LOVE CAME DOWN Text: Ephesians 3:14-21 July 26, 2009 Faith J. Conklin As part of worship each week, a pastor had a children s sermon. One Sunday he called the children forward and gathered them around him at the steps. He began his message with a question. Boys and girls, what has a bushy tail, gathers nuts and lives in a tree? One boy immediately responded, God. God? said the pastor in a puzzled voice. Can t you see I'm talking about a squirrel? The boy nodded. It did sound a lot like a squirrel to me. Then he added, But you re a preacher and this is a Church. You re supposed to be talking about God, not squirrels. It s July not December. I m not supposed to be talking about Christmas this morning. It s too early. We re still six months away from thinking about what God did in Bethlehem. That s also the point. Christmas proclaims God s presence in our lives. There s never a time when God isn t here. There s never a day when we can t celebrate and claim God s gift of love. Christmas in July invites us to look at that truth once again. Our text today is from Ephesians. It s the designated Epistle reading. It s certainly not a nativity story. No angels sing in the skies, no shepherds kneel in a stable; no wise men bow in worship and no baby sleeps in a manger. I know the author didn t mean it that way and I m guessing you haven t looked at it that way; I find in it a profound reminder of the meaning and the hope of Christmas. It s also a prayer that captures the gift of Christmas now and always. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, God may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 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. While there s still some debate, many scholars think that the apostle Paul wrote Ephesians. It s also likely he wrote it while he was in prison. It s what s known as a general letter which refers to that fact that it s not for a specific 1
community. Unlike some of Paul s other letters it doesn t address particular issues or problems. It s a more universal setting forth of Paul s faith and message. It revolves around two main ideas. Jesus is God s gift of peace, reconciliation and love. The Church, that is, the community of Christians, is to bring Christ s message to the world. The first three chapters of the letter are really one long prayer ending in a doxology. Our text is part of that section. Here Paul prays that we may know and experience the breath, length, height and depth of God s love. This is Paul s way of talking about the majesty and power of God s love. It s for all and it encompasses what we see in Christ s cross. God will descend to death for us and will love us even beyond this life we know. Paul also prays that Christ may dwell in our hearts. The word he uses here means, take up permanent residence. God moves in and doesn t leave. God s love is an abiding love. It s constant, not circumstantial or conditional. It doesn t forsake or abandon us. God made a home with us in Jesus. Wherever our home is, God is there. God is always present and working in our midst. God loved us enough to enter our life. God is still with us. There s great comfort and assurance in that promise. It means we don t have to face what happens to us alone. It means we don t live alone and when the time comes, we don t die alone. In Jesus we re reconciled, redeemed, and forgiven. We re loved with a breadth, length, height and depth that s more than we can imagine and greater than we can earn. Paul s prayer contains a hope we all need and not just once a year. We need it waiting by the phone to see what the latest test results were. We need it sitting with a spouse or a friend watching them destroyed by a disease we re helpless to stop. We need it counting on a job and discovering someone else got it. We need it when we re wrestling to find out who we are and what we re to do with our lives. We need it when the systems in which we ve trusted and counted on to provide for us fail. We need it pulling up roots, moving away and saying goodbye. We need it when our relationships fall apart and our hearts get broken. We need it when a loved one dies and we face the future without them. We need it when we have to start over and find a new direction. We need it when we re betrayed by someone we trusted and must find the courage to forgive. We need it when we read or listen to the news and hear another story of violence and hatred. We need it when we have more questions than answers, when everything around us changes and we can t find a firm place to stand. Christmas comes with that hope. Christmas isn t a vain wish that somehow everything wrong will be miraculously changed and made right. It s the faith that God won t change. It isn t 2
a false security that promises no more pain, suffering or grief. It s the affirmation that in all things God grace abides. God s power can bring good out of them. Evil, sin, violence, hatred, death all those dark and terrible things they don t get the final word. God does. One writer put it this way: At the heart of Christmas is the gift of peace, anchored in the assurance that God has come near, closer than a heartbeat and made a home with us. Our hope is grounded in God s presence and love. With Paul s affirmation comes a mission. We re to live rooted and grounded in Christ s love. It s not just a matter of personal assurance. It s also a matter of how we live with others in the world. We witness to God s love. We re also to find ways to make it real, visible and concrete both in the church and beyond it. Reconciled to God in Christ we live in the world as those who bring healing, wholeness and hope. That s why Guatemala, Darfur and Bosnia aren t just names to us. They re places where God s children live. That s why the Christmas Word whether it s spoken in December or July isn t a private one. It s also about our acts of compassion, justice and peace. It s about feeding the hungry, bringing empowerment to the poor, befriending the stranger, including the outcast, giving shelter to the homeless, caring for the forgotten and protecting and providing for the least, the weak and the needy. That s why we work with North County Interfaith, Big Brothers and Sisters and the Sierra Service project. They re about making a difference in the lives of others and offering God s love. Christmas love isn t a soft, sentimental, warm fuzzy feeling about God ourselves or others. It calls us to do the hard, sacrificial, often painful, risk-taking, foolish and demanding work of being one who is in love with God and with God s people. Restored, we work to reconcile. Liberated, we set others free. Forgiven, we reach out to forgive. The ever-present grace and love of God abiding in us makes those acts possible. Alice Mukarurinda survived the Rwandan genocide fifteen year ago Hutu assailants killed her baby and one of them hacked off Alice s right hand with a machete. (In what seems a bizarre and dark irony, the man with the machete was named, Emmanuel. He later admitted his crime to Alice and asked her to forgive him. At first she wondered whether she could do that. 3
Years earlier Alice had promised God she would forgive anyone who confessed to her. It took her a week of soul-searching before she could offer Emmanuel forgiveness. She did. 1 Alice Mukarurinda is a courageous and powerful witness to God s love. She embodies the power of a God who can accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine. She calls us to look to our lives and see how we also can demonstrate to another what it means to be filled with the fullness of God. To whom do we need to reach out? Where can we show that God abides in us? In the midst of our joy and in the presence of our sorrow, we remember the Christmas promise. God is with us. We belong to God now and forever. The world s darkness can t extinguish the light of God s saving act. Nothing separates us from God s love. Nothing changes it. Nothing can destroy it. A colleague shared this story in one of his sermons. It points to this morning s truth. Mrs. Perkins taught fifth grade and every year she held what she called, The Scholastic Olympics. Each child was to chose a sentence, name the author and where the work appeared and then explain why this sentence was his or her choice for being The Greatest Sentence Ever Written. As you'd expect some of the entries were: Fourscore and seven years ago All men are created equal... There were many examples from politics and history. There were also some literary ones. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... To be or not to be... The girl who defended that one got points for knowing it had appeared in a play. She lost points for saying that the author was a writer for the Bill Cosby Show. There were fourteen entries for the same biblical verse, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth... That may have had to do with the fact that Mrs. Perkins had let it be known earlier that that was her favorite sentence. The sentence that won? It wasn't written by a famous author at all. In fact it was written by a girl's new stepfather. It appeared in no published source. It was on a postcard that she d received that week while her stepfather and her mother were on their honeymoon in Hawaii. Mrs. Perkins was a little uneasy about letting the girl tell her story. At first she thought that maybe she should just move on to the next contestant. She let her speak. She wanted to know why she d chosen this as The Greatest Sentence Ever 1 Cited in Century Marks, Christian Century, July 14, 2009 4
Written. The girl explained. She said that until she d received that postcard she d never really known for sure what her stepfather felt about her. That sentence on that card changed everything. It also won the prize. That year, The World's Greatest Sentence was written on the back of a postcard from Waikiki Beach. There were only four words in it. They were: Charlotte, I love you. 2 I love you. That s the message God sends each of us. (Put your name there, Faith, Don, Shirley, Eric, Ann, Robert, Stan, Linda ) I love you. I want you to know it. That s why I sent you Jesus. I want you to share my love. That s why I m sending you out into the world. That s God s Christmas gift. It s ours all year long, all our years long. May Christ dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. May you have the power to comprehend, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ so you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Amen. 2 Mark Trotter, from a sermon, Coming Home, March 22, 1998 5
PASTORAL PRAYER (7/26/09) O God, you are Emmanuel. You are the Holy One forever present and working among us. You take our flesh and know our form. You are the God nearer to us than our next breath. You are always here with us. In the cross and manger you show us your love. In all the times and circumstances of our lives you work your will. Into every darkness you send your light. Even our deepest sorrow you can turn to joy. You bring us healing and wholeness. You give us comfort and courage. We rejoice in your presence. We receive your promise. Lord, renew in us your Christmas spirit. Help us to take hold of the hope, which no calendar can confine, and no season segregate. Fill us with that peace that no circumstance or condition can remove or destroy. Surprise us again with where you are and the opportunities you offer. Deliver us from being victims of the inevitable and reminds that you make all things possible. As we celebrate the gift of your light once again, help us to lessen someone else's darkness. As we listen to your angels sing of good will to all help us to work for that reality in our world. Your Word was made flesh in Jesus, may it find a home in our heart and flesh also. Father, we pray especially for those who need to receive your gifts this morning. We pray for the lonely and lost asking you to draw near to them. We pray for those struggling to cope with what life has asked of them, brought to them or taken from them. Lord, be their strength. We pray for those who are grieving and need the assurance of knowing they do not face their pain alone. We pray for those who have shelter and yet feel homeless and for those whose hunger is for bread as well as for belonging. We pray for those who do not know how dear they are to you and for those who feel rejected by others. We ask you to tend to their hurt and hold them close in your care. Lord, remind us all of your Christmas promise. Make us bold to live in its truth. May Christ be born anew for us and in us this day. We offer our lives as his stable and our hearts as his manger. We lift this prayer in the name of your Holy Child and our Blessed Savior. We say together as he taught us, Our Father 6