Sermon: Rooted in Love

First Presbyterian Church

July 28, 2024, Pentecost 10B

Ephesians 3:14-21

 

Rooted in Love

 

 

"It's just the same story as a doctor once told me," observed the elder. "He was a man getting on in years, and undoubtedly clever. He spoke as frankly as you, though in jest, in bitter jest. 'I love humanity,' he said, 'but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In my dreams,' he said, 'I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually have faced crucifixion if it had been suddenly necessary; and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone for two days together, as I know by experience. As soon as anyone is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he's too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.'

(Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov)

 

This portion of a discourse from Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov captures one of the central contradictions of the human condition, particularly under God’s command of love. The sentiment is also captured in much more pithy fashion in words spoken by the character Linus in the ever-popular comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz. Responding to Lucy’s taunt that he could never be a doctor because he doesn’t “love mankind,” Linus answers with a classic line, one so classic that social media mistakenly attributes it to the likes of Albert Einstein or Marilyn Monroe: “I love mankind. It’s people I can’t stand!” The instruction to love is sometimes challenged most strongly in the most mundane of human interactions, pointing to the lack in our loving the world as God has loved us.

While one never wants to dismiss any portion of any particular scripture passage, the core of this reading is found in verses 17-19. While verses 14-16 offer up the beginning of a benediction, and verses 20-21 rightly give honor to God, these central verses point to the root of the message found in this first half of Ephesians. One could also argue that the practical instruction that makes up the remainder of the book also has its roots in the encouragement of love found here – or at least most of the remainder of the book. We’ll get to the possible exception in a few weeks.

Ephesians can be divided into two parts: the first half, roughly the first three chapters, consists of theological exposition, and the second of more practical instruction. It’s not an accident that the Revised Common Lectionary leans toward that second half of the book, devoting four Sundays to it compared to the three given to the first half, including the book’s introduction two weeks ago and this summarizing blessing we heard a few moments ago. 

Even those portions of the first half that seem to address other issues are written more with theological aims in mind than anything else. For example, the first thirteen verses of the chapter remind readers of Paul’s ministry among the Gentiles. (Mandatory reminder here that most likely the book was written by a coworker or student of Paul’s, or even a student of a student, who was seeking to consolidate his teaching and preserve his reputation after his death.) These verses, however, contain little of actual detailed description of what Paul did among churches in Ephesus or Galatia or Thessalonica or any of those places Paul visited on all those missionary journeys that showed up in the map section in the back of Bibles years ago. What is described, however, is the mystery Paul proclaimed; the opening up of the good news to the Gentiles; Paul’s role as servant of God in proclaiming this mystery; and the fulfillment of God’s purpose in Paul’s work. It is, in effect, the conclusion of the theological discourse, which is formally wrapped up in and by the blessing prayer of today’s reading. 

Our author here indulges in language that is almost paradoxical, to make a point, in verses 18 and 19. To help illustrate this, hear a different reading of those verses:

I ask that you’ll have the power to grasp love’s width and length, height and depth, together with all believers. I ask that you’ll know the love of Christ that is beyond knowledge so that you will be filled entirely with the fullness of God.

 

That reading, from the modern scholarly translation known as the Common English Bible, hopefully clears the thicket of words just a bit so that we can get the full impact of what’s being prayed here. I want you to know just how great, how large, how expansive love is. I want you to know love that you can’t comprehend. I want you to be filled – completely, entirely full – just with all that God is. Yes, it really does say that he hopes you'll know the love that is beyond knowledge. That next verse is almost mild by comparison (again from the CEB): “Glory to God, who is able to do far beyond all that we could ask or imagine by his power at work within us…”

Sometimes, as a preacher, the best thing to do is to find a way to let the scripture itself do the heavy lifting; any attempt at explanation only clouds and distracts from what the words of scripture are telling us. 

With that in mind, I invite you to hear those three verses again, back in our usual NRSV this time:

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to *know* the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine…

 

It is eloquent and beautiful language, to be sure, with images that overwhelm and leave us in wondering awe, if we really hear it and take it to heart. 

I wonder how often we do that.

Do we, really, take in just what it would mean to understand love in all its height and depth and length and width? 

Are we capable of being open to so much that we cannot comprehend?

Are we willing to be open to so much that we cannot comprehend or measure?

Can we even begin to grasp what it would mean to know God’s love so fully, so completely as this? Can we begin to grasp what this would change for us or about us or in us?

Or, perhaps, does such a thought make us uncomfortable? 

Does such a love, such unmeasurable and incomprehensible love actually leave us with something like fear? Fear of what it might ask of us? Fear of how it might change us? 

In verse 17 the author prays that the readers might be “rooted and grounded in love,” and then goes on to describe the kind of love in which they might be rooted and grounded. You have to wonder how this treatise’s original readers must have reacted to this, living as they most likely were in a time when the still-nascent church was beginning to face a different world than before, one that increasingly viewed the followers of this Jesus as something of a threat, or at least as people who didn’t play along with the mores and folkways of getting by in the Roman Empire. 

Peter Marty, editor of The Christian Century, wrote a few years ago that “for life to be good and beautiful and true, we have to find a way to make God central to our lives, not peripheral…God has zero interest in being relegated to the outer edges of our lives.”[1] I wonder if part of this overwhelming experience of the knowing God’s unknowable love is tied to this, to our lives being centered solely and completely on God, with nothing else competing for our loyalty or allegiance or love. Perhaps it is only then that the incomprehensible love of God can begin to be our root and ground, and to be all that in which we “live and move and have our being.”

For love we cannot comprehend, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal unless otherwise indicated): #408, There's a Sweet, Sweet Spirit; #---, Live in the love of Jesus; #188, Jesus Loves Me!

 

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[1] Peter Marty, “At the center,” The Christian Century, July 28, 2021, 3.

Sermon: Remember What You Were; Remember Whose You Are

First Presbyterian Church

July 21, 2024, Pentecost 9B

Ephesians 2:11-22

 

Remember What You Were; Remember Who You Are

 

One thing that was mentioned in the sermon a couple of weeks ago, introducing this little trip through the book of Ephesians, is that this letter seems to have been addressed to a situation in which the church or churches being addressed consist more of Gentile converts to Christianity than of those who were of Jewish background. This differs from most of the actual letters of Paul, which address church groups that seem to be more evenly divided. The content of chapter 2, of which we just heard a portion, suggests that this shift did not occur without some measure of conflict or at least stress between the two parties. 

Here the author (again, most likely an associate, or a student, or a student of a student of Paul’s trying to consolidate his teaching some years after Paul’s death) seeks to address this particular strain in the body of Christ. What is left unmentioned, however, is how this particular shift came to be. We don’t actually know why the church had come to consist of more Gentile converts than Jewish. It could be simply that more folks of non-Jewish background were welcoming to the gospel as it was proclaimed across the Roman realm. 

On the other hand, we see in other epistles situations where such conflict could have been triggered. Much of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, for example, addresses a situation in which that church had succumbed to a handful of teachers who insisted that to be “really Christian,” the Gentile converts in the church needed to undergo the Jewish ritual of circumcision. Paul had firmly opposed that teaching at the time, and upon learning that the Christians there had been swayed by this teaching he frankly blew a gasket, chastising the “foolish Galatians!” and asking “who has bewitched you?” 

Whatever the source of this conflict, the author of Ephesians takes pains to sort out the division. We are reminded here that the author (like Paul) was of Jewish background. The Gentiles are addressed as “you” as early as verse 11; by verse 14 the author is giving away his own status by speaking of “the hostility between us” in verse 14. 

The thrust of the author’s argument is to remind those of Gentile background that, for all their apparent superiority of numbers and status in the church now, they had originally been the “outsiders” – being “without Christ,” “strangers to the covenants of promise,” and “having no hope and without God in the world.” They had plenty of false gods, to be sure, but in that previous state they were cut off from the one true God. 

To be sure, the Jewish Christians aren’t let totally off the hook. This chastisement is more backhanded, however, and refers to the conflict previously mentioned from the letter to the Galatians. The reference in verse 11 to Gentile followers as “called ‘the uncircumcision’ by those who are called the ‘circumcision’” seems perhaps a bit clunky until the author drops the somewhat belittling next line: “a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands.” Nobody gets off the hook here; whatever the division was, both sides have culpability.

Into this division comes the good news of verse 14: “in his (that is, Christ’s) flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” By referring to Christ doing so “in his flesh” – in his bodily crucifixion – the author contrasts the new condition of Gentile and Jewish converts with the division that had come before through another act upon the flesh, the act of circumcision. The one act unites those whom the other separates.

Much of the rest of this passage elaborates upon and even celebrates this act of Christ, culminating in verse 19 with the joyful declaration “you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.” Finally, the metaphor of building is introduced to suggest how, “upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone,” we all – no matter where we came from – are built together into nothing less than the dwelling place of God.

While this passage is vitally important for understanding what unity in Christ looks like and the degree to which any unity we have is Christ’s doing, it can be difficult for moderns to take in or understand its application to us. After all, for many of us in these pews, we find it difficult to see ourselves in the author’s description of strangers or aliens or those on the outside. We’ve been good church folk all our lives, haven’t we? When you’ve grown up in the church, it can be hard to process this bit of instruction.

There are two ways to work through this conundrum, one of which is a historical acknowledgment. Most folks who you might find on the pews of Christian churches of whatever variety this morning did not come to Christianity via Judaism. In the language of the time of this writing, we would just about all have been “Gentiles.” It is this act of transcending divisions that enables us even to be here in the first place. Even after nearly two thousand years, this is no small thing to remember.

The second way of understanding our situation requires us to remember one inconvenient fact: your presence on a church pew does not automatically render you as being in unity with Christ and with God’s household. There are churches out there this morning full of zealous devotees whose true allegiances, whose ultimate loyalties and passions and beliefs and behaviors, place them squarely in opposition to Jesus Christ and his gospel, no matter how much they (and their ministers, to be sure) try to bathe those allegiances and loyalties and passions and beliefs in churchy talk. We would all do well, in light of this scripture, to examine our own lives and histories to discern whether we have at times pursued such loyalties and allegiances and beliefs that placed stumbling stones in front of other seekers, or brought disrepute to the gospel, or sought to drive out or exclude those whose lives or beliefs or faith somehow failed to be exactly like our own, or tried to pass off our petty hatreds and prejudices as somehow Christlike. None of such things build us up into a dwelling place for God. 

We, even we lifelong churchgoers, need to remember what this passage teaches us here. We didn’t earn this. We really don’t need to be strutting around the Church Universal as if we own the place. It is God’s grace alone that even allows for us to be the church that we are. And we would also do well to remember that the same grace of God that brings us into God’s household brings in all of those who would come into that household, even if they’re not our favorite people. God is the one who breaks down the barriers; God is the one who invites; God is the one who welcomes. It is only God’s doing that we are no longer strangers or aliens or outsiders, but citizens and members of the household of God.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #32, I Sing the Mighty Power of God; #212, Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed; #438, Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me

 

 

Sermon: One Great Big Run-On Acclamation

First Presbyterian Church

July 7, 2024, Pentecost 7B

Ephesians 1:3-14

 

One Great Big Run-On Acclamation

 

 

It was a chart-topping song back in 1981, and then it became a ubiquitous presence at almost any kind of celebration, particularly the kind that followed big emotional sports triumphs. You’ve heard it:

[singing] Celebrate good times, come on! …let’s celebrate…Celebrate good times, come on!...There’s a party goin’ right here…a celebration to last throughout the year…

Even forty years later, that song still manages to show up after a big win of whatever kind, and why not? It’s an absolutely infectious song (in the good way we speak of songs being “infectious”) and there’s really nothing about it to give offense; it’s just fun.

While the song isn’t terribly specific about what it’s celebrating (other than the pretty general “good times” of that opening), our scripture reading for today carries a pretty celebratory tone itself but with something quite specific to celebrate.

As we jump into a series of readings from the book of Ephesians that will take us through July and August (and even one Sunday in September), a little stage-setting is in order. While the book claims Paul’s name at its opening and has often been attributed to that apostle, it is incredibly unlikely that Paul himself actually wrote this book. For one thing, its apparent time of writing, based on content and context, would have been well after Paul was dead; for another, it is inconceivable that Paul himself would have written such a generic and impersonal letter to the church at Ephesus, which he loved dearly as described in Acts (a feeling that was most definitely reciprocated). For that matter, the designation of Ephesus isn’t even on most of the earliest manuscripts, so that part is doubtful also.

The far more likely case is that a follower or student of Paul’s, or perhaps even a student of a student of Paul's, many years later, compiled a compendium of Paul’s teaching (as the author understood it in his own situation) as the apostle’s posthumous influence began to wane, possibly sending it as a circular letter (one meant to be passed around from church to church, likely including Ephesus), and putting Paul’s name on it to indicate its authority, an unfortunate but not-uncommon practice of the time. Imagine an old follower or associate of John F. Kennedy or Dwight Eisenhower, say, taking up pen to write a faux-editorial with his or her mentor’s name on it as a kind of letter to America in its current troubled times. Something similar is going on here.

That said, the theme of this opening statement is one that Paul did indeed turn to in his own writings: the idea of adoption. Especially in the eighth chapter of the letter to the Romans, Paul did speak of adoption as how we know ourselves to be children of God:

 

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry ‘Abba!’ Father!, 

it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 

and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.

(Rom. 8:14-16)

 

 

From this Pauline starting point, our adoption or being chosen in Christ “before the foundation of the world,” our Ephesians author pours forth quite a flood of acclamation of God for this gift; for the redemption and forgiveness that comes to us in this gift; for the mystery of God being revealed in this adoption; for the inheritance that is ours in this adoption (sounds like the Romans reading above); for the hope in which we live because of all of this.

The fun part for those who try to read this in the Greek is that our author has done all of this in one sentence. It’s true; everything in today’s reading is one sentence in the Greek, all linked together with linking participles piled one on top of the other. Be grateful for the work of biblical translators, friends (especially the grammar-sticklers among you). 

Still, though, that seems like part of the charm of this passage. We do this, really, when we get all excited about something we’re trying to describe. “And then we saw…and it was so cool and it was amazing and then this happened and then…and then…” We do run on when we get excited; it’s nice to imagine our author here being so caught up in the joys of this adoption that the words just pour forth in the rush of joy. It’s fair, after all, to be excited about being gathered up and taken in by God.

The other challenging part of this passage is its apparent audience. Most of Paul’s writings were directed at churches somewhat split between those who had come to follow Christ from a Jewish background and those from Gentile backgrounds. By the time of this letter, however, the audience seems to be mostly Gentile converts. The author, on the other hand, is apparently of Jewish background if verse 2 of the chapter is any indication. Yet God’s adoption was not limited to one group or the other; all of them – Jew and Gentile alike – were caught up in God’s choosing. God is not choosy; God will not be pinned down to choosing one or the other; God chooses everybody. How human beings respond to that choice - to being chosen - may be all over the map, but God chooses everybody.

A sweeping survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute between 2013 and 2019 found that, among other things; the percentage of the population identifying as “none” (including atheists, agnostics, and those who might claim some sort of religious belief but no affiliation) had declined slightly; the percentage of white folks claiming some variety of evangelical affiliation had declined a lot; and the percentage of white folks claiming some mainline Protestant affiliation – mostly Episcopalians, some Lutherans, and the Presbyterian Church (USA) among others – had…risen a little bit.[1] (For the record, this tracks with this denomination’s own findings that after years of decline the membership of PC(USA) had leveled off from that decline and, in the last reporting period, had taken a slight uptick. Of course, this is five years ago now, and things are different again.)

One doesn’t want to get too giddy about surveys like this (and again, things have no doubt changed in the five years since), but I think there’s something to this result that resonates with the exuberant celebration of this Ephesians passage. After years of membership decline and sometimes even derision from other precincts of Christianity, the churches of the so-called mainline (a terrible name for a religious affiliation) found themselves pressed to be, frankly, more welcoming. Churches of those denominations that couldn’t get away from the somewhat exclusive or elitist bearing of, say, the 1950s found themselves shrunken dramatically or closed altogether. Welcoming all much more broadly, taking to heart the sense of generous adoption marked in today’s reading, became a survival mechanism if nothing else. Maybe that survival mechanism works, even if it's uncomfortable for those who cling to those days when we didn't have to worry about welcoming new folks, unless they were folks who were just like us. 

It does seem that recognizing the graciousness, the unmerited favor of God’s adoption of us, would compel us to be in turn welcoming of all of those who are also part of that generous act of adoption, even if they don’t realize it yet. 

This is not a popular sentiment with all. We live in a time in which some corners of the church are striving mightily to exclude as many people as they feel like, over anything from ethnicity to sexual orientation to politics. This isn't a sentiment that our author of today's reading would endorse; indeed, one could argue that it was the early church's eventual embrace of Gentiles - sometimes with great reluctance - that transformed the early Christians from a small and uncertain sect in and around Jerusalem to a far-flung presence across many corners of the Roman Empire (as related in the book of Acts). Anyway, excluding those whom God calls family isn't a very faithful response to the grace of God.

Maybe Kool and the Gang had it right. There is a party goin’ on ‘round here, a celebration to last throughout the years. Come on and celebrate.

For the generousness of God choosing us, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #331, God of the Ages, Whose Almighty Hand; #---, God has made us all a family!; #839, Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine!

 

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[1] Jack Jenkins, “White mainline Protestants outnumber white evangelicals, while ‘nones’ shrink,” Religion News Service https://religionnews.com/2021/07/08/survey-white-mainline-protestants-outnumber-white-evangelicals/ (accessed 7/8/21).

Come on and celebrate.