Tag: Grace

Making the Journey a Good One

Psalm 107:1-2 Give thanks to the Lord, for Abba God is good, and God’s mercy endures for ever. Let all those whom the Lord has redeemed proclaim that God redeemed them from the hand of the foe.

Introduction

I don’t know about you, but I think life can be hard. None of us have recourse to the last time we did life, so all of it’s new and carries the mysterious paradox of being helpful and hindering. None of us asked to be born; all of us were born. Now, we’re here. All of us together. In this when, in this where, in this what, in this why, in this how; together for better and for worse.

I don’t know about you but I trip every so often (as in: often); I say the wrong thing, I do the wrong thing, I think the self-condemning thoughts, I hurt someone else, I hurt myself, and trip over which put I’m putting forward. So, even though living can be banal, life itself carries a fantastic amount of pain and personal suffering. (And I’ve not even commented on the real-life struggles that many people have that I don’t have, making this journey even harder.)

We’re all, each of us, trying to get from morning to night, from Sunday to Saturday, from one month to another, from one year to another, from point A to point B as well as we can. Anyone here absolutely killing it on this journey? I’m not, and I have it pretty good. How about you? Aren’t you just trying your best to go from point A to point B to the best of your ability, as a vulnerable and fleshy human, prone to having a troubled and agitated conscience? And if you’re doing that, then maybe your neighbor is, too? So, then, why do we heap up judgment and burdens on others, weighing them down on this already hard-enough journey?

Matthew 23:1-12

Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples saying, “The Scribes and the Pharisees are seated on the seat of Moses. Therefore, you do and observe all things as much as they say to you, but do not act according to their works; for they are speaking and not acting. And they bind up heavy and oppressive burdens and add [them] upon the shoulders of the people, but they, they will not wish [to lift] their finger to move these burdens.

Mt. 23:1-4

Matthew tells us Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples. At once, Matthew minimizes the distance between the disciples and the crowd. Why? Because what Jesus is about to say is for everyone; there’s no room for hierarchy in the economy of divine love for the whole world. Therefore, those who follow Christ—disciple or crowd—are all the same.

Then Jesus tells the collective, The Scribes and the Pharisees are seated on the seat of Moses. This means they’ve inherited Moses’s role of authority among the people (to teach and lead).[1] However, even though “Jesus shared in many of the concerns of the Pharisees,” Jesus sees things a bit differently.[2] So, Jesus then says, listen to them for they know what they are teaching, but do not follow their lead because they do not do as they command (vv. 3b-4). Here, Jesus illuminates the problem: it’s not enough to sit in the seat of Moses to be a true heir of Moses. If you do not hold yourself to the same standard you preach and teach and load up more oppressive and heavy burdens on the people, you’ve forfeited the role and the seat; Moses brought liberty to the Israelites, not more bondage and captivity.[3] In other words, “Torah should not be burdensome.”[4] So, without asking it, Jesus asks all those who have ears, “Who then is the ‘”true heir” of Moses?’”[5], [6]

The answer to the question is teased out in Jesus’s criticism of some of the Pharisees and Scribes who flaunt not only their actions (v. 5a) but also their garments among the people for the sole purpose of pomp and circumstance—they’re showing off their power and privilege by going about cloaked in robes with long tassels and adorned with broad phylacteries[7] attempting to manufacture respect and honor from the people (v. 5b). And it doesn’t stop there. Jesus goes on to talk about honorific titles. Not only do these certain Scribes and Pharisees take the chief place at dinners and the chief seat in the synagogue, they also expect to be called “Teacher” by the people (vv. 6-7). But Jesus tells the crowd and the disciples, But you, you are not to be called teacher for there is one teacher among you, and you are all siblings… (v. 8). In less words: everyone here is equal, limping together on the path of the same journey from point A to point B.[8]

And then Jesus wraps up the exhortations toward a shared and communal equality among the siblings who follow him, with this last promise, Now the great of you will be the servant of you; and whoever will exalt their own self will be made low and whoever will make their own self low will be exalted. So, what does it mean that those who are listening are to listen to the Pharisees and Scribes but not do what they do? Well, it looks a lot like mutual humility and humbling oneself to serve the neighbor, the one just like you, even if it means avoiding using burdensome titles;[9] this is the opposite of what certain Pharisees and Scribes were doing[10] being more concerned with their own status than with the well-being of the people.[11]

Conclusion

There is no hierarchy among the followers of Christ. In baptism, we all come out of the waters following Jesus on the same level no matter what accolades and earnings we have. This means, as we’re all equal in Christ we’re beckoned to humble ourselves and serve each other. Why? Because we are all busted up and limping along in life, trying desperately to get from point A to point B.

There’s a song by Sia, “Breathe Me,” that speaks to this very thing, it’s worth quoting some of the lyrics here:

Ouch, I have lost myself again
Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found
Yeah, I think that I might break
Lost myself again and I feel unsafe
Be my friend, hold me
Wrap me up, unfold me
I am small and needy
Warm me up and breathe me

I believe this song speaks to the inner world of any human trying desperately to get from point A to point B relatively unscathed and to the best of their ability. So, I wonder, why do we try to make this journey from point A to point B so hard for others and for ourselves? Why do we throw the rocks of judgment and condemnation at fellow travelers? Why do we make life, love, and liberation accessible to an elite few? Why do we dare to ban God—the very God who came low, born of a woman, servant of the poor, died forsaken—from those who need God, allowing God only to be for those who have the right title, robe, and station?

Every one of us here and out there is struggling to make it day to day, none of us has it all together no matter the ease and comfort of material objects. We are all vulnerable, fleshy creatures hanging on from one day to another, with very minimal safety nets that are truly safety nets. All we have, to be honest, is each other; we are only as secure as our community around us, this is why striking out alone doesn’t work in the end.

Beloved, God is with you because I am with you, because those sitting next to you (literally and virtually) are with you. Let us make this journey from point A to point B a good one, a fun one, a celebratory one. Let us walk, run, crawl, hobble, roll all the way there; let us carry and be carried; let us carry along the divine gifts of life, love, and liberation sharing these gifts with our siblings. Beloved, let us pull together and not apart; let us include and not alienate; let us bring God’s mercy and grace to all.

[1] Anna Case-Winters, Matthew, “Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible,” Edited by Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher, (Louisville: WJK, 2015) 265. “‘Moses’ seat’ is a symbol of authority for interpretation of the law as received from God and delivered to the people by Moses. In later synagogue architecture there was a literal ‘seat of Moses,’ and the rabbi would sit on it to give instruction.”

[2] Case-Winters, Matthew, 262. “Jesus shared the concerns of the Pharisees. He was closer to their thinking than to that of the Sadducees or the Essenes. However, he differed from Pharisees in his understanding of the relative importance of such things as ritual purity, tithing, Sabbath, and what he considered to be the ‘weightier matters of the law’ (23:23).” And later Case-Winters writes, “In early rabbinic writings, in fact, Pharisees themselves engage in pointed criticism of those who manifest the flaws that Jesus notes here,” (262-263.).

[3] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname Trans. Donald D. Walsh (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010) 446. “I: ‘But it can be good for us if, as Christ says, we put into practice its freedom message that they didn’t put into practice. Moses brought the people out of Egyptian slavery and took them to another land to found a kingdom of freedom, and the chair of Moses means the temple of freedom. Now just like then there are people in that temple preaching the Gospel and defending oppression. What they preach is false, but only because they don’t practice it.”

[4] Case-Winters, Matthew, 263. “Jesus condemnation is directed at religious leaders who, charged the role of leadership, fail miserably. The most frequent charge is that they are hypocrites because ‘they do not practice what they teach’ (23:3). In their teaching they might be termed rigorists. They go further than what the law requires. For example, for them it is ‘not enough to keep the Sabbath ‘in a general way.’ it was necessary to define carefully which weekday activities constituted work and were therefore prohibited on the Sabbath.’ Jesus observes here that they tie up. Heavy burdens, hard to bear. (11:28-30).”

[5] Case-Winters, Matthew, 265. “A question of consequence arises in Jesus’s exhortation to do as the scribes and Pharisees say and not as they do. Are the Scribe’s and Pharisees really the ‘true heirs’ of Moses?”

[6] R. T. France The Gospel of Matthew The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Edited by Joel B. Green. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 860. “Their behavior in effect annuls their ‘Mosaic; authority.”

[7] Cardenal, Solentiname, 447. “I: ‘Christ is talking about some adornments called phylacteries short bits of Scripture attached to the sleeves and the forehead, because in one of the books of the Bible it says that the Scripture should always be kept ‘close to the hand and in front of the eyes,’ and they believed that by doing this they were complying.’”

[8] Cardenal, Solentiname, 448. “I: ‘And he’s saying that we’re all equal and that we shouldn’t have any teachers except the one that brings those teachings about revolution.’”

[9] Case-Winters, Matthew, 264-265. “In a dramatic reversal of ordinary expectations, Jesus says, ‘The greatest among you will be your servant’ (v. 11). Members of the new community should not seek heightened status reflected in titles but rather humble themselves and seek to serve—aiming low instead of aiming high (23:11). The use of titles is not conducive to the well-being of the new community. Titles—whether ‘rabbi,’ or ‘father,’ or ‘instructor’ (or ‘Reverend’)—have their dangers, both for those who hold them and for those who call others by these titles.”

[10] Cardenal, Solentiname, 450. “Teresita: ‘Humbling yourself is serving, and the opposite of serving others is to control others.’”

[11] France, Matthew, 862-862. “In contrast with the scribes’ love of human approbation, Jesus calls on those who follow him to avoid honorific titles…They highlight a concern for status which, while taken for granted in secular society …ought not to characterize those who follow Jesus.”

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According to the Spirit

Psalm 119: 105, 111-112 Your word is a lantern to my feet and a light upon my path. Your decrees are my inheritance for ever; truly, they are the joy of my heart. I have applied my heart to fulfill your statutes for ever and to the end.

Introduction

Paul is faithfully walking us through the depths of divinely gifted grace, mercy, and faith—the material expression of divine love. Faith surges forth from God’s love, plumbs the depths of human existence and returns to God’s love, carrying with it God’s beloved, you. There’s nothing you can do to fracture that love because it’s not yours to fracture and you didn’t cause it; you are the beloved because God declares you to be the beloved, because God loves you without a why or wherefore. When you believe this love is for you, this is faith: faith accepts God’s promise as true, bringing glory and honor to God, proving God truthful—worthy to be trusted. This is loving God for God’s self. Just love… pure, unrestricted, uncalculated, unconditional love. This is the type of love noted by the popular Mumford and Sons song, “Sigh No More”,

Love, it will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be
There is a design, an alignment
A cry of my heart to see
The beauty of love as it was made to be[1]

Love is the great alignment; love aligns us to itself because love liberates. Love aligns us to God because God is love and the source of love; and in this alignment we are aligned to our neighbor and ourselves. We love others and we love ourselves. Blemishes and all; meager attempts to change and all; hot beginnings and tepid endings (or the reverse) … love, God’s love, bears all things. This is why Paul can say in Romans 8,

Romans 8:1-11

So then at this very time [there is] not one punishment following condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life liberated you in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. [2]

(Rom. 8:1-2)

There is, in other words, no condemnation for those who trust God, who consider God trustworthy. This means that the person and being of the human being who misses the mark, isn’t categorically worse than one who has not missed the mark. It is not that those who trust God by faith in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit are now without sin as if they do not sin. Rather, it’s about being exempted from condemnation for sinning; because the believer is justified by faith apart from works, even bad ones…even good ones! While there still maybe be “horizontal consequences” for missing the mark, with God, with Love, it is not determinate of being God’s beloved. Thus, Paul continues,

For the powerlessness of the law by which it was weak according to the flesh, God sent God’s own son in the form of sinful flesh and on behalf of sin condemned sin in the flesh so that the commands of the law might be fulfilled in us, not for those who walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

(Rom. 8:3-4)

The law, according to Paul, is not able to grant the necessary strength to fulfill it (to do the law); the law is powerless to make one obey its commands. In this way the law is made weak, exposed as weak according to flesh—our inability to do it. The law can only declare what’s to be done and what’s not to be done, but the law cannot cause the law to be fulfilled and upheld. Only love can do that.[3] Even if the law is fulfilled in deed while the heart and mind grumble—lacking love—this is not fulfilling the law because there is no love and it’s dry, heartless service to the law. We are in the thick of serving ourselves, and only ourselves.[4]

So, if the law is placed as a door granting access to God only if it is completed or fulfilled, then there’s no access because not only can we not do it rightly and fully, but the law cannot grant the power to do so. Thus, it can only deny entrance. However, God’s love exceeds the law, herein is mercy, grace, and freedom from the demand to do anything else but just love in response. Mercy and Grace eclipse the law because God’s love can move around the law to the one being commanded and usher that one into God’s love as the beloved. This is what Christ did: God sent God’s Son, Jesus, to be the representation of God and God’s love in the world, to be the door (the way, truth, and life) to God and God’s love, to show those who walked according to the flesh how to walk according to the Spirit.

How did Jesus’s life and death demonstrate this? By his resurrection. Here’s the key: Paul writes,

For those who exist/live according to the flesh, they judge/observe the things of the flesh, but the ones who [exist/live] according to the Spirit, [judge/observe] the things of the Spirit. For the aspiration of the flesh [is] death, but the aspiration of the Spirit [is] life and peace. On the very account that the aspiration of the flesh [is] hostility toward God, for it is not submitted to the law of God, indeed it cannot; now those who exist/live in the flesh are not able to please God.

(Rom. 8:5-8)

First, what is God’s law? To love God and to love the neighbor (these two are one; the ten break into these two). Working all the way back to the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, what happens? Jesus’s baptism. Who speaks? God. What does God say? “This is my son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (or some rendition). Fast-forward to Jesus’s trial: whom do we release and whom do sentence? Barabbas and Jesus, respectively. Thus, in this moment it is highlighted that the law is not kept in two ways: we sentenced God’s son to the cross—the one who spoke to us about love—and we clearly did not listen to him. We chose our own wisdom over God’s and determined who was in and who was out, who was to live and who was to die—this is judging according to the flesh, and the aspiration of the flesh is death.[5] Judging according to the flesh, we forced the law to do the very thing it was not supposed to do: condemn to death an innocent man who was our neighbor and condemn God. In this, Christ bore our sinfulness (fully) took it into himself, took on the guilt that was not his[6]—the Sinless one became the sinful one, identifying fully with all those oppressed and marginalized by the judgment of the flesh and the worshipping of law at the expense of God and neighbor—to the point of blatant hostility toward both.[7]

But God! Exclaims Paul:

But you, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so then the Spirit of God dwells in you…Now, if Christ [is] in you, then the body is dead concerning sin, and the Spirit is alive concerning righteousness. Now if the spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ form the dead will make [you] alive…

(Rom. 8:9, 10-11a)

What happens after Jesus died? God resurrects Jesus. This is the vindication of the righteous life of Christ that becomes (mercifully and graciously) ours by faith alone. It is in this crazy story of Christ being resurrected where we see the ultimate act of divine love, mercy, and grace: we are exposed, yet we are summoned forward into God’s love and not into God’s condemnation. Not only did we not get what we deserved (mercy) we received something we did not deserve (grace); this *is* the epitome of the actuality of divine love for you, for us. By divine mercy and grace calling us forward out death and into (new) life, how do we do anything but run to the very arms of God, and throw ourselves against Abba, loving God for God’s sake because we were first loved? [8] And here, in the lap of God, embraced by and embracing God, the law is done.[9] It is silenced; it has no stake here because love is bigger than the law and love is the point. Here, the law returns to its rightful spot: a means by which we serve our neighbor in love, mercy, and grace (sometimes by obeying it and sometimes by breaking it).

Conclusion

We are called to walk according to the Spirit and not according to the Flesh. This is not about “not sinning” this about showing mercy and grace and love to those who are held far off, those who cannot do right by society, those who are condemned already, and those who are oppressed and ostracized. The law is not bad, but when we use it defend our desires or mold the world or other people according to our judgment according to the flesh, it becomes bad and a means to exacerbate our sickness of othering, casting out, eliminating, condemning, determining the livelihoods of bodies not ours.

Walking according to the Spirit is not about elevating this or that commandment or decree; it’s about love, it’s about mercy, grace, forgiveness and absolution. It’s about loving God and loving our neighbor just because.[10] It’s about seeing the other person standing—vulnerably and humbly—before you, and giving them space to just be. Love will always liberate. Mercy will grant life. Grace will provoke love. And there we go around again.

Beloved, you are loved. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Loved. And when you forget look to the cross, because Christ died and rose again to bring you the fullness of new life. And then go love as you’ve been loved.

[1] Mumford and Sons “Sigh No More” Sigh No More 2010.

[2] Translation mine unless otherwise noted; “Sin” is also “missing the mark”

[3] LW 25, 345. “Therefore, unless faith gives the light and love makes us free, no man can either have or do anything good, but only evil, even when he performs the good.”

[4] LW 25, 346. “But nature set for itself no object but itself toward which it is borne and toward which it is directed; it sees, seeks, and works only toward itself in all matters, and it passes by all other things and even God Himself in the midst, as if it did not see them and is directed only toward itself.”

[5] LW 25, 345. Human nature “…in particular cases human nature knows and wills what is good but in general neither knows nor wills it. The reason is that it knows nothing but its own good, or what is good and honorable and useful for itself, but not what is good for God and other people. Therefore it knows and wills more what is particular, yes, only what is an individual good.” And, “This curvedness is now natural for us, a natural wickedness and a natural sinfulness. Thus man has no help from this natural powers, but he needs the aid of some power outside of himself. This is love, without which he always sins against the Law ‘You shall not covet,’ that is, turn nothing on yourself fand seek nothing for yourself but live, do, and think all things for God alone. For then a man will know the good in every way along with all particular good things, and he will judge all things. Thus the law is impossible for us.”

[6] LW 25, 349. “For the sin by reason of which sin in the flesh is condemned is itself the penalty of sin which Christ took into His own flesh which was without sin, yet for the sake of the penalties of sin He took on the likeness of sinful flesh. Therefore sin which is in the flesh of all other people is condemned because of the sin of Him in whose flesh there was no sin.”

[7] LW 25, 344. “It is certainly true that the law of nature is known to all men and that our reason does speak for the best things, but what best things? It speaks for the best not according to God but according to us, that is, for things that are good in an evil way. For it seeks itself and its own in all things, but not God. This only faith does in love.”

[8] LW 25, 346. “For grace has set before itself no other object than God toward which it is carried and toward which it is moving; it sees only Him, it seeks only Him, and it always. Moves toward Him, and all other things which it sees between itself and God is passes by as if it had not seen them and directs itself only toward God.”

[9] LW 25, 348. “Thus the law is fulfilled because God alone is loved. For he who does not fear death because of God, likewise does not love this life more than God, and therefore he inwardly hates himself but loves God above all things. For he who loves God more than himself, surely loves God above all thing, since a person loves nothing as much as himself. But this is impossible for the flesh; for the wisdom of the flesh makes a person love himself above all things, even more than God.”

[10] LW 25, 350. “To be sure, the Law in itself is very good. It is as with a sick man who wants to drink some wine because he foolishly things that his health will return if he does so. No if the doctor, without any criticism of the wine, should say to him: ‘It is impossible for the wine to cure you, it will only make you sicker,’ the doctor is not condemning the wine but only the foolish trust of the sick man in it. For he needs other medicine to get well, so that the then can drink his wine. Thus also our corrupt nature needs another kind of medicine than the Law, by which it can arrive at good health so that it can fulfill the Law.”

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Free to Love

Psalm 13:5-6 5 But I put my trust in your mercy; my heart is joyful because of your saving help.  I will sing to God, for God has dealt with me richly; I will praise the Name of God Most High.

Introduction

Let’s review what’s transpired thus far in our journey through Romans:

In Romans 4 we learned that justification, according to Paul, is by faith alone apart from (any) work. Faith anchors into the promise of God (which was given before the law). According to Paul, Abraham trusted the promise of God, and this is what justifies Abraham. Faith in the promises of God justifies because believing God’s promises ascribes to God the honor due God: trustworthiness and worthy to be believed. From faith comes the doing of the law—remember, the law was given as means to assist God’s people in the world toward their neighbor, it was never meant to be worshipped. However, eventually the law eclipsed love in that it ceased to serve the people and the people began to serve the law—love was held in captivity to law. Thus, according to Paul, the law’s impact is known in its wrath, because we only feel the law when we break it—because the reward won’t come until the law is completed/fulfilled (thus, why we cannot be justified by our works because we need to do them all the time). However, Paul says, “[Jesus] was handed over on account of our trespasses and was raised up for the sake of our justification” (v.25). Thus, it is all by faith and trust; and in this way Abraham becomes (truly) the elder of many nations and through him they are blessed (no matter their culture and context, time and tense).

In Romans 5 we saw that, for Paul, being justified by faith yokes the believer to God’s peace. This peace comes with faith and is eternal because it is assured and secured by God and not by our actions and works. Thus, we can come close to God, be one with God, love God for God’s sake and not love God or use God as a means to an end. Also, God’s peace brings us peace with our neighbor whom we can love without a why or wherefore (without using them). And, finally, by faith and God’s peace we are given peace with ourselves because we are loved by a God who has demonstrated God’s deep solidarity with us in our worst plight: condemnation and death. When we should’ve received what we deserved because of our inability to judge rightly—the reason Jesus went to the cross—God loved us and demonstrated it through Jesus’s resurrection which secured for us the knowledge that God loves us no matter what and will not forsake us even when we do the worst! (I.e., try to kill God).

Now last week we looked at the first part of Romans 6, and we discussed our liberation from the condemnation of sin.[1] If Jesus was handed over on account of our trespasses, then for us to return to sin’s domination (whether by means of obeying to achieve something or by means of breaking it just because we can or by ignoring sin) is to deny Christ his work on the cross, it is to side-step the event of the cross and to tell God that God isn’t needed (this is the opposite of bringing God honor and glory, the antithesis of declaring God to be trustworthy). Also, in focusing on our sins, we forsake our justification by faith because we do not trust God that God has dealt with it. Thus, according to Paul, we are to be “dead” to sin… not that we do not sin—Christians sin until the end of time, says Luther—but that it does not exert control over us. And as we discussed last Sunday, there are two ways sin can re-exert control over us: by focusing on it by means of strict obedience (as if it is the only word) and by breaking it just ‘cuz. So, instead, Paul exhorts, just live, live as those liberated from sin and are imperfect, because otherwise we will return to being closed in on ourselves.

Now, this week…staying in Romans 6, Paul writes,

Romans 6:12-23

Therefore, let not sin reign over your mortal body (σώματι) in order to obey its inordinate desire, and do not present your limbs as weapons of injustice for sin, but present yourself to God as the living out of the dead and present your limbs as weapons of righteousness for God. For sin will not have authority over you; for you are not under the law but under grace. What therefore? May we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it not come to be! [2]

Rom. 6:12-15

As Paul moves through chapter 6 of Romans, he brings the discussion of the law and sin down to a personal level: our own bodies. So, if you’re feeling a bit attacked, don’t worry… you’re being attacked. Once again, we are confronted with the problem of intention, but this time it’s bodily intention. Last week we were looking at the inner intention, and now we are looking at outer intention. What we do with our bodies matters, says Paul. Just as we are to be dead to sin—not letting it have control and condemnation over us—we are also not to actively let sin reign over our bodies causing us to obey sin’s inordinate desires. We are not to spend our intellectual/emotional/spiritual time consumed with sin—by being consumed with not sinning, intentionally sinning, or ignoring it completely as if one does not sin. And we’re not to submit our bodies to sin, either. So Paul exhorts us to allow our bodies to become not only a site of liberation (for ourselves) but also the site in which faith manifests itself in love in service to the neighbor which is glory to God.

The juxtaposition of “under law” and “under grace” is important. Harkening back to what was discussed in chapter 4 of Romans, the believer is no longer under the law but under grace because the believer is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Thus, as we serve our neighbor it is done out of faith manifesting in love for the neighbor as the neighbor rather than as a means to fulfill the law—this would be putting primacy of place to the law.[3] So, Paul exhorts us to bring our body (the outer nature, corporate and personal) in line with our souls (inner nature, corporate and personal) in service to the neighbor for the neighbor’s sake which does, in fact, bring glory to God. As we know from Jesus, to love the neighbor is to love God and to love God is to love the neighbor, and not merely abstractly or confessionally but in practical reality, materially (orthopraxy born of orthodoxy). Thus we love as we have first been loved.

Once again, though, Paul reminds us about our intention: do we allow our limbs to be used as weapons of injustice just because we can? Should we use our limbs as weapons of injustice by focusing on ourselves and our adherence to the law at the expense of the neighbor? Should we just ignore our limbs, pretending they are useless considering we’re justified by faith? (This is another way to serve injustice through our inactivity toward justice.) Μὴ γένοιτο! For Paul, this intention leads to death; to serve the law for the law’s sake keeps one in the grip of sin, which is (bluntly) being turned in on the self. If you are trying to make yourself right or justified or good through obedience to the law, you are of no use to your neighbor because you cannot see them through the demand of the law and desire to make yourself right by your actions. Being concerned with only yourself is not freedom because you cannot be free when you are trying to serve the law for the law’s sake because you are held captive by the law and thus also by condemnation of sin; you are stuck (dead) in your trespasses. You might as well be dead man walking.[4]

However, says Paul, we were recreated in the event of justification by faith in God (trusting in God and believing God’s promises) through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. So, where we were once slaves to the law, sin, and (thus) death, we are now slaves to promise, righteousness, and life (Rom 6:17-18). However, this does not mean we are without the law (lawless, τὴν ἀνομίαν), rather the law is in our service, in service to love and not the other way around. We must use the law to guide our bodies, to bring them in alignment to our inner nature, and to spread God’s love, life and liberation to our neighbor,[5] especially those who are still held captive in unjust and death dealing structures, systems, institutions (visible and invisible), and ideologies. This is Christian sanctification: to love God and to love the neighbor in freedom and responsibility to the benefit of the cosmos.[6]

Conclusion

I will close with a quote from Gustavo Gutierrez’s text A Theology of Liberation,

…St. Paul asserts not only that Christ liberated us; he also tells us that he did it in order that we might be free. Free for what? Free to love. ‘In the language of the Bible,’ writes Bonhoeffer, ‘freedom is not something [one] has for [themself] but something [they have] for others….It is not a possession, a presence, an object,…but a relationship and nothing else. In truth, freedom is a relationship between two persons. Being free means ‘being free for the other,’ because the other has bound me to [them]. Only in relationship with the other am I free.’ The freedom to which we are called presupposes the going out of oneself, the breaking down of our selfishness and of all the structures that support our selfishness; the foundation of this freedom is openness to others. The fullness of liberation—a free gift from Christ—is communion with God and with other [people].[7]

Gutierrez, Theology of Liberation

[1] Remember that the word translated as “sin” can also mean “missing the mark”.

[2] Translation mine unless otherwise noted.

[3] LW 25, 316. “For those people understand the expression ‘to be under the Law’ as being the same as having a law according to which one must live. But the apostle understands the words ‘to be under the Law’ as equivalent to not fulfilling the Law, as being guilty of disobeying the Law, as being a debtor and a transgressor, in that the Law has the power of accusing and damning a person and lording it over him, but it does not have the power to enable him to satisfy the Law or overcome it. And thus as long as the Law rules, sin also has dominion and holds man captive.”

[4] LW 25, 317. “Sin is the sting or power of death, through which death is powerful and holds dominion, as above in chapter 5:12 ff.: ‘death through sin’ etc. But the Law is the power or strength of sin, through which sin remains and holds dominion. And from this dominion of the Law and sin no one can be liberated except through Christ…”

[5] LW 25, 317. “For the wisdom of the flesh is opposed to the Word of God, but the Word of God is immutable and insuperable. Therefore God, but the Word of God is immutable and insuperable. Therefore it is necessary that the wisdom of the flesh be changed and that it give up its form and take on the form of the Word. This takes place when through faith it takes itself captive and strips off its own crown, conforms itself to the word, and believes the word to be true and itself to be false.”

[6] LW 25, 321. “For through the terms ‘sanctification’ and ‘cleanness’ he is trying to convey the same concept, namely, that the body should be pure, but not with jut any find of purity, but with that which comes from within, form the spirit of sanctifying faith.”

[7] Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics and Salvation. Trans Sister Caridad Inda and john Eagleson. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1973. Ed 5th. Original: Teologia de la liberacion, Perspectivas Lima: CEP, 1971. (p. 36

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Solidarity in the Margins

Sermon on Luke 18:9-14

Psalm 65:4-5 4 Happy are they whom you choose and draw to your courts to dwell there! They will be satisfied by the beauty of your house, by the holiness of your temple. Awesome things will you show us in your righteousness, O God of our salvation, O Hope of all the ends of the earth and of the seas that are far away.

Introduction

Have you every felt unworthy? Like, you weren’t good enough? As if other people, or the space, or the thing carried a demand for purity that you didn’t have? Like, maybe you should hang back, keep your distance, and look on from afar? Afraid? Scared that if someone saw you—really saw you—you’d be thrown out, rejected, ostracized, because you didn’t belong in that space, or with that group of people, or with that thing?

Caught in the muck and mire of feelings of being outcast and unacceptable, we hope Maybe one day I’ll be worthy, if I can just… (fill in the blank). Maybe we’ll be worthy when we finally achieve that certain level of perfection we’re sold on—some mythical conception of human existence that doesn’t actually exist. We’ve become convinced by brilliant marketing campaigns dependent on our desire for inclusion that there’s such a thing as “normal” and “regular” and that, somehow, we just don’t measure up. And we really want to measure up, to fit in, to be “normal” and “regular”, to be chosen and selected. But maybe I’m too fractured and broken to fit in…At times we find ourselves desperate to feel good about ourselves, so we elevate ourselves above others hoping that identification with the culture of the dominant group will put our fears at rest…at least I’m not that person over there…

Sadly, this always bleeds into our relationship with God. Does God really love me just because? Does God really need me? Want me? Choose me? It doesn’t help when the church and its leaders are also dead-set on the mythical notions of “normal” and “regular” peddled as “God’s will”. Bombarded on all sides, our doubt moves us farther and farther back. God is too much for us. So, we grow more and more afraid to come close, to be human—really human—in the presence of God, afraid to pray because we’re not good enough and don’t have the right words, afraid to approach because we’re impure, afraid to touch because our touch is unclean and cursed. So, we stand farther and farther and farther back…

Luke 18:9-14

And now Jesus told this parable to certain ones who have had confidence in being just in the eyes of God on the basis of themselves and despising the rest… “…Now the tax collector having stood from afar not even willing to lift up [his] eyes to the heavens, but he was striking his breast, saying, ‘God, please show favor to me, a sinner.’ Truly I say to you, this man went down into his home having been justified…because all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and the one who humbles themselves will be exalted.” [1]

Luke 18:9, 13-14

Getting started, Luke tells us to whom Jesus addresses this parable: And now Jesus told this parable to certain ones who have had confidence in being just in the eyes of God on the basis of themselves and despising the rest… The parable features two men: one a tax collector and the other a Pharisee. Jesus tells the story featuring the Pharisee first: he goes in, stands by himself to maintain ritual purity, and prays. What follows is a litany of ways he is righteous: he is not like those sinners—the unjust extortioners, the adulterers, and this tax-collector—and performs his ritualistic duties—fasts on the sabbath and pays his tithe on all he has and gets. Next up, the tax-collector. The tax-collector stands far off refusing to lift up his eyes to heaven. All he can do is remorsefully beat his chest and plead for divine mercy because he is a sinner. Jesus wraps up the parable with a quick and short (and familiar): Truly I say to you, this man went down into his home having been justified more than that one, because all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and the one who humbles themselves will be exalted.

It’s tempting to look at this short and clear parable and deduce the motto: don’t be like those bad Pharisees! Ironically, as soon as we do that we become the self-exalted one in the story.[2] It’s not about the Pharisee being bad. They aren’t “bad”, their the most religious of all the children of Israel; they loved God and God’s law, wished to be obedient to it, to study it, discuss it, and teach it.[3] It’s about Jesus up-righting upside-down systems, even religious ones.

Thus the parable is not a warning against being a hypocrite, but an exhortation to be as those who do not elevate themselves over others. It’s about those who stand far off because they know who they are—sinners, people who miss the mark, fail, stumble, tumble, and get back up. When the people expected those who are technically perfect[4] and can stand on their own to be declared righteous;[5] Jesus says the righteous are those who can’t stand on their own, who aren’t perfect and know it.[6] It is not about thinking oneself better than the rest because of your deeds, your status, your birth, your dogmas and doctrines; it’s about realizing exactly who you are.[7]

Even when you find yourself casting your eyes downward, standing far off for fear of being unable to fit in, for fear of not being accepted as you are, for fear of making others impure because of your impurity, you may find yourself a humble creature square in the presence of a Creator who adores you[8] and receiving the fullness of divine love, favor, and mercy.[9]

Conclusion

The parable is a paradox. The farther you back away, stand from a distance, the more you find yourself in God, accepted, loved, adored, cherished, as you are. That’s the reversal. It’s not those who are holy, pure, perfect, obedient, abiding the law at every turn who are closest to God, it’s actually the ones who are aware of how far they miss the mark who throw themselves on God’s mercy and lean into God’s love. It’s the tax collectors and sinners with whom Jesus dwells, it’s those who know God because they know themselves.[10]

The thing is, knowing who you are—faults and all, shame and all, vulnerability and all, weakness and all—the more you know who God is: the one who stands in solidarity with the outcasts, with you. God in Christ chooses, desires, and identifies with the outcasts, (literally!) those on the fringe, those on the margins, those who just don’t measure up and fit in. You are never too far away to be square in the middle of God.

I’ll close with a story from my favorite childhood novel, Black Beauty:[11]

“No doubt a horse fair is a very amusing place to those who have nothing to lose; at any rate, there is plenty to see.

…

“There was a great deal of bargaining; of running up and beating down, and if a horse may speak his mind so far as he understands, I should say, there were more lies told, and more trickery at that horse fair, than a clever man could give an account of. I was put with two or three other strong, useful-looking horses, and a good many people came to look at us. The gentlemen always turned from me when they saw my broken knees, though the man who had me swore it was only a slip in the stall.

…

“There was one man, I thought, if he would buy me, I should be happy. He was not a gentleman, nor yet one of the loud flashy sort that called themselves so. He was rather a small man, but well made and quick in all his motions. I knew in a moment by the way he handled me, that he was used to horses; he spoke gently, and his gray eye had a kindly, cheery look in it. It may seem strange to say—but it is true all the same—that the clean fresh smell there was about him made me take to him; no smell of old beer and tobacco, which I hated, but a fresh smell as if he had come out of a hayloft. He offered twenty-three pounds for me; but that was refused, and he walked away. I looked after him, but he was gone, and a very hard-looking, loud-voiced man came; I was dreadfully afraid he’d have me; but he walked off. One or two more came who did not mean business. Then the hard-faced man came back again and offered twenty-three pounds. A very close bargain was being driven; for my salesman began to think he should not get all he asked, and must come down; but just then the gray-eyed man came back again. I could not help reaching out my head towards him. He stroked my face kindly.

“‘Well, old chap,’ he said, ‘I think we should suit each other. I’ll give twenty-four him.’

“‘Say twenty-five and you shall have him.’

“‘Twenty-four ten,’ said my friend, in a very decided tone, ‘and not another sixpence—yes or no?’

“‘Done,’ said the salesman, ‘and you may depend upon it there’s a monstrous deal of quality in that horse, and if you want him for cab work, he’s a bargain.’

“The money was paid on the spot, and my new master took my halter, and led me out of the fair to an inn, where he had a saddle and bridle ready. He gave me a good feed of oats, and stood by whilst I ate it, talking to himself, and talking to me. Half-an-hour after, we were on our way to London, through pleasant lanes and country roads, until we came into the great London thoroughfare, on which we traveled steadily, till in the twilight, we reached the great City. The gas lamps were already lighted; there were streets to the right, and streets to the left, and streets crossing each other for mile upon mile. I thought we should never come to the end of them. At last, in passing through one, we came to a long cab stand, when my rider led out in a cheery voice, ‘Good night, Governor!’

“‘Halloo!’ cried a voice, ‘have you got a good one?’

“‘I think so,’ replied my owner.

“‘I wish you luck with him.’

“‘Thank ye, Governor,’ and he rode on. We soon turned up one of the side streets, and about half way up that, we turned into a very narrow street, with rather poor-looking houses on one side, and what seemed to be coach-houses and stables on the other.

“My owner pulled up at one of the houses and whistled. The door flew open, and a young woman, followed by a little girl and boy, ran out. There was a very lively greeting as my rider dismounted.

“‘Now then, Harry, my boy, open the gates, and mother will bring us the lantern.’

“The next minute they were all standing round me in a small stable yard.

“‘Is he gentle, father?’

“‘Yes, Dolly, as gentle as your own kitten; come and pat him.’

“At once the little hand was patting all over my shoulder without fear. How good it felt!

“‘Let me get him a bran mash while you rub him down,’ said the mother.

“‘Do, Poly, it’s just what he wants, and I know you’re got a beautiful mash ready for me.’

“‘Sausage dumpling and apple turnover,’ shouted the boy, which set them all laughing. I was led into a comfortable clean-smelling stall with plenty of dry straw, and after a capital supper, I lay down, thinking I was going to be happy.”

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[2] Joel B. Green The Gospel of Luke The New International Commentary on the New Testament Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997. 645. “Insofar as Luke’s audience will identify themselves with one or the other of these characters, then, Luke has structured this account so as to render the choices starkly and to ensure that the toll collector will be viewed, however paradoxically, as the positive model.”

[3] Gonzalez, Luke, 212. “…in fact the Pharisees were among the most religious—sincerely religious—people in Israel. Their desire to be obedient to the law led them to study it assiduously, and to discuss how it ought to be interpreted and obeyed in all circumstances of life. Thus the parable is not about hypocrisy and sincerity but rather about the great reversal that is so clear throughout the Gospel of Luke.” and the reversal is religious!

[4] Green, Luke, 647. “Jesus’ portrayal of this Pharisee operates at two levels. On the one hand, he is engaged in and admits to behavior characteristic of Pharisees: praying, fasting, and tithing (5:33; 11:42). In and of themselves, these are admirable practices for which scriptural warrant is easily found….”

[5] Green, Luke, 646. “First, having become convinced of their own righteousness, they have come to depend on themselves. They are self-possessed, able, at least in their own minds, to live Honorably before God quite apart from divine mercy. On the other hand, they disdain others, their concerns with holiness manifested in the exclusion of others from their circles.”

[6] Gonzalez, Luke, 212-213. “Both the Pharisee and the tax collector stand, one ‘by himself’ and the other ‘far off,’ One stands by himself so as not to be contaminated by others less pure than he. The other stands far off because he does not consider himself worthy. Yet, the one who stands far off is in fact nearer to God.”

[7] Green, Luke, 649. “Within his social world, the toll collector is a person of low status, a deviant; he has no place among the others, nor does he attempt to seize a place by asserting his honor. Averting his eyes, beating his breasts-these are demonstrations of humility and shame that are consistent with his request for divine favor.”

[8] Green, Luke, 649. “…One claims superior status for himself by comparing himself with and separating himself from others; the other makes no claims to status at all, but acknowledges his position as a sinner who can take refuge only in the beneficence of God. Convinced of his righteousness, dependent on his own acts of piety, one asks for and receives nothing from God. The other comes to God in humility and receives that for which he asks, compassion and restoration. Like other ‘sinners’ in the Third Gospel, he finds himself included among God’s people…”

[9]  Green, Luke, 643. “The basic issue is this: Who recognizes God as the gracious benefactor? Who are those who not only come to God openhandedly in trust and expectation, but also behave accordingly, with graciousness, toward others.”

[10] Gonzalez, Luke, 213. “All that the Pharisee says he does he should be doing; and all he says he is not, he should not be…Jesus is not saying that people should not do what the Pharisee does (fasting and tithing) nor that they should become collaborators with the powerful and the ungodly, as tax collectors were. He is saying that, when the Pharisee uses his piety and religious practices to consider himself better than the tax collector, he will not be justified; and that even a tax collector who acknowledges his sin and his shortcomings will be justified. The reversal is that the one who brings piety, purity, and obedience, and who trusts in all these, is farther away from God than the one who simply brings misery, weakness, and dependence.”

[11] Anna Sewell Black Beauty New York, NY: Grosset & Dunlap, 1950. Original Publication: UK: Jarrold & Sons, 1877. pp.180-185.

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Be Merciful as God is Merciful

Sermon on Luke 6:27-38

Psalm 37:41-42  But the deliverance of the righteous comes from [God]; [God] is their stronghold in time of trouble. [God] will help them and rescue them; [God] will rescue them from the wicked and deliver them, because they seek refuge in [God].

Introduction

Being told to “love your enemies” is easier said than done. The command is muddled by how we define “enemy” in a way that leans toward those *we* don’t like. It’s definitely hard to override disdain with feelings of love; when we don’t like someone, we just don’t like someone. Enemies also aren’t the people who we can’t forgive because they hurt us once in some way. That’s a real feeling and one I understand very well. Yet, it has its own category. Still, that person is not an enemy, no matter how angry you (still) are.

Who is the enemy?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer defines “enemy” in his text, The Cost of Discipleship, writing on Matthew 5:43-48:

“By our enemies Jesus means those who are quite intractable and utterly unresponsive to our love, who forgive us nothing when we forgive them all, who requite our love with hatred and our service with derision…”[1]

Cost of Discipleship

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing in 1937, was already a target of Hitler’s personal aggression. Two days after Hitler took office on January 30, 1933, Bonhoeffer aired a public radio broadcast in which he offered criticism of the Führer (without naming him directly); this broadcast was cut off before it was finished.[2] The text quoted above came to Bonhoeffer in response to his contemplation of the Sermon on the Mount and how it impacted the believer in terms of Christian-life formation related to “what it means to follow Jesus Christ.”[3] As the church struggled to find it’s voice under the tyranny of Hitler, Bonhoeffer sought to articulate something into the void. For Bonhoeffer he himself in specific and Christians in general were at a “fork in the road.”[4] He and other pastors were under great pressure to capitulate to the oppressive demands and threats of the NSDAP[5] who was strangling and starving all resistance.

All that to say: Bonhoeffer, even with his privilege, wasn’t writing about enemy-love from a secluded and safe distance. He wasn’t instructing people who were fighting for their lives while he grew fat from luxury and comfort. He was in the thick of it, guiding others into it, and teaching those younger about this radical conception of love even for those who are threatening your life and survival.

“Love asks nothing in return, but seeks those who need it. And who needs our love more than those who are consumed with hatred and are utterly devoid of love? Who in other words deserves our love more than our enemy? Where is love more glorified than where she dwells in the midst of her enemies.”[6]

Cost of Discipleship

Who loves the one who bullies them? Who loves the ones who are bent on violence and destruction and death? Who loves those enlisted in this service of a fascist dictator in the Sturmabteilung (SA)[7] and the Schutzstaffel (SS)?[8] But yet—in the face of fear, terror, threat, and very real death—this is what Bonhoeffer was asking from all who would listen to the exhortation of Christ.

Luke 6:27-38

“But to you all I say to those who are listening: Love your enemies, in the same way act toward those who hate you, bless those who are cursing you, offer prayer concerning those who are reviling you. To the one who strikes you on the cheek, present also the other; and from the one who removes your cloak, do not hinder the tunic also. Give to all who are asking you, and from the one who removes things form you do not demand [them] back. And according to the manner you wish people do to you, you do to them likewise. [9]

Luke 6:27-31

When Jesus exhorts “those who are listening” to do what seems like the impossible, he is elevating the call to righteousness.[10] While you might have believed x, or thought y, I say…ↈ.[11] (Something utterly new.) Whatever was assumed, is no longer. Jesus begins by calling attention to an alteration, specifically about “enemies.”

For Jesus, and especially for those who follow him, Love—divine love—is more than a feeling; it’s an action.[12] And not a passive action, but a proactive one; love empowers us to love in radical ways, even to love those who hate us.[13] Love, for Jesus, is done toward others (those least deserving and most in need) in such a way that it reflects what you would want done to your own body and person. In the love-economy of the reign of God: love loves, no matter the status of the other person. [14] In the love-economy of the reign of God not even enemies are the categorical other; for this new community of Christ—the ones who follow after Jesus in person (flesh and bone)[15] and then later by the power of the Holy Spirit—there are only porous boundaries. It is this very community who refuses to declare definitively that another or an other is an “enemy”, undeserving of love, kindness, mercy.[16] Jesus exhorts all those who are listening to love especially the “enemy.” [17]

The reason for the exhortation is embedded in the second half of the text, “And your wages  will be many, and you will be children of the highest, because God is gentle on behalf of the ungrateful and wicked people,” (6:35). In other words, love is about mercy, and God is merciful—abundantly merciful. So, as God is merciful and kind,[18] so too are those who follow Jesus, God of very God.[19] The basis of the ethical posture of this new community: do as God does because God’s nature made manifest in God’s Christ is the starting point for any and all discussions of “Christian” ethics.[20] And this Jesus will allow love to cover over and define every space and distance between him and the other so that he can declare that other as beloved even when we’d say otherwise.

Conclusion

In the encounter with God in the event of faith the believer is tossed about and placed in the world in a way that is right-side-up even if it feels completely up-side-down. It is in this new life in God, fueled by the receipt of divine love, and from the magnitude of mercy we proceed (like being (re)born) into the world bearing the image of God in our features and new genetic code marked by love.[21] Because we have been recreated through faith, through our encounter with God in the event of faith, this puts a pause (even if momentary) on our desire to judge others by their actions. We are asked to think of what we would want from someone when we were acting in such a way; thus, we cannot determine who is and who is not to receive our mercy and grace if God does not withhold either from us.[22] If we so desire grace and mercy; are we also able to grant such things to others?

Loving the enemy feels impossible if it means I must hug and kiss and “love-on” the one who is hurting me, wounding me, being violent toward me. It’s just another violent Christian doctrine if it means I must lose myself to become a vacuous vehicle for abuse—this actually isn’t love because love is not vacuous existence lacking self, but active participation in the activity of love.

But maybe I’m radical enough to think it’s possible: because with God all things are possible. If we walk in love because we’re born of Love, then where we are there that space is filled with love. If God is with us, so too is God’s love. It does not mean I now think this enemy is just great, but it may mean I see them with God’s eyes. Maybe, I see a human, stuck in a misconception of the world detrimental to others and to themselves. I might see one who was a mere baby, held tightly by loving arms of a mother; I might even cry for sadness of the pain that caused this one to be as they are right now.

I know by standing in love and stepping forward in love, love goes with me. I do know that—like tiles being flipped over from the side of “not-love” to the side of “love”—the space and distance between me and my enemy is overhauled from not-love to love. (I do not even need to be physically close to my enemy to alter the space between us.) I know that by dropping the term “enemy”, I’ve already lost one; I know that by declaring “beloved” this one is now not my enemy. There is power in words. So, what happens when we use our words to alter the space and distance between us and our enemies? Would we not want that for ourselves? Would we not want someone else to see us as “beloved” and not as “enemy”? When we allow love to redefine our space and distance and location, then anything is really possible because love will always crack open what is to make room for possibility to blossom.

Beloved, you’re loved by God; mercy is new every morning. This divine love and mercy, forever altering the space between God and humanity bent on their own determinations and judgments and gains, is the very love that is glorified among those very children of God at their worst and best. God’s love is most exalted when it does what it loves to do: bringing God’s life and light to the farthest corners of the cosmos, overhauling death to make room for life, declaring beloved those whom were once called “enemy.”

[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer The Cost of Discipleship New York, NY: Macmillan, 1959. 164. Emphasis, mine

[2] Christiane Tietz Theologian of Resistance: The Life and Thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Tran s Victoria J. Barnett. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2016. 36.

[3] Tietz, Resistance, 60.

[4] Tietz, Resistance, 63.

[5] Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; The National Socialist German Worker’s Party.

[6] Bonhoeffer Discipleship 164. Emphasis, mine.

[7] Trans: Storm Division; the original para-military force of the Nazi’s.

[8] Trans: Armed Military/”Protection Squad”

[9] Translation mine unless otherwise noted.

[10] Justo L. Gonzalez Luke Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. Louisville, KY: WJK, 2010. 94 “The Sermon on the Plain now turns to those who are ready to accept Jesus’ call to a greater righteousness, and is therefore introduced with the words, “But I say to you that listen.” This may also be read as a further explanation of the last beatitude and its parallel woe, which have to do with the hatred of others toward the disciples.” See also: Joel Green (bibliographic material below): “A new beginning in Jesus’ sermon is marked by his words, ‘But I say to you that listen. …’ This should not blind us to the intimate relationship of this section of the address to what has preceded…” 269.

[11] Green Luke 272. “…he is asking people to accept an inversion of the world order, to agree with him that the world order has been inverted, and to act accordingly.”

[12] Gonzalez Luke 94. “Significantly, when one compares this section in Luke to its parallel in Matthew, it is clear that Luke emphasizes the use of possessions, and that he wants to make clear that Christian love is not just a sentiment or a feeling, but also an attitude leading to concrete action: “do good to those who hate you.’”

[13] Green Luke 272. “Love is expressed in doing good – that is, not by passivity in the face of opposition but in proactivity: doing good blessing, praying, and offering the second cheek and the shirt along with the coat.”

[14] Green Luke 272. “The category of “enemies” may include others, however, and not only those who deliberately oppose Jesus’ followers. Because the beggar is habitually defined as outside the circles of companionship of all but other beggars, they would not be classed as “friends” but as “enemies,” outsiders. Love is due them as well, as though they were comrades and kin, and in their case love is expressed in giving.”

[15] Green Luke 271-272. “Jesus’ sermon, then, serves an interpretive function for the narrative as it has developed thus far, casting in positive and constructive terms the worldview and concomitant practices Jesus’ message portends. It is also challenging, summoning its audience(s) to adopt this alterative view of the world and so to measure its practices by its canons.”

[16] Joel B. Green The Gospel of Luke The New International Commentary on the New Testament Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997. 270. “One corollary of Jesus’ message, then, is the construction of a boundary, the delineation of behavior characteristic of those within the community. This is an important observation, since one of the distinguishing marks of his ethic is a worldview that advocates love of enemies. But as a practice, it would appear that love of enemies is designed to mitigate social tensions that, if habitual, would jeopardize the identity of any group. How can this community be distinguished by a practice that dissolves any such distinctions? …in essence, Jesus calls on his followers. To form а community the boundaries of which are porous and whose primary emblematic behavior is its refusal to treat others (even, or especially, those who hate, exclude, revile, and defame you) as though they were enemies.”

[17] Green Luke 272. “Jesus’ words, “Love your enemies,” lack any commonly held ethical base and can only be understood as an admonition to conduct inspired by God’s own graciousness (W 350-36). This is not love for all humanity in general, but more specifically for those who stand in opposition to Jesus’ followers – those whom Luke has already noted in narration (5:27-6:11) and about whom Jesus has already spoken (vv 22-23).”

[18] Green Luke 271. “…in redefining the world for his followers, potential and actual, Jesus posits as its foundation his image of God as merciful Father (6:36) – a base on which he can draft the character of his followers, character that will manifest itself in the demeanor and practices here described.”

[19] Gonzalez Luke 94. This is parallel to Matthew’s ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Matt. S:48). While Matthew’s words have often been taken out of context as the basis for a theological claim about God’s ontological perfection, Luke’s leave no room for such an interpretation. The divine perfection that the disciples are to imitate is the perfection of an all-embracing mercy

[20][20] Gonzalez Luke 94. “Furthermore, even though we often tend to think that the basis for the Christian ethics of love is the Golden Rule, in the final analysis the basis for Christian ethics is the very nature and action of God.”

[21] Green Luke 273. “…he incorporates into one utterance the character of this new people and the practices it engenders; theirs will be a countercultural existence indeed for their lives are based on an inverted understanding of their social world.”

[22] Green Luke 275. “Just as the merciful God does not predetermine who will or will not be the recipients of his kindness, so Jesus’ followers must refuse to “judge” – that is, to prejudge, to predetermine who might be the recipients of their graciousness. This is nothing but the command to love one’s enemies restated negatively. In an important sense, Jesus’ instructions are to refuse to act as those scribes and Pharisees had done in 5:27-32, as they calculated beforehand the status of those toll collectors and sinners and thereby excluded them from their circles of social interaction. …Jesus’ followers give freely, without dragging others and especially those in need into the quagmire of never-ending cycles of repayment and liability. And God will lavishly repay them.”

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Exposed and Loved

Sermon on 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Psalm 138:1-2 I will give thanks to you, O Lord, with my whole heart; before the gods I will sing your praise. I will bow down toward your holy temple and praise your Name, because of your love and faithfulness…

Introduction

Have you ever been exposed?

I’m sure we all have stories from our childhood where a parent or an older sibling found us mid infraction. A story that always comes to mind for me was the time in first grade. I took it upon myself to defend my friend who was disciplined by the driver of the bus during the ride home from school. As I stepped down from the bus, I turned, and then gave the bus driver a selection of choice words. Then I sprinted home—as fast as possible—through waist deep Minnesota snow while wearing moonboots. What I didn’t know was that my big brother had been right there when I let those words rip. And, for a kid who was regularly messing up, he now had his moment of glory: the baby of the family had done something wrong… he was ready to expose me. And he did. Let’s just say, I didn’t use some of those words for a very long time.

While this was a rather comical moment from my history, there are other moments I keep locked in my heart, moments when I was exposed but not unto punishment, judgment, and condemnation but unto mercy, grace, and life. Those moments when I did not receive what I rightfully deserved to receive, I hold as treasures of my history. These moments are rich and profound; they weave together that which is bad with that which is good, that which was ugly with that which is beautiful, that which was submerged in lightlessness with that which is exposed in lightfulness.

One such moment was an extensive moment of existence where I felt my life falling from my body as I lost myself into my pain and anguish, into my greed and vanity, into my self-inflicted violence and abuse. I was a sham. There was not life in me even though I went about from day to day. I hated me. I hated who I was. I could barely look in the mirror because I couldn’t handle the deep sadness of disappointment and failure. But then God. God spoke through the humble proclamation of God’s love for the world in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, and I heard something I couldn’t believe to be true: me? Loved? Good? Welcomed? A holy and righteous God and “Lauren” in the same sentence?

My life was changed. Forever. I’d never be the same. Love changes us.

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Then he was seen by James, then to all the apostles. Now, last of all as if one untimely born, he was seen also by me. For I, I am the least of the apostles of whom I am not fit to be called apostle on the very account that I persecuted the church of God. Now by the grace of God, I am what I am, and the grace of God with reference to me has not been empty…[1]

1 Corinthians 15:7-10

So, when I read Paul’s words in 1 Cor 15:7-10, it’s this moment of confession—of his own encounter with God in the event of faith exposing him—that becomes the operative force surging through this passage. Yes, the proto-credal statements[2] present in the earlier part of chapter 15 are important; yet, the thrust of the chapter hinges on the rampant divine love in the world seeking and saving the lost, of whom Paul is a member. This confessional outburst of qualifying (or disqualifying) content highlights the magnitude of divine love, it’s remarkably unconditional character, and its power to expose one unto life…no matter how bad they are. For all intents and purposes, as Paul considers the proclamation of the gospel which he received and which he shares with the Corinthians,[3] he is caught up in the emotional profundity of God’s love for him; God’s transformative love saved him from his death filled ways and view of the world unto and into God’s love and life.[4]

Before Paul does launch into his own desperate history and the work of God in the midst of that history, Paul anchors the contents of the gospel proclamation (the life, death, and resurrection) of Christ in the scriptures (“according to the writings”[5]). In doing this, Paul highlights for the Corinthians that this divine activity of love in Christ is the same divine activity of love that has been proclaimed in the midst of God’s people throughout the first testament in the words of Torah, the Nevi’im, and the Ketuvim (the revelation of the Law, the Prophets, and the Wisdom writings).[6] Subsequently, the divine activity of love that is the foundation and the source of the creation of the cosmos is also the very source of the recreative event of encounter with God in the event of faith; God is the God of creation and new creation, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.[7]

Thus, as Paul poetically describes his situation in the midst of speaking of divine activity of love in the world, he emphasizes the power of God’s love surging through the world wrapping up into God and into Love all who get caught up. To be caught up into God through the act of divine love seeking the beloved is the salvation event. To be loved by God, to be given God’s grace for you no matter what is being saved: saved from a sham existence into a true one, one that has substance, presence, and is filled with the fullness of emotional and physical actuality with and for others and not merely for oneself. And Paul’s point is ultimately this profound reality: as he was going about persecuting the Church, God loved him into new creation—God caught him up, he did not catch God.[8] This grace of God and love from God is all God; and if all God then it is secured because it’s God’s work and God secures God’s work in God’s self (God’s promises do not return void or are they uttered in vain or are they fruitless). In other words, if this is God’s work of love toward us and it is not our work, then we cannot lose this grace and love because it’s not ours to lose. You can’t lose God’s love because God loves you and not because you do this or don’t do that; God just loves you, dearly and deeply loves you.

Conclusion

Our encounters with God in the event of faith can be big or small, they can rival Paul’s in sudden dramatic fashion, or they can be a subtle slow reveal. Yet, no matter what, they are never insignificant because they expose us unto new life. For me, for my story, my encounter with God felt big like being swept up in a wave of everything too good to be true: to be completely seen and loved for no reason than just because. I’m certain I’m here because of I was so swept up. And I’m not only here in this church and in these robes, but actually here…present in body, mind, and soul. The cry of my heart met in God’s exposing love unto life.

Save me, I’m lost
Oh, Lord, I’ve been waiting for you
I’ll pay any cost
Save me from being confused
Show me what I’m looking for[9]

Show Me What I’m Looking For

But, I am also here, in this building and in these robes to walk in the same footsteps of Paul. I now get to tell you that if God caught me up in God’s exposing love, you, too, Beloved, are caught up. Every priest called to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ—the articulation of God’s divine activity of love in the world—must share the good news of God’s love with the people they are called to love. And I love that word “share”. Not only do I share with you the story of God’s love for the world and for you, I share in it with you. I too am here to hear the story even as I am charged to tell it. I share in the gracious and unconditional gift of God’s self revealed in God’s grace and love for me, for you, for us, for the world.  

When we tell the story of God’s love for the world in Christ to others, let us remember that our stories are now woven into in this one—no matter how bad or how ugly you think your story is or has been, it is now embedded and transformed in this good and beautiful story, radically transformed in the light of the glory of God for the glory of God. We are, truly, loved into new creations by the author of our salvation and foundation of our lives, by the one who threw the stars into place and the spun the planets into orbit; we are, truly, and forever, no longer lost, no longer confused, because we are the beloved.

[1] Translation mine.

[2] Anthony C. Thiselton The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text TNIGTC Eds. I Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000. 1188. “Since the death and resurrection of Christ are both states of affairs or events extra nos and transforming events which shape faith, both aspects are fundamental for 15:3-5…Hence foundational confessions in the pre-Pauline and Pauline churches serve both as declarative acts of truth claims in the context of proclamation and teaching and as an oath of loyalty in baptism, the Eucharist, or times of persecution.”

[3] Thiselton, 1 Corinthians, 1185. “τίνι λόγω is probably instrumental and is used here as if it were a relative, as it occurs frequently in the papyri. Any difficulty dissolves…as soon as we recall that λόγος often denotes not simply word, message, or act of speaking but also the content or substance of a declaration, assertion, proposition, or other communicative act. The verb εὐαγγελίζομαι already means to proclaim the gospel; hence Paul refers to the substance of the gospel that I proclaimed to you.”

[4] Thiselton, 1 Corinthians, 1184-1185. “We must understand the gospel in 15:1, therefore, to denote more than the message of the resurrection, but not less. It denotes the message of salvation; in vv. 3-4 Paul endorses the shared pre-Pauline tradition which both proclaims the death and resurrection of Christ and interprets it in terms of the saving and transforming power of God as this receives explanation and intelligibility within the frame of reference provided by the [Old Testament] scripture.”

[5] …κατὰ τὰς γραφὰς… (found in vv. 3 and 4).

[6] Thiselton, 1 Corinthians, 1195. This paves the way for our understanding the particular nuance of the phrase according to the scriptures when it is applied as a context for understanding the resurrection of Jesus Christ, (a) First, it does indeed relate this divine act of vindication and sovereign action to the theme of promise. Its occurrence rests not only on divine power and divine grace, but also on divine faithfulness to vindicate his obedient messianic agent,

[7] Thiselton 1195. “Third, it bears witness to the character of God whom the scriptures portray as a giving and gracious as well as a sovereign, faithful creator. If creation itself is God’s gift, the new creation which begins with Christ’s resurrection and promises the resurrection of believers is no less so.”

[8] Thiselton 1210. “Given Paul’s association of his encounter with the resurrected life as one of new creation (2 Cor 4:6; cf. Gen 1:3-5), it seems most probable that Paul perceives himself as one who was unable to contribute anything to an encounter in which God’s sovereign grace was all, even to the extent of giving life to one who was humanly beyond all hope. This precisely reflects the theme of resurrection as God’s sovereign gift of life to the dead (not to those who already possess capacities of self-perpetuating survival) throughout this chapter.”

[9] Carolina Liar Show Me What I’m Looking For writers: Karlsson Tobias Erik, Wolfinbarger Chad Douglas 2008

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Like Beloved Children

Psalm 130:4-7: I wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him; in his word is my hope. My soul waits for the Lord, more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. O Israel, wait for the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy; With him there is plenteous redemption, and he shall redeem Israel from all their sins.

Introduction

For 11 years, I was a stay-at-home parent. My favorite and least favorite part of being a stay-at-home parent was watching how my mannerisms, colloquialisms, and habits were reproduced by my children—for better or for worse. Somedays it would be Liza who would see to her duty of unpacking the pantry I just packed after a run to the store. Or it was Quinn who would use a spare calculator as a cellphone and walk around the house, like I did when I was on the phone, yammering to some unknown person while imitating my intonations and inflections. Or, in Jack’s case, it was making use of my penchant and fondness for polysyllabic words.

Of all the stories I have about Jack’s ability to command language and his artistic ability to render it to his will, my favorite was an encounter with our mailman on a warm summer day. Playing out in the gated front porch, both boys were busy with paints and bubbles. The mailman climbed the two flights of stairs to our mounted mailbox. As he was putting the mail in the mailbox, he greeted the two toddlers with a happy smile and a warm, “Hey guys!” Quinn, my shy extrovert, smiled and whispered a hello in reply. Jack, a little over two and wearing nothing but a bulky cloth diaper, looked at the mailman, pointed at him, and—assertive and confident—said, “Do not antagonize our cat, Joe Joe!” The mailman was a bit taken aback by both the prohibition and from whom it came. He laughed and assured my son, “Don’t worry, buddy, I won’t!”

It didn’t take but a second to figure out where Jack had learned that polysyllabic word: me. Day in and day out I would use various words to exhort the boys to stop (verbally) fighting—some more colorful than others, but always words natural to the way I speak. And, “antagonize” was one of those words targeted at the boys locked in verbal fisticuffs. Thus, Jack had not only made note of it, he learned when to use it. He didn’t need to memorize the word; he just heard it enough in specific situations to absorb it and imitate it to an innocent mailman making rounds.

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Let all bitterness and outbursts of negative passion and impulsive vengeance and clamoring against others and abusive language be removed from you with all malice. Now be kind with respect to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God forgave you in Christ. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love, just as Christ loved us and handed himself over for our sake, as an offering and sacrifice for a fragrant odor to God (Eph 4:31-5:2)[1]

Ephesians 4:31-5:2

The author of our love letter to Ephesus continues with the exhortative nature initiated at the start of chapter four. As we pick up in v. 25, neither lose the beseeching to walk worthy of the call to which you were called (v.1), nor the imagery of being the reborn children of divine Love. What we have in our portion from Ephesians today is a dive into what it looks like to walk in this worthy way, as those beloved children of God—heirs with Christ of the fulfilled promises—sealed by the Holy Spirit. Being reborn of God in and by love, we are to reflect that divine genetic material of love into the world; the old life being shed, we are new.[2] This new person and worthy walk, according to the author, is what it means to be a new person born into the reign of God in the world.[3]

What will this new life reborn of love look like? The first thing is removing falsehood from our language. This isn’t about threatening others with condemnation if they lie; it’s about pursing what is genuine and real, rejecting what is in opposition to genuine and real.[4] We not only seek honesty with others, but we are also honest with ourselves. We live in reality and not in some mythical approximation that makes us feel comfortable. We can twist and bend our words and language about the world however we want, but this exhortation is about calling things as they are for what they are. We owe others truth because we are linked together with them in our humanity and as objects of divine love—both in and outside of our common gathering on Sunday.[5] In this way, to propagate falsehood does harm to us as it is does to others. Perpetuating the myth and lie of the kingdom of humanity keeps us all trapped in complicity and captivity of the myth and lie.

Closely linked with putting aside untruth, we’re exhorted to be angry in a life-giving way and not in a death-dealing way. As we’re called to see things as they are, we will become angry when we see people suffering and being held captive by oppression and injustice perpetuated by the myth and lie.[6] In this righteous anger over pain and suffering,[7] we’re to aim at the mark: remedying the situation and not exacerbating it. We are prohibited from missing the mark (“sin”), thus in the negative prohibition is the positive command: do the right thing, fight for those who need to be fought for, ally with those who are being pressed and killed by greed, and overturn violent institutional and systemic oppression as if they were tables.[8] Concurrently, we must prevent our anger from festering for too long and becoming septic.[9] This is why it’s important to channel the energy of anger toward life; festered and septic anger brings death.

The next two exhortations—to work with hands and not steal and the call to speak edifying words and not “worthless” words—address the orientation of heart of the new person as the beloved child of God. Both exhortations are directed to the neighbor. While we may think thievery is anyone who steals what they have not purchased, it’s more than that. It’s about greed. A poor person steals bread to eat because they have a desire to eat; a rich person steals not for lack but because of a desire to satisfy greed. A loquacious person may speak many words, but not all of them will be edifying. In both commands the heart of the believer is exposed. We must keep watch over ourselves and our tendency to fall prey to the myths of our society that convince us we can say what we want and take what we want to the detriment of the neighbor. We must remember that our material existence and the material of our words are not ours; rather, they are of God because we are reborn of divine love.[10] We use both our work, our material existence, and our words[11] to benefit those in need, bringing the love of God to them in real and tangible ways. Thus, the Holy of Spirit of God (in you and in whom you are sealed[12]) rejoices and is not grieved.[13],[14]

Conclusion

We are to remove from us a bitter attitude, negative outbursts of passion, destructive anger, clamoring against each other, and abusive language. In other words, our attitude, disposition and manner of speech,[15] must resist participating in death-dealing. This is the way of humanity, bent on its desires to consume until everything is gone, bent on its own destruction, bent on gain and greed even if it means the end of the world, of humanity, and of themselves. Rather, we are to pull close to our divine parent, to gaze upon God in Christ. We are to look so ardently and listen so well (shema) that we, like the beloved children of God that we are, mimic Christ in the world. The more we gaze upon Christ, the more we hear about God’s activity and speech manifest in Christ for us and the entire creation and cosmos, the more we will reflect those things into the world and all for the love of God and for our neighbor.

The more we understand God’s compassion for us and the world, made tangible in Christ, the more compassion will take root, grow, and flourish in our hearts, minds, and bodies in word and deed.[16] As we see and hear God weep with us in our grief and sorrow, so will we weep with others who grieve and sorrow. As we see and hear God relieve our hunger and thirst, so will we relieve the hunger and thirst of others. As we see and hear God present in our pain and suffering, so will we be present in the pain and suffering of others. As we see and hear God ally with us in our captivity and get angry about it, so will we ally with those who are being held captive and be angry about it. As we see and hear God forgive us for missing the mark, we will forgive others who miss the mark, too. As we witness by eye and ear God’s gracious and free gift of Grace in Christ to us, we will reflect this free gift of grace into the world.[17]

Like beloved children of Love, let us know God’s love for us and the cosmos in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit that we can’t do anything else but mimic and imitate this divine love into the banality and monotony of daily life, boldly communicating this profound love to others in word and deed…even to the unsuspecting mailperson making their rounds on a warm summer day.[18]

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[2] Harold W. Hoehner Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2002. 615. “Having established the believers position as a new person, the inferential conjunction Sid points to the desired application of this position. The lifestyle of the old person is integrally tied to the person and so the lifestyle and the position of the new should be integrally bound together. Once the new person had been put on at conversion, one’s subsequent life should reflect what he or she is.”

[3] Markus Barth Ephesians: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on Chapters 4-6 The Anchor Bible Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974 511  “In what follows Paul presents examples to show what specific deeds and attitudes are rejected when the ‘0ld Man’ is castaway.”

[4] Hoehner Ephesians 615-616, Pseudos “…in all contexts this word is used as the antithesis of truth…. Falsehood connotes that which is not genuine or real. The lifestyle of the old person was one of deception (v. 22). This kind of lifestyle has been laid aside.”

[5] Allen Verhey and Joseph S. Harvard Ephesians Belief: A Theological Commentary Louisville, KY: WJK, 2011. 188, “Truth is owed to the neighbors because of our social solidarity with them. It is also a bit surprising that the text does not say that we are members of the ‘body’. The ‘body’ is not mentioned. Perhaps it is also too obvious to mention. But perhaps the reference the ‘body’ is left out because ‘the neighbors’ to whom we are to ‘speak the truth’ evidently include those who are not members of the body, not members of the church. The exhortation was not simply that we should tell the truth ‘to one another.’ Truthfulness is not just owed to other members of the church, but to any and all neighbors.’ The ‘truth’ in Jesus of our social solidarity, that ‘we are members of one another’ points beyond the church to the universal community that is God’s plan.”

[6] Verhey and Harvard Ephesians 190, “Anger at injustice is permitted. Indeed, an injustice not only prompts anger; it requires it When we see the poor oppressed, we should get angry. When the ‘other’ is demeaned or insulted, we should get angry. But anger can be an occasion for sin, for seeking revenge instead of justice, for holding a grudge instead of seeking reconciliation. It is sin that is renounced.”

[7] Barth Ephesians 513, “Among the saints who are ‘God’s imitators’ (5:1) such anger cannot be excluded any more than in God himself (Rom 1:18; 2:5, 8; 5:9) or in the Messiah (Mark 3:5, etc.). ‘Wrath against a brother’ draws judgment upon the angry man (Matt 5:22; cf Gen 45:24), but ‘indignation on behalf of others is one of the common bonds by which society is held together.’”

[8] Hoehner Ephesians 619, We Anger “Since the word sometimes is in reference to Gods anger it cannot be said that anger is intrinsically evil. Hence, the next command is important. The imperative is from ὰμαρτάνω, meaning in classical Greek ‘to miss the mark’ such as when throwing a spear or ‘to miss’ the way. Generally it means ‘to fail to accomplish ones purpose, go wrong.’”

[9] Hoehner Ephesians 623, “This is why Paul does not want believers to give the devil an opportunity by their anger. The devil twists and distorts the truth. If there is no quick restoration between parties, further anger mounts and dissension and revenge often result.”

[10] Verhey and Harvard Ephesians 192-193, “There is the sort of theft to which the poor and powerless are tempted, but there are also the subtle forms of stealing that tempt the rich and powerful. It is a kind of theft when the rich get richer at the expense of a decent wage for laborers or by taking advantage of slaves. It is a kind of theft when merchants ‘make the ephah small and the shekel great’ (Amos 8:5). It is a kind of theft when a judge takes a bribe. And it is a kind of theft when the wealthy do not recognize that what they call “their own” is really God s and an opportunity to practice justice and generosity. It is a kind of theft when the rich ignore and dismiss the legitimate claims of the poor upon them, when they do not share with the needy what is due them by Gods justice. It is likely that the latter sorts of theft are in view here in Ephesians rather than the first. Then one need not suppose that there were a lot of petty thieves and shoplifters in the churches of the Lycus Valley.”

[11] Hoehner Ephesians 631, “Paul states that believers are accountable for what they say. In fact every word is accountable. Care must be taken that each word is not useless or unprofitable but is beneficial for the building up of the body. While the preceding verse dealt with the physical needs of believers, this verse speaks to their spiritual needs.”

[12] Hoehner Ephesians 633, “In conclusion, verse 30 revolves around the person of the Holy Spirit. Believers are reminded that he has sealed them for the day of redemption. They are warned against the use of worthless words because they not only hurt the body of Christ but also grieve the Holy Spirit.”

[13] Verhey and Harvard Ephesians 194-195, “The motive here, the motive to do an honest days work, is not simply to earn a living for oneself and one’s family, honest enough motives, to be sure. The motive is surely not to accumulate enough possessions to pretend one has achieved by oneself and for oneself security and an identity. The motive, rather, is simply ‘to have something to share with the needy’ (4:28). That will include those who do not have work.”

[14] Barth Ephesians 522, Blaspheme “This term may have been chosen in order to show that one’s fellow man is under God’s protection: he who reviles his brother by using profane speech shouts obscenities against God.”

[15] Hoehner Ephesians 636, “To summarize, first noun ‘bitterness’ in verse 31 deals with attitude. The next two nouns ‘anger and wrath’ deal with disposition, and the last two ‘shouting and abusive’ refer to the manner of speech.”

[16] Verhey and Harvard Ephesians 200-1, “Compassion (eusplangchnos; NRSV ‘tenderhearted’) is the second in this triad of virtues. Compassion is a visceral response to the suffering o£ another. It is to share the suffering, to ‘suffer with’ (com-passion) another. Compassion will seek to relieve the suffering of another, even if the only way to relieve it is to be present to it, present to the sufferer, lest the sufferer be abandoned to the desolating loneliness of suffering….. In solidarity with that Christ, we hope for the day of resurrection, the day when death will be no more, when there will be no more suffering. But meanwhile we share in Christ s death. And if we share in that death in baptism and the Supper, then to refuse to share the suffering of another is quite unfitting, quite unworthy of our new identity and community.”

[17] Verhey and Harvard Ephesians 206, “Nevertheless, the broader meaning should not be neglected here. Both God’s forgiveness and the practice of forgiveness within the church are, after all, works of grace. Moreover, kindness, compassion, and forgiveness—and the whole set of renunciations and exhortations in this section—find their final motive and basis in the grace of God made known in Christ Forgiveness, surely, but also kindness and compassion, follow upon this affirmation of the gospel, that “God in Christ has been gracious to you.’”

[18] Verhey and Harvard Ephesians 206-7, “Love is the mark of God s own life, both in the relations of the Trinity and in Gods creative and redemptive relationship with Gods creation. But here, no less than in Johns epistle, ‘we know love by this, that he laid down his life for us’ (1 John 3:16). We are to imitate God by living in accord with Christ’s love. We imitate God by following Christ; we are to ‘walk [peripatetic] in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God’ (Eph. 5:2). Here, no less than in John’s epistle, the implication is that ‘we ought to lay down our lives for one another’ (1 John 3:16). That imitation of God, that following of Christ, may mean first; as in 1 John, something as mundane and commonplace as helping the needy in the community (Eph. 4:28; c£ 1 John 3:17).”

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Born of Love

Sermon on Ephesians 4:1-16

Psalm 51:9-11 Make me hear of joy and gladness, that the body you have broken may rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Introduction

Of my three children, Liza was by far the most active in utero. I felt her quick and swift movements early and often up until the very end of her 41 weeks. I’m not sure what she was doing, but Daniel and I often joked that she was busy building extra rooms and additions in her 98-degree cave. She was here, she was there, she was … wait, how did you get there?! Even our obstetrician had difficulty locating her heartbeat early on so that we could hear it for longer than a few seconds. You’d hear the rapid thump-thump-thump draw close to the doppler and then *poof!* like magic, she was gone. As she grew larger (she’d be about 10lb when she was born), I’d literally rock with her full-bodied movements. She didn’t just kick, she lambadad about, with a flamenco thrown in here and there.

It was just a few weeks out from what was to be her birthday, and I busy capitalizing on the quiet house with both boys off at school until 3:30pm. I sat at my computer and worked, writing up some notes on Thomas Aquinas. I felt her roll about. I rocked in response to her motions. And then, out of the corners of my eyes as I was typing, I saw my belly go left and right at the exact same time. I went from round to oblong because #theogbg decided she was in the mood for a full body stretch. I immediately put my hands to my now football shaped belly; I felt her hands and her feet. She was in there and I was out here, and we were one but not, but so much one in our distinction and symbiosis in love.

While birth would relocate her into her my arms and eventually in front of me, I knew that deep connection wouldn’t break once the link of the umbilical cord was broken. The symbiosis and distinction would take on new and vibrant colors and encounters, yet that very moment was the initial of a myriad of fractals of love in action as I would continue to stretch around her: through her activity, in response to her growth, and with her self-discovery and disclosure. And as she grows more and more, more and more will that bond of love, that realm of love adjust to bear the weight of the transformation of her, of me, and us together as one.

Ephesians 4:1-16

Therefore, I, the prisoner in and because of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you were called, with all humility and gentleness, with long-suffering, enduring one another in love; being eager to keep guard over the unity of the Spirit with respect to the bond of peace. One body and one spirit, just as even one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all, who [is] above all both through all and in all. Now to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of the free gift of Christ.[1]

Ephesians 4:1-7

Our author begins chapter four of the letter to the Ephesians with a powerful “Therefore” tightly linked to an urgent beseeching for the Ephesians to walk worthily. What preceded this exhortation of exhortations is not now forgotten but is the foundation and motivation of the exhortation. The author hasn’t ceased to preach the gospel to focus on the community. Rather it’s the articulation of the gospel of Christ in imperatives[2] into the community; the emphasis is still on the divine activity[3] now manifest in the faith and love of the community. [4] The divine love in action toward humanity—unifying people previously separated and unifying God to God’s people—is now translated by its own self-disclosure into the community.[5]

There’s no way around it, what came before in the first three chapters is the fuel of the liberating power of divine love. It is in this way: The encounter with God in the event of faith in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit[6] changes us forever because we are enwombed in the totality of divine love and birthed into love’s service as this community of God in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.[7] This is the rebirth that Jesus speaks of in the third chapter of the Gospel of John. In hearing the profundity of divine love for us as we are, we are transformed…forever.[8] We can’t unhear and unsee what we now hear and what we now see. We are bound to the source of our new life in love and now our activity with each other and in the world will be different than it was. Therefore, the author uses the seemingly small and subtle adverb, “worthy,” with the infinitive, “to walk”. Rather than just getting up and walking as you have been, walk like you’ve seen and heard the love of God for you and the cosmos. And necessarily we walk in community; our union with God in the event of faith is corporate as we are grafted into the body of Christ by faith and the power of the Spirit.[9]

What does this worthy walk look like for the community reborn of God symbiotically connected by divine love? The author urges his audience to walk with all humility and gentleness, with long-suffering bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit with respect to the bond of peace (vv. 2-3). Rather than being turned inward toward themselves, they are turned outward, with their faces lifted high, brazened by the glory and love of God, and turned toward their neighbor, to one another,[10] seeking and seeing the highest love for and in the neighbor for no other reason than they have first been loved.[11] Humility rejects the Ego’s assumption that it is more than it is and orients the eyes toward those of the neighbor; I don’t just see me, I see you and me. Gentleness isn’t weakness but rightly ordered self-control, knowing when and where to use force and when not to; I will ally with you in the fight and in rest.[12] Being realistic about the burden and demand of community, the community acknowledges the burden and shows up in that burden to walk with their neighbors through their trials and tribulations, to bear with the neighbor in their captivity and oppression, and to allow for the differences that exist in community; I will love[13] you as you are because I’ve been loved as is;[14] that’s what the miracle of love: it just loves.[15] And all of it oriented toward the unity of the community where love and the Spirit of peace stretch out over it, bringing it closer while allowing it to grow and expand.

Conclusion

What if I’m far from home?
Oh brother, I will hear you call.
What if I lose it all?
Oh sister, I will help you out.
Oh, if the sky comes falling down
For you, there’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do.[16]

The humble enamored author of Ephesians directs us to see that we are grafted into this body of Christ through love and the Spirit, and reborn of this love thus of the same family with a familiar history with those in Ephesus and with each other. We, like those members of the early church, have been knit together in the womb of divine love, submerged in the amniotic fluid of love, and birthed anew into a new age of the reign of God with the first breath of divine love in our new lungs. And like those first followers of the way so long ago, we are urged by this divine Love to love the world: it’s wonderful and various inhabitants of flora, fauna, and anthrop[a].

In the ever expanding ὺμᾶς of the letter, once penned to a small few in Ephesus, we are caught up in the call to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we’ve been called. We are called to be one in the unity of the diversity of community—not isolated but knit together sharing a common history and hope. We are called to know and feel the divine love of God for us manifest in Christ present in us by the power of the Holy Spirit and then to love as we’ve been loved.[17]

Love is the divine tie that binds, the substance that unites and draws bodies together, that needs no reason and sense yet makes so much sense and is its own reason. Love just loves. Nothing stops it: not time, material, or distance–not even death can stop the power and dynamic movement of love. It’s the great eternal mystery of all time; it is the substance of God, made flesh in Christ, and is the material substance dwelling among us and in us now in the presence of the Holy Spirit uniting us back into God. Love loves—amid the closeness of intimacy and from the furthest edges of infinity…Love loves the beloved and the beloved loves.[18]

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted in the text.

[2] Markus Barth Ephesians: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on Chapters 4-6 The Anchor Bible Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974 457, “A close look at the details of Pauline ethics will discover that the structure, the intention, and the individual parts of Paul’s admonition are invariably informed and determined by the grace which the apostle proclaims and to which he subjects himself and others. Christ is the key, the touchstone, the scope of all. Proclamation of Christ is made even when imperatives abound. It is beyond dispute that Pauline ethics are based upon, and implicitly contained in, his Christology and soteriology. Even if Paul had written nothing at all about ethical questions, imaginative interpreters might still have derived the Pauline ethics by inference from the Pauline kerygma. But it can also be shown that his ethical utterances contain the whole gospel.”

[3] Barth Ephesians 451, “Here ecclesiology and ethics are so completely identified that they can neither be separated nor distinguished. In the second, vss. 4-6, the contents and the fact of the church’s confession are called to mind to demonstrate how essential is oneness to the very being and life of the church. She can only live as confessing church. In the third, vss. 7-12, it is shown, by means of a comment upon a Psalm text, that the exalted Christ himself gives the church diverse gifts. Each of her members benefits from the gift given from above.”

[4] Allen Verhey and Joseph S. Harvard Ephesians Belief: A Theological Commentary Louisville, KY: WJK, 2011. 133, “The pattern is rather that the gospel comes to us in both the indicative mood and in the imperative mood? To be sure, the indicative is frequently (and appropriately) first and the imperative second, but in both the gospel is proclaimed. As an apostle and as a pastor Paul was always proclaiming the gospel, ‘the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith’ (Rom. 1:16). He did not stop proclaiming the gospel when in Romans 12:2 he urged the Roman Christians to ‘be transformed by the renewing of your minds,’ or when in Romans 15:7 he urged them to ‘welcome one another.’ Such imperatives are not a mere addendum to the gospel. They are the gospel in the imperative mood, calling for ‘the obedience of faith’ (Rom. 1:5; 16:26), summoning the churches to perform the gospel.”

[5] Barth Ephesians 426 “When the conjunction ‘therefore’ is used, at the beginning of a second, hortatory part of Pauline Epistles, it bears great weight; it emphasizes the logical dependence of ethical advice upon the preceding doctrinal statements….the content of Eph 1-3 is doxological rather than dogmatic. The direct connection of the ethical chapters with the praise of God rather than with a doctrine of God is a specific feature of Ephesians. The verb translated by ‘I beseech’ can also be rendered ‘I exhort,’ ‘I encourage,’ ‘I comfort,’ ‘I warn.’ While it includes a direct request (customarily expressed in Papyri epistles by the verb ‘I ask,’ erotao), the word preferred by Paul signifies a will of the writer that is at the same time personal, and urgent Its sense is stronger than that of the English verb ‘I exhort.’”

[6] Harold W. Hoehner Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2002. 520-1, “In concluding this section two observations should be noted. First, the Trinity is an integral part of this treatise on unity. The one body of believers is vitalized by one Spirit, so all believers have one hope. That body is united to its one Lord (Christ) by each member’s one act of faith, and his or her identity with him is in the one baptism. One God, the Father, is supreme over all, operative through all, and resides in all. All seven components are united in the Trinity. Some scholars such as Kirby think that baptism is central1 and some like Hanson think that faith is central, but in reality the Triune God is the center and model for unity- This is in keeping with the rest of Ephesians is known for its abundant references to the Trinity (cf. 1:4—14, 17; 2:18, 22; 3:4-5,14-17; 4:4-6; 5:18-20).”

[7] Verhey and Harvard Ephesians 132-3, “In Ephesians (and in the Pauline Epistles generally) ‘therefore’ signals a link, not just a transition. It is a moral theology in the first three chapters, announcing the ‘immeasurable greatness of [Gods] power’ (1:19), attentive to the grace and the cause of God, but always already with an eye toward the implications of the gospel for the lives of Christians and the common life of the churches. And it is a theological morality in the last three chapters, announcing the gospel now in the imperative mood, attentive to the sort of conduct, character, and community that are empowered and required by God’s grace and cause.”

[8] Hoehner Ephesians 504, “The aorist tense is ingressive, indicating that lifestyle of the believer. The aorist tense is ingressive, indicating that believer is to change his or her conduct from what it was previously. The adverb ἀξίος, ‘worthy, worthily, suitably,’ literally means ‘“bringing up the other beam of the scales/ ‘bringing into equilibrium,’ and therefore equivalent’” or “worthily, a manner worthy of, suitability.”… In Phil 1:27 its connotation is that the believer’s life should be worthy of the gospel of Christ and in Col 1:10 its connotation is that the believer is to live a life worthy of the Lord (cf. Rom 16:2; 1 Thess 2:12). In the present context the emphasis is on conduct that is in balance with or equal to ones “call.’”

[9] Hoehner Ephesians 504-5, “In the present context, the reference is not only to salvation by election and adoption by the Father (cf. 1:4-5), but also to their union into one body, the church. Therefore, the call to walk worthy of the calling refers not only to the individual believers but also the corporate body of believers.”

[10] Snodgrass Ephesians 197, “The focus on ‘one another’ is significant. This word occurs forty times in Paul’s letters. Christians are part of each other and are to receive one another, think about one another, serve one another, love one another, build up one another, bear each other’s burdens, submit to each other, and encourage each other. Christianity is a God-directed, Christ-defined, other-oriented religion.”

[11] Hoehner Ephesians 510, “This kind of love seeks the highest good in the one loved, and more particularly for the believer, it has the idea of seeking the will of God in the one loved. It is an unconditional love that does not seek a response in kind.”

[12] Hoehner Ephesians 507 (Barclay qtd in), “Rather, it implies the conscious exercise of selfcontrol, exhibiting a conscious choice of gentleness as opposed to the of power for the purpose of retaliation. Barclay states it well when he writes, ‘The man who is praus is the man who is always angry at the right time and never angry at the wrong time.’”

[13] Snodgrass Ephesians 197, “The Christian life is a life of putting up with other people, and this tolerance finds its ability and motivation in love (cf. Gal. 6:2). ‘Love’ and ‘putting up with each other’ are intertwined and mutually explanatory. Both are ways of valuing the other person.”

[14] Snodgrass Ephesians 197, “The focus on love is an extension the emphasis on love in 3:17-19. That is, the love experienced in Christ must be extended to others. The noun agape was rarely used outside Jewish sources and the Christian writings. A few secular occurrences ate now known, but clearly Christians injected the word with new content to talk about love relation to God—first love from God, then also love for God and for other people because of God. This love does not have its origin in human motivation; it is a choice made because of the love of God.”

[15] Hoehner Ephesians 509, ἀνέχω “- It means ‘to take up, to bear up, to endure,’ In the LXX it occurs sixteen times and in the canonical books it appears eleven times. It is used of Gods endurance of the Israelites’ vain offerings (Isa 1:13) or Jobs endurance through great trials (Job 6:11, 26; cf. also Isa 46:4). It also has the idea of restraint, as when God withheld the rain (Amos 4:7; Hag :10) or restrained himself from destroying people (Isa 42:14; 63:15; 64:12 [MT & LXX 64:11]). …In addition, it is used when Jesus asks how long he should bear with the disciples (Matt 17:17 = Mark 9:19 = Luke 9:41) or when Gallio bore with the Jews’ accusation against Paul (Acts 18:14). … Hence, this word has reference to bearing or enduring with respect to things or persons. In the present context and in Col 3:13 Paul asks to bear with those in the assembly. Thus, to translate this word ‘forbear’ is appropriate. Robertson suggests that it is a direct middle meaning ‘holding yourselves back from one another.’ In other words, differences between believers are to be tolerated.” And Marcus Barth Ephesians 461 “The neighbor—even the one who is a burden and whose character and behavior prove cumbersome…He is its very material. Love is not an abstract substance or mood that can be present in a man’s heart even when there are no others in sight and no confrontations are taking place. It does not exist in a vacuum, in abstracto, in detachment from involvement in other men’s lives. Rather it is a question of being surprised by a neighbor, accepting him, going out to him, and seeking solidarity and unity just with him even if this should mean temporary neglect of, or estrangement from, others. Such love is an event that takes place exclusively when one meets and lives with specific men, women, children, old people, relatives, and strangers. Love is always love of this or that person, love here and now, love shown under ever new conditions in ever original forms. Where there is love, there this and that person in his uniqueness is “borne” and fully accepted. Therefore “love” should not be defined as a virtue of the soul, not even as the highest virtue. It is an ever-new miracle which has to happen again and again just as the filling with the Spirit spoken of in the book of Acts was an ever new experience given whenever there was need of a spirited testimony. In Rom 5:5 the gift of love is identified with the gift of the Spirit, and in Gal 5:22 love is listed as the first “fruit of the Spirit”.

[16] Avicii True “Hey Brother” https://genius.com/Avicii-hey-brother-lyrics

[17] Snodgrass Ephesians 198, “Christians must maintain the unity of the Spirit because everything they hold of any significance they hold with other people. Seven items are preceded by the word ‘one,’ and in each case the oneness expresses both the uniqueness of the item and its foundational value for unity. All seven express reality that there is only one gospel and that to believe that gospel is to enter into the unity it creates. Christianity is a shared faith. No separate or merely individual faith exists, nor is there a different salvation.”

[18] Taken from a goodbye message delivered to the Seniors and Juniors of Ascension Episcopal School upon my resignation. Text and video here: https://laurenrelarkin.com/2020/05/08/love-and-solidarity/

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Wrapped Up in Love

Sermon on Ephesians 3:14-21

Ephesians 3:20-21: Now to the one who has the power to do super-abundantly beyond all things we request…to [God] [be] the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus into all the generations forever and ever, Amen.

Introduction

The evening wasn’t much different than others. The only distinction was that a disagreeable verbal transaction occurred between me and my oldest son.[1] I can’t necessarily, at this point, recall the exact details of the engagement, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with the time of evening and bed. What I do remember clearly was the near three-year-old standing at the top of the stairs yelling down at me, full of fury and ferocity (angry as the dickens!). The summary of what he yelled down at me, red faced with tiny fists clenched, was that I wasn’t a very good mom and he—at that moment—didn’t like me very much.

I informed him that he could have those feelings, but he needed to go have them in his room. Then I added: you can come out when you’re calm and sweet. I watched and listened to him go-ish to his room, slam the door, and proceed to throw things and vent that (in summary) I wasn’t a good mom and he—at that moment—didn’t like me very much. While I’m an advocate for taking time and space when emotions run high and heated, there was a something in the moment that shot through my heart and altered my perspective. In the midst of his anger—specifically at me—I felt the surge to go to him. But this isn’t what the parenting book says, went through my head as I tried to circumnavigate the increasing conviction to go to him. Hold your ground…Don’t give in. So, I didn’t move.

I stood there looking up the stairs and listened to my son rant and rave as much as his little lungs and heart would allow him. And then, Nah, this doesn’t feel right. I ascended the stairs and opened the door to his room—just barely missing the most recent airborne toy but not the current toddlery lambast. I walked in and wrapped him up in my arms and held him. As passionate as his mother is, he fought back with intensity. I held him to me. I love you so much. I whispered as he fought me. I said it a few more times, I love you so much. Then, what felt like suddenly, he relaxed and melted into my embrace as we sat on his bed. Then, I love you, too.

Ephesians 3:14-21

[I pray][2] that, [God][3] may give to you–according to the abundance of the glory [of God]—strength to become strong through God’s spirit in[4] the inner person, Christ being permanently settled[5] in your hearts through faith, having been fixed firmly and founded in love…[6]

Ephesians 3:16-17

One of the things that the author of Ephesians does here, in chapter three, is link the love of God to parental love. While the author uses the term “father”, the emphasis isn’t on “fatherhood” specifically. Rather, the emphasis is on accessibility and presence and acceptance that is a significant part of parenthood in general. According to our faith claims and this text, God is the parent of all peoples (3:15)—all are elected and adopted through Christ (1:5, 11) and there is now no dividing wall between those who are near and those who are far off (2:14-15). It is this tight correlation of God as parent—of Jesus Christ and of the people—that underscores the reality of God’s love for God’s people. God sees you; God knows you; God loves you like a mother loves her child even when he’s losing his little three-year-old mind.

Essentially, the author is highlighting positive disintegration: 1. There is the disintegration of the separation of people groups (there is now no longer an in group/out group dynamic at play); and 2. The disintegration of distance between God and humanity. This disintegration emphasizes a revolutionary way to think of God: close and personal. You are profoundly loved by a cosmically big God[7] who is not far off and strange, but who is close and familiar.[8] God is close and familiar not in an abstract purely spiritual way but in a material way evidenced by Jesus the Christ, God of very God, the Word and Love of God incarnate. And evidenced by the sending of the Holy Spirit (the Paraclete) who is of the same substance of God and who resides in you uniting you to God and giving you a new heart (you are the new temple of God).

It is the close presence of God that establishes divine love as the fertile soil you are rooted in and which is the firm foundation from which you grow.[9] You grow as you are and into who you are[10]; herein lies the increase of strength that is found in our union with God through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.[11] God’s love for you[12]—unconditional love—creates space for you to exist as you are, to see yourself as you are, and to grow as you will into who you are more and more every day, every moment, in every step you take with Christ in love. And as you are loved fully by God, you know love. As you know love you are transformed by this love.[13] This is what love does.

Hear me here. Love’s goal is not to transform you, you are not a means to an end. Rather, love’s goal is to love you as you are, and as you are loved as you are you are transformed and strengthened—this is the beautiful byproduct of being loved, of being liberated, of being accepted as the marvelous person God created you to be.[14] And the more you relax into that love, the more you find yourself, and the more you find yourself (growing in knowledge and love of who God is and who you are) you can then love others as they are and just because. We cannot love well from a deficit or from self-hatred—if we do this, we will consume others by making them fit into our own stories. Instead, knowing who we are, loving who we are, we can love others well granting them love, liberty, and acceptance to be who they are as they are.

Conclusion

Being loved by God I knew that sending my son away from me (at that moment) wasn’t the right answer. God never asked me to calm down and become sweet before God would be with me. While there are significant benefits to learning to self-sooth, at that point and time my son couldn’t. I had to go to him just as God has come to me time and time again. Each time received and accepted; each time transformed. I’m not the same woman I was when I first encountered God in the event of faith; yet, I’m more fully me than I’ve ever been because of the love of God perpetually consistent and unconditional

Quinn relaxed into my embrace because my hold told him I wasn’t going anywhere, that love wasn’t going to leave him. I didn’t tell him to calm down or to stop fighting me; I merely held him and told him I loved him. This persistent and unconditional love and acceptance in that moment didn’t cause more tantrum or more toy throwing. Rather, it produced what no command or amount of quiet time on earth could ever produce: freedom, liberation, rest, and transformation. In being free to be who he was in that moment, he was truly free. This radical love and acceptance caused the transformation from fight to rest, rooted and founded in love.

Love, true love, persistent love, unconditional love, will wrap up us and soften our edges. It will pick us up and create safe space for us to reckon with ourselves: to be free to be completely honest with ourselves because we are truly and radically loved and accepted by God in love. Even in the thick of our worst, Love enters in and sweeps us up, embracing us and holding us tightly no matter how much and how hard we fight against it.

We are loved, deeply loved by a Love that does not know a limitation of depth, height, width, length (3:18-19). A love so magnificent not even death can separate you from it. There’s no conditionality attached to God’s love for you, the beloved. Just as Jesus went to the margins and the fringes and dwelled with those who were outcast, so does God’s love in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit seek you out always and everywhere. You cannot run hard enough or fast enough to outrun the inexhaustible love of God.

Love loves and knows not how to do anything else but love. You are the beloved, caught up in the majesty of the divine love that comes close to you and is not far off. You are heard, you are seen, and you are loved…wrapped up (tightly) in the arms of the God of Love and washed in the divine word: I love you, so much…I love you, so much.

[1] I did obtain permission from my eldest child before relaying this story in this context.

[2] Markus Barth Ephesians: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on Chapters 1-3 The Anchor Bible Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974Ephesians 368, “Paul does not begin vs. 16 with the words ‘I ask,’ but he treats the statement ‘I bow my knees… that’ as an equivalent to “I pray that” (1:16-17); cf. the combination of “bowing the knees” and “praying” in Acts 9:40, 20:36. Three petitions may be discerned in what follows (a) 7 Intercession for the inner fortification of the saints; this is unfolded the prayer that Christ reside in their hearts (vss. 16-17)- (b) Supplication for interpreted by a request for knowledge of Christ’s love (vss. 18—19a). (c) Petition for perfection with God’s perfection (vs. 19b)….At this Point Paul’s thinking follows the form of devotion and meditation rather than that of deduction, induction, careful subordination or coordination.”

[3] Intentionally dropping the pronouns for God because the best way to refer to God is with “God”.

[4] I’m taking the εἰςas spatial translating as “in”

[5] Barth Ephesians 370, “The verb ‘to dwell’ denotes permanent habitation as opposed to sojourning, pitching a tent, or an occasional visit. The “heart” is in biblical diction man’s total identity and existence described under the aspect of his vitality, intelligence, will, decision. In the OT and NT the bowels rather than the heart are the seat of emotion. When in II Cor 6:11-12 Paul intends to speak of the emotive capacity of the heart he adds a reference to ‘bowels’ (or ‘compassion’). More frequently he mentions joy or sorrow without locating them in the ‘heart.’ The term ‘heart’ can also denote an essential trait of human existence hidden to the eye; Paul is as much aware as OT writers that not everything human is apparent on the surface. In Eph 3:17 he may have in mind not only Christ’s rulership over man’s reason, will, and decision, but also the hidden quality of a Christian’s existence. It is far from evident to every onlooker that Christ fills and directs the saints.”

[6] Translation mine unless otherwise noted.

[7] Barth Ephesians 368-9, “In 3:14-15 the title of Father pointed out God’s stable love, and the reference to ‘all families’ stressed God’s universal power. The inexhaustible ‘glory’ of God is the third and final presupposition of Paul’s prayer. The triad ‘love,’ ‘power,’ ‘glory’ and the reference to ‘riches’ were also found in 1:3-23. In remembering the ‘riches’ and ‘glory’ of the Father, Paul is convinced that God need not change or lose anything by granting the requests made to him. God is expected to act according to his nature, his character, i.e. his radiating love and power…”

[8] Klyne Snodgrass Ephesians The NIV Application Commentary Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996. 179, “Paul again emphasizes God as Father He refers to God as Father forty-two times in his letters, of which eight are in Ephesians. No other description of God is used so frequently in the New Testament. No doubt this goes back to Jesus’ teaching his disciples to address God as Abba, the Aramaic word for ‘father’ used by both children and adults but considered by Jews to be too familiar to use without qualification in relation to God, God is the Father of believers, but both a narrower and a broader use of ‘Father’ also occurs. More narrowly God is viewed as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which marks out the uniqueness of Jesus’ relation to the Father. In 3: 15 (and 4:6) the broader sense occurs: God as the Father of all humanity’s The emphasis in Ephesians on a cosmic Christ and a cosmic role for the church is based in an understanding of God as a cosmic Father.”

[9] Barth Ephesians 371, “Therefore, it is probable that in Eph 3:17 love is designated as the soil upon which the seedling can grow. The same love is also the ground upon which the building is to be constructed”

[10] Harold W. Hoehner Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2002. 479 “Hence, the inner person is the heart or mind of the believer whereas the outer person is the physical body that is wasting away. In the present context it is the innermost being of the believer which is to be strengthened with Gods power. That innermost being corresponds with the heart of the believer in the following verse.”

[11] Hoehner Ephesians 481, “The strengthening in the inner person results in the deep indwelling of Christ by means of faith (διὰ τῆς πίστεως see the use of this phrase in 2:8) and this takes place in the hearts of believers (εν tαῖς καρδίαις ὑμῶν). This demonstrates both the work of Gods Spirit in strengthening the believer and the subjective means by which the believer obtains this.3 However, it is not a reference to Christ s indwelling at the moment of salvation (Rom 8:10; 2 Cor 13:3, 5; Gal 2:20; cf. Col 1:27). Instead, it denotes the contemplated result, namely, that Christ may “be at home in,” that is, at the very center of or deeply rooted in believers’ lives. 4 Christ must become the controlling factor in attitudes and conduct.”

[12] Hoehner Ephesians 484, “In the present context Paul states that believers are firmly rooted and grounded in love. This root and foundation of love refers to God having chosen them, predestined them, bestowed them in the beloved, redeemed them, made them a heritage, sealed them with the Holy Spirit, made them alive, raised and seated them in the heavenlies, and placed them equally in one new person in the body of Christ. Therefore, for the believer, the origin of this love is God’s love.”

[13] Snodgrass Ephesians 181, “God’s love is the wellspring from which believers are nourished and the foundation on which they find stability. Being rooted and established in love enables them to perceive love, and from knowing love they are filled with the fullness of God. Love is both the source and the goal. When Christ permeates people, they know they are rooted in his love. From the experience of love they know love and are transformed.”

[14] Snodgrass Ephesians 182, “Love brings movement,- it causes things. To know Christs love is to be transformed by love and expanded into the fullness of God…In experiencing Christ Christians experience the fullness of his presence, and power. In experiencing that fullness they themselves are made full by Christ. That is, the/ partake of God’s own being and are made like him….The implication in Ephesians is that as believers encounter Gods love in Christ, they will be filled with love.”

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Prodigals Abound

Sancta Colloquia Episode 206 ft. Judy Douglass

In this episode of Sancta Colloquia, I had a chance to talk with author, Judy Douglass (@judydouglass417) about her recent book, When You Love a Prodigal. Apart from getting to know Judy a bit more on a personal level, we dove into why she wrote her book, which also is/was a personal journey. Judy’s pastoral heart shines through as she articulates her own maternal struggles with staying present and consistent in the life of her son who was self-destructing. There’s only so much we can do as parents to stop such a thing, and boy are we desperate to try to stop it. We’ll employ every tactic in the known parenting universe to try to protect those whom we love with our entire minds, hearts, souls, strength, and bodies from hurting themselves. But sometimes, the best thing to do is to simply walk alongside this one who bent on self-destruction, whispering the entire time: I’m here with you and I love you dearly, you are my child, my beloved. Judy takes her cues from her very personal and intimate relationship with Jesus Christ: she’s been loved radically in many different ways so why shouldn’t she love in the same way? Through out the discussion we weave and wend through talking about her book and about the parable of the Prodigal son as told in Luke 15; at the end of the show we come to the very needed conclusion that we are all prodigals like both sons in the story are prodigal. In one way or another, none of us has the right to judge another human being, especially according to their actions. As we fight for those we love, we must remember an important lesson: as Judy explains,  “tough love” creates barrier and separation, it pushes away and rejects; the object of this love doesn’t want to come back. She says that it’s better to think of “firm love” rather than “tough love”. “What’s the difference?” you ask. This, again recourse to Judy: you have to let them make their choices, parent like the father of the prodigal, because love draws others. We must remember to have Mercy and compassion. Forgiveness. Remembering her own faults and short-comings and that at the end of the day, we are dust. Judy reminds us from beginning to end of the episode: to send out mercy and grace to others, which we have received from God. At the end of the day, according to Judy, it’s better to make mistakes on the side of Grace. Couldn’t have said it better myself. 

Intrigued? You should be.

Listen here via Screaming Pods (https://www.screamingpods.com/)

A huge THANK YOU to my friend and producer Sean Duregger (@seanCduregger) and Screaming Pods (@ScreamingPods) for hosting Sancta Colloquia (@SanctaColloquia).

A native of Dallas, Texas, Judy Douglass is a graduate of the University of Texas with a degree in journalism.  She has been on the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ since 1964, serving previously as editor of Collegiate Challenge magazine, manager of the Publications Department, and founding editor of Worldwide Challenge magazine.
Judy currently partners with her husband, Steve, in giving leadership to Campus Crusade for Christ/Cru.  Her primary focus is Women’s Resources.  She is the author of four books and has had articles published in numerous magazines.
A frequent speaker at a variety of groups, including church women’s groups, retreats, missions conferences and student conferences, Judy is known for her “realness” and loves to encourage people to trust God for all He wants to do in them and through them. 

Resources and Help

Books

Allison Bottke—Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children

Katherine James—A Prayer for Orion

Robert J Morgan—Moments for Families with Prodigals

Dena Yohe—You Are Not Alone

Other helps

Connected Families book and seminars–https://connectedfamilies.org/

Hope for Hurting Parents–http://www.hopeforhurtingparents.com/

Prayer for Prodigals—virtual prayer community. To be invited in, write to PrayerforProdigals  @  gmail.com

Suicide Prevention Lifeline–National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Call 1-800-273-8255

Available 24 hours everyday

Posted on by laurenlarkin 0