Ephesians has spent a chapter on what was decided before the world and what has been seated above every power. Now it turns to the reader's own address, and the description is not flattering.
What happens
"You were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you once lived following the age of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air… and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest. But Theos, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved), raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus… For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of Theos; it is not from works, so no one may boast. For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that Theos has prepared in advance, that we should live in them."
What to notice
The hinge is two words and the paragraph is built to make you feel them. Ho de theos — "But Theos." Everything before it is a diagnosis without a verb of hope in it: dead, walking according to the age of this world, children of wrath. Then the sentence changes direction so hard that it never comes back. The rescue is described in three verbs and all three are compounds of syn, "with": synezōopoiēsen, made alive together with; synēgeiren, raised together with; synekathisen, seated together with. The last is boldest: he seated us with him in the heavenly places, aorist, already accomplished, in a letter to people manifestly still in Asia Minor. Ton archonta tēs exousias tou aeros, "the ruler of the authority of the air" — those two nouns are the pair that appeared on Saturday in Ephesians 1:21 and in Luke 12:11. The letter uses the same vocabulary for the enemy and for the courtroom. Then the famous verses, where the thing to catch is grammatical: touto ouk ex hymōn, "and this is not from you" — the pronoun touto is neuter, while both charis and pistis are feminine.So the "this" does not point at either word individually; it points at the whole arrangement. And then the verse that stops Ephesians 2:8–9 from becoming an excuse, containing the best word in the passage: autou gar esmen poiēma, "for we are his poiēma" — the word behind poem, a thing made, a composition. It occurs only twice in the New Testament, here and at Romans 1:20, where it means the created order.You are being called the same kind of object as the cosmos. And the last clause resolves the works question rather than dodging it: works are not the road in — they are what the house was built for.Proetoimazō, prepared in advance, is a verb to hold onto, because the Gospel is about to use its simple form.
Psalm 100 is a processional — the psalm you sing walking through the gate — and it is five verses long. It also contains one of the most consequential textual variants in the Psalter, sitting exactly on today's question.
The selected verses
Psalm 100:1–2."Sing joyfully to Yahweh, all you lands; serve Yahweh with gladness; come before him with joyful song." Psalm 100:3."Know that Yahweh is Theos; he made us, his we are; his people, the flock he tends." Psalm 100:4."Enter his gates with thanksgiving, his courts with praise. Give thanks to him; bless his name." Psalm 100:5."For he is good: Yahweh, whose kindness endures forever, and his faithfulness, to all generations."
What to notice
Psalm 100:3 has a ketiv/qere — a place where the written consonants say one thing and the reading tradition says another — and both readings survived into English Bibles. Hu asanu v'lo anachnu.The consonants as written spell lo with an aleph, meaning "not": "he made us, and not we ourselves."The traditional pronunciation reads lo with a vav, meaning "to him": "he made us, and we are his."The King James took the first. Most modern versions take the second. And on a morning whose epistle says not from works, lest anyone boast — for we are his workmanship, both readings are the reading.V'anachnu ammo v'tzon mar'ito, "his people, and the flock of his pasturing" — proprietary in the gentlest way: a flock does not own the field. And Psalm 100:4 is the movement the psalm was written for: bo'u she'arav b'todah, "enter his gates with thanksgiving" — todahbeing both thanks and the specific sacrifice offered for deliverance.You bring it in with you.
Jesus has been talking about hearings, the Spirit, and not being afraid. Somebody in the crowd has been waiting for a gap to raise a family matter.
What happens
"Someone in the crowd said to him, 'Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.' He replied to him, 'Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?' … 'There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest. He asked himself, "What shall I do, for I do not have space to store my harvest?" And he said, "This is what I shall do: I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones… and I shall say to myself, 'Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!'" But Theos said to him, "You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?" Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to Theos.'"
What to notice
The refusal is a quotation. Tis me katestēsen kritēn ē meristēn eph' hymas, "who appointed me judge or divider over you?" In Exodus 2:14, when Moses intervenes between two Hebrews, one says "who made you a ruler and a judge over us?"Jesus declines the office Moses was accused of taking — and the man's request is not even unreasonable, since rabbis did arbitrate inheritance disputes.Pleonexia is the vice named, and greed is too small for it: it is pleon-echō, "to have more" — the desire for more as such, with no quantity attached. And then the parable, whose entire art is in the pronouns. Count the first-person forms in the rich man's speech: what shall I do… my crops… this I will do… my barns… I will store… my grain and my goods… and I will say to mysoul.Eleven first-person references in three verses — and there is no one else in the story. No wife, no steward, no neighbour. He holds a business meeting with himself and takes both sides, and addresses his own psychē in the second person because there is nobody else to address. The comic and terrible thing is that his plan is perfectly sensible. A bumper harvest with insufficient storage is a real problem and larger barns are the correct solution. Then the only other voice arrives — the only parable in the gospels in which Theos speaks directly.Aphrōn, "fool," is not a term for stupidity but for the man of Psalm 14:1 who says in his heart there is no Theos.Tautē tē nykti tēn psychēn sou apaitousin apo sou — the verb is third person plural with no subject, a reverent way of avoiding saying Theos does it — and apaiteō is a financial term: to demand back what is owed, to call in a loan.His life was not his; it was on deposit, and the note has been called. And the last question is the one the month has been circling: ha de hētoimasas, tini estai, "the things you prepared, whose will they be?"Twenty minutes ago Ephesians 2:10 said Theos proētoimasen, prepared in advance, the good works we were made for.
The things you have prepared — whose will they be?
Two makings and two preparations, and the day is asking which one you are living inside.
Ephesians 2 is the most compressed statement of the Christian claim in the New Testament, and its shape is a single pivot. Everything before ho de theos is stated without hope: dead, walking in step with the age, under the ruler of the authority of the air, children of wrathby nature. There is no residual capacity mentioned anywhere in the diagnosis — not weakened, not misguided, dead. And then two words, and three verbs beginning with with: made alive with him, raised with him, seated with him. The last is in the past tense, which is either a category error or the whole point.
And then the sentence about works, usually quoted at half length. By grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves — the this is neuter and matches neither noun, so what is called a gift is the whole arrangement rather than one component of it.Not of works, lest anyone should boast.And then, immediately, before anyone can relax:for we are his workmanship, created for good works, which Theos prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Works are on both sides of that sentence and they are doing different jobs. On one side they are a currency, and the currency is refused. On the other they are a destination, and they were laid out in advance.Proētoimasen puts the good works in the same tense as the choosing in Ephesians 1:4. They were ready before you were.
The psalm says the same in five words with a textual crack running through it. Written: he made us and not we ourselves. Read aloud: he made us and we are his.The tradition kept both, and there is no need to choose, because the two together are exactly Ephesians 2:9–10: we did not make ourselves, and we are not our own. And the psalm's answer to that is not resignation but a procession — enter his gates with thanksgiving — you walk in singing.
Then the parable, the negative image of all of it. The rich man's problem is not that he is rich, or that he plans, or that he builds. Luke is careful: the harvest was good, the barns were genuinely too small, and enlarging them is the right answer. What Luke does instead of moralizing is let us listen to him think, and the sound of it is the diagnosis. Eleven first-person forms, no second party, and a conversation with his own soul — because there is nobody else in the room. He has land, workers presumably, neighbours certainly, and none of them appears. A man of substantial means has constructed a life in which the only available interlocutor is himself.
And the two things Theos says land on exactly that. First, aphrōn — the word for the man who says in his heart there is no Theos, which is what a monologue amounts to. Second, they are demanding your soul back from you — apaiteō, the verb for calling in a loan.He thought he was auditing his assets. He was one of them.
Then the closing question, and it is not rhetorical: the things you prepared — whose will they be?The parable was prompted by a man who wanted help getting his share of an inheritance, and it ends by asking who will inherit the barns. Luke has closed the circle without answering the original question, which he never intended to answer.
Ephesians says Theos prepared works for you to walk in. Luke's fool prepared goods for himself to sit on. Between them is the whole difference between being a poiēma and being a proprietor.
The memorial is the day's plainest commentary. Isaac Jogues and Jean de Brébeuf and their companions, killed between 1642 and 1649 among the Huron and the Mohawk, prepared nothing and stored nothing. Jogues was captured, tortured, had his thumb and forefinger mutilated, escaped — and went back, and was killed on his return. Brébeuf spent years building a Huron dictionary and grammar and wrote the first Canadian Christmas carol in the Huron language. Neither man built a barn.
A Question to Sit With
The rich man's plan was sound. The harvest really was too large for the barns, and building bigger ones was the correct answer, and nothing in the story says he cheated anybody. What the parable lets us hear instead is the sound of a man with nobody to talk to — eleven sentences, all beginning with I, ending in a conversation with his own soul. I have made plans like that this year. Who was in the room when I made them, and if the answer is nobody, what does that tell me that the plan itself would never have revealed?