice, though, that Paul is a little vague about what all comes with that inheritance. He does tell us that it includes salvation. We have been marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit, he says, as the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people. In other words, by the simple virtue of being taken in as God’s children, we inherit hope for the future. We inherit eternal life. That’s a big part of it.
But there’s more to it than that. Paul does not give us an itemized list of all the assets in the estate; he simply prays that God might give us the wisdom to know what it is we inherit. No details. All we are told is that it will be tremendous, beyond our expectations.
It is a good thing to be aware an inheritance. It provides some expectation for the future. But as the financial experts in that article cautioned: not so fast! Focusing too much on the inheritance is dangerous. It can get us in trouble.
Christians have often been accused of a pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by attitude. We sometimes give the impression that all that really matters in this life is that we stay in good standing with God so that we don’t lose this inheritance that Paul talks about. What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses eternal life, Jesus said. Guard the inheritance.
True, but what happens when we live only in the future?
A guy had lunch with a coworker one day who seemed down in the dumps, on the verge of tears. He asked what the problem was.
“Well,” the guy answered, “three weeks ago I found out that my uncle who died last year left me $10,000.”
“That doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.”
“It gets worse,” the guy answered, glumly. “Two weeks ago I found out one of my long time clients in business left me $20,000.”
“I don’t understand. Why would that get you down?”
“There’s more. Last week a cousin I didn’t even know I had died and left me $100,000.”
“That’s incredible. Sounds to me as though you’ve been incredibly lucky.”
“Yeah, well, this week—nothing!”
An inheritance is meant as gift. It’s supposed to be a good thing. But if we always focus on gifts out in the future, gift that are yet to come, we take our eyes off what we already have. We can be enormously and abundantly blessed, but if we are focused only on what is coming next, we miss out on all those blessings. If you don’t stop and smell the roses, roses really have no value.
Living totally in the future destroys life. If you’re not living at least somewhat in the present, you are not fully alive.
Obsession with a windfall fortune somewhere off in the future not only causes us to miss out on life, it often brings out the worst in people.
One of the most spectacular examples of this was the death of eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes in 1976. The guy was worth roughly 6 billion dollars but left no clear documentation as to what he wanted to do with his estate. The hope of tapping into that undesignated fortune set off a vicious and prolonged scramble among hopefuls.
More than 400 people filed claims to Hughes’ fortune. Many of these would-be heirs produced forged documents to back their claims. One fellow, a drifter named Melvin Dummar achieved instant fame with his version of the Hughes last will and testament. His story was that he once found a disoriented Hughes along a desert road, and gave him a ride. And because of that Hughes’ had supposedly left him his entire fortune.
The legal battles raged for seven years until a probate court finally sorted through all the fraud and fakery as best it could and awarded the inheritance to a group of 20 of Hughes’ cousins. Although these cousins had virtually no contact with Hughes, they were the closest link that anyone could find.
The sad thing about Hughes’ case was that there was no past. There was no prior relationship with anyone that made the inheritance meaningful. Without a connection to the past, the rich and promising gift of an inheritance degenerated into a chaotic and shameful money grab.
One of our problems with understanding Paul’s meaning of inheritance is that we get locked into the financial and legal definition of inheritance, which is all future based. When this happens, you will get this. When we think of inheritance as something in the future, we lose most of the meaning of the word.
Biology has a different way of looking at inheritance. In biology, inheritance is not what you are going to get, it’s what you have already been given.
We inherit genes from our parents. This is not an inheritance we’re going to get in the future, we have been given it. We already have it.
Your personality is an inherited gift.
Your physical traits are inherited gifts.
Your skills and talents are inherited gifts. For the most part, they were given to you before you were ever born.
Biology recognizes that inheritance combines the past, the present, and the future. Inheritance is what came to you out of the past. Inheritance is what makes you the way you are now. And inheritance is what you, in turn, will give to someone else.
I think it is important that when Paul talks about inheritance, he does not just talk about the future—what we are going to get some day after we die. In Christ we have obtained an inheritance, he says. We already have it. Inheritance is a gift that has already been given to us. It came from long ago. We have it now. He goes on to add that we also have a pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s people. A promise of an inheritance to come in the future.
Paul understands inheritance from the biological perspective that
combines the past, present, and future. When he wrote about the Lord’s
supper, he did so with these words:
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that on the night
in which he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took a loaf of bread and when he
had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body given for you.
I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you.
I inherited it long ago. I have it now. I pass it on as an inheritance to others. And it will come to those who do not yet have it.
That is why I like to celebrate first communion on all Saints Day. This is the day, even more so than Reformation day, when we celebrate our inheritance in the full meaning of the word. We celebrate all who have gone faithfully before. We give thanks for all those wonderful saints and sinners who have gone before us, who have so touched our lives, to whom we owe so much. For all those in whom the love of Christ shone brightly. For all those who accepted what Christ had bequeathed to them, and who then passed it on to others.
We give thanks today for this congregation, which is part of our inheritance. For this sanctuary, which is part of our inheritance. For this Bible, for the hymns we sing, and the traditions we carry on, which is part of our inheritance.
We pray to God that we treat what we have inherited responsibly and that we can pass on the best of it. That we will pass this congregation on to the next generation in as good or better condition that we found it.
And we take comfort in the promise of the inheritance to come. We remember those who have died this past year with aching hearts for the pain of their loss, and with bursting hearts for the inheritance we know they enjoy—the inheritance of eternal life with a loving god.
Those who take their first communion today are the next in line for the inheritance. Our inheritance in Christ Jesus is not just something for them to look forward to in the future, it is something they have received. They will receive another part of their inheritance today. They receive this inheritance from the Lord, through the lives of those who have gone before them throughout the centuries; we pray that they are blessed with the privilege of passing on that inheritance.
Inheriting the kingdom is not just about the eternal life in the future. This is eternal life, said Jesus, that you may know God now and Jesus Christ whom God sent long ago in the past. Knowing God is an inheritance that comes from the past, the present, and the future.
Remember Paul’s prayer about this inheritance? I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give you the 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.
God grant us the wisdom to recognize the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, riches given to us by those who have gone before us, riches given to us by those who surround us in this sanctuary and in our lives today, and the incomparable riches that are to come.