July 26, 2009
John 6:1-21; Ephesians 3:14-21; Psalm 145:10-18
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Today we are the “church in the park”. Yes, right here in Morrison Park, Harrisonburg, the corner of 2nd and Willow St. I walk right by this place several times a week on my loop. Sometimes it is in the morning, other days early evening. I never thought I might be preaching here one day. As I come past this place, I enjoy seeing the activity that develops here in the community park, particularly on weekends. Many youth gather to play basketball and soccer. Children and families, music and food, laughter and conversation. It is good community life, but today, we, the congregation of Park View and neighbors, friends, guests become the “church” in the park as we praise and worship God together.
In reality we are always the church, wherever we are. As believers and followers of Jesus Christ, our faith goes with us every day. It is not something that we put on just for Sunday morning, like a special set of clothes. It is not something we set aside when we want to participate in an activity that is questionable, when we want to attend a movie that has little value and is filled with violence, sexually explicit scenes and inappropriate language and conduct. But on a daily basis, in all of our actions, we are still disciples of Jesus and represent the church, God’s people. During the week our activity might more accurately be described as the “church scattered”. As we live in our neighborhoods, go to work, enter into our places of study, we are the “church scattered”.
Two weeks ago, John and I kept our two granddaughters, for 3 nights and 4 days, while their parents took a few days of vacation. It was the first time we did this. We brought them to church Sunday morning. We might have looked a bit frazzled that day. I don’t think God intended 60 year old people to take care of a one year old and a two and a half year old for more than a few days. After church we took them home, gave them lunch and put them to bed for their afternoon naps. Then we collapsed! When Samantha woke up, she began to ‘play’ church. She took this little wooden case into which she placed all of the little Fisher-Price people she could find in the toy chest, leftover from our earlier days of parenting two sons, and carted the case around the house, announcing loudly, “Grandma, I am playing church!” (chuch) Periodically they would get dumped out on the living room floor, the dining room table, the floor in the sun room, where one year old Kate would grasp them with her sticky little hands and, yes, even chew on them. Playing church for Samantha was gathering the little people into the relatively safe and secure
place of the wooden case, the sanctuary, only then to dump them out, periodically, to scatter them around into a messy place, even into the sticky hands of a one year old. The church gathered, the church scattered, and sometimes dumped into the chaos and mess of life.
Today we continue with our series from Ephesians. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we see expressed a strong desire for the church to be empowered by God! God is being asked to empower the church with power!
The text for today begins with vs. 14 of chapter 3, with these words, “for this reason, I bow my knees before the Father..” It is hard to jump into a section of text without really knowing what is being referred to. What reason? What is happening? What is the context?
When we go back to the beginning of chapter 3, we discover that Paul is in jail. He is a prisoner for the sake of the gospel. God has chosen Paul to be the messenger of the gospel to the Gentiles, the outsiders. Paul doesn’t understand why God chose him. He doesn’t feel very qualified, nevertheless, to him God has revealed the mystery, that is God’s special plan. What is that plan? What is the ‘big deal’? Through Christ’s death on the cross, the dividing wall between peoples has come down. Christ came to preach peace to the outsiders(Gentiles) and peace to the insiders. (Jews) All are equal. We share the same spirit through Christ. We have equal access to the Father.
Paul tells the Gentile audience, “You’re no longer wandering exiles. You’re no longer strangers. You’re no longer outsiders. You belong here! This is ‘home’. You have every right to be called Christian as anyone else. You are part of the household of God. God is using us all. It doesn’t matter how we got here”
What wonderful news for Paul’s audience! What wonderful news for us! The Message (Peterson’s paraphrase), states, “The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives stand on the same ground before God.” We get the same help, the same offer, the same promises in Christ Jesus.
With great excitement, Paul is telling them, this has become his life work. It is a gift to him. He is going about preaching and teaching, helping people understand and respond to this message. He doesn’t want the people to worry that he is in jail for their sake. This is his work to which he has been called. God has given him the boldness, the confidence to go where he needs to go and say what he needs to say.
For that reason, he is bowing before the Father, he is responding by getting down on his knees (expression of deep emotion and humility) before the one from whom all people come from and praying for empowerment, for enlightenment, for love.
We pick it up in Eph. 3:16.... He prays for several things>
1.) according to the riches of God’s glory (out of this vast reservoir of God’s resources), he prays that God would strengthen them in their inner being with power through his Spirit. (Peterson says, not a brute strength, but a glorious inner strength).
2.) he prays that Christ will dwell, abide in their hearts, make his home in their hearts, through faith. As we open the door and invite Jesus Christ to dwell in our hearts, our self is no longer the master. Christ’s loving spirit takes over and transforms us in profound ways, and directs the course of our lives.
3.) Paul prays that as Christ dwells within, that they continue to be “rooted and grounded in love”. It is something that is already taking place and needs to continue to be part of the reality in their life. Two metaphors from two different disciplines are used. One from botany/earth..... that if you have a tree or plant that has strong roots, it will be able to withstand, strong winds, rain. So be rooted....
And be grounded.... a metaphor from architexture/building. If your building has a strong foundation, it, too, can withstand a great deal of wind and rain.
So be rooted and grounded in love.
Verse 18 may be the key verse.....for Paul’s desire and prayer is that these people will be given the power, the knowledge, with all of God’s people, all saints, all Christians, to comprehend the magnitude, the extravagant love of God, so that they may be filled with all the fullness of God! There is no way to describe Christ’s love completely, but Paul tries. He uses this spatial imagery...the breadth, length, depth, height. Christ’s love can never be fully known, but in trying to understand, we are one step toward being completely filled with the very nature of God.
The ultimate goal is not only to “know” and comprehend the extravagant love of God, but to be filled, ourselves, with all of who God is, the very nature of God. To be filled and possess all of the gifts which God wants us to have. It is not just head knowledge, it needs to be heart knowledge!
Tom Yoder Neufeld wrote in his commentary on Ephesians, “as the filled body of the filled Christ, the church is in constant need of being filled TOWARD all the fullness of God.” p.162
Paul’s prayer and concern for his audience was that they be empowered with inner strength, that Christ would dwell in their hearts, that they would be rooted and grounded in love, that they know the love of Christ SO THAT they would be filled with all the fullness of God.
If we could all be filled with that kind of love and fullness of God, just think what could happen in our world. Our knowledge and experience of that kind of love is not something that remains private and for us alone. It is something we live out of, as we live in the community of saints, as we are the church gathered and scattered.
Leslie Mitton wrote in his commentary, “Love is a kind of extra eye to enable us to see spiritual truth. This vision of the reality of the love of Christ is an experience shared with all the saints, all one’s fellow Christians(not just a privileged few). nor is it just a passing, partial glimpse; it is a sense of the love of Christ in all its fullness, as something which reaches into every corner of life, something from whose grasp we can never slip. It is as inescapable as the very presence of God’s Spirit. It reaches higher than heaven and lower than hell, and further than the limits of both east and west.” p. 164
Can we pray for one another, as Paul prayed, that we as a church be strengthened by God’s spirit, with a glorious inner strength? And what would that look like?
Can we pray, as Paul prayed that we, open our hearts totally and allow Christ to dwell their without limitations, without restraints, and be rooted and grounded in love, God’s love, that doesn’t allow us to be blown off course or driven away by a strong wind?
Can we pray for a deeper understanding and knowledge of God’s extravagant love, but more importantly, can we pray for experiences of that kind of love that takes control of our lives, so that we can more fully engage in loving a hurting world?
One commentator (Ralph Martin, p. 45) wrote “Love” lies at the heart of God’s nature and purpose in Ephesians, and human love in the church answers to it.”
What would it be like for Park View members, for any of us here today, to know the love of Christ, as completely as we can, and to be filled with the fullness of God’s love, as much as we can, as we live out being the church gathered and the church scattered in this time and place?
Hear the text again, Paul’s prayer, as The Message states it:
My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit–not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength–that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all Christians the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
God can do anything, you know–far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
Glory to God in the church!
Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
Glory down all the generations!
Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!
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