Ephesians 3:14-21
August 25
Lauren J. McFeaters
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Some years ago when I was meeting with the Deacons, I asked the group about favorite childhood memories. Over and over again, what rose to the top were memories of visits to a family farm – usually small, contained, some just getting by – but farms full of such goodness it took the breath away.
The best loved parts were learning to:
- feed the sheep,
- shell the snap peas,
- gather the corn,
- ride the tractor,
- can the beets,
- scatter the seed,
- and fill a trough.
For me, in Pickens Mississippi, was learning from my Aunt Hines, how to put kindling in a wood stove and make biscuits on top in an iron skillet. It was remarkable that out of 2 dozen Deacons, half had families that farmed.
Today, Paul gives us a prayer that says we are being rooted and grounded; burrowed and established in love. It is an agricultural metaphor isn’t it. Paul compares the Christian life to the experience of planting, nurturing, and harvesting –
- of canning the okra and putting up the huckleberries;
- of putting our hands to work and our hearts to God;
- of putting down the roots of faith that tunnel deep enough to spread to help other growing things to thrive, find it’s nourishment, and become securely anchored.
- To live, we must have roots. [ii] To live our faith, we must be rooted.
But here’s the thing. There will be constant moments throughout this day and week, when we’ll be tempted to unroot ourselves; to extricate and detach ourselves from our groundedness in faith. It often happens when we get distracted by the message that the core of our identity, underneath it all, comes not from God’s Spirit, but from what we can possess, own, acquire, control.
We can’t check Insta or TikTok or email without a link to what will fulfill and satisfy us.
- It’s the lure of iPhone 15 Pro in Barbie Pink.
- Mercedes Benz says you can have a “Season of Dreams” if you purchase the E 450 4MATIC All-Terrain.
- The HP Z Book Fury Laptop Workstation might set you back $9000, but it promises that in using it, you can “expand and evolve.”
Our daily lives are now defined by daily links. This morning I received my message from Starbucks. I have been invited to forget my troubles and luxuriate in the aroma of roasting beans while I indulge my whims in new coffee paraphernalia. It’s so tempting to believe that an iced oat-milk latte will give me their promise of a sanctuary of peace.
And somewhere out there today you’re going to find out there’s:
- a microbrewery offering you the fellowship of the pub;
- a yogurt that will cure your gut woes;
- a deodorant that is going to make you feel better about your body;
- and Macy’s who generously invites you start your Christmas shopping.
Paul, however, would like us to cease the nonsense that stands in the way of rootedness in God’s grace. And he’s so relentless about this one thing: Our foundation in Christ, does not to deny the existence of the things of the world, but gives those things the perspective they deserve.
We’re not created for the things we want, or own, or have to have, are we? We’re not created for the things we crave or desire. We’re not created to be seduced into purchases and possessions. We’re created for what we’re rooted in – and we are rooted in:
the breadth and length and height and depth, of the love of Christ –
so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God, which is love.
You. You are being rooted and grounded in love.
Here’s where Paul offers us equilibrium to stand in everyday faith with our feet on the ground, our eyes to one another, our hearts to our Lord – and it’s a prayer:
I pray, according to the riches of God’s glory,
God may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through God’s Spirit,
and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith– as you are being rooted and grounded in love.
You. You are being rooted and grounded in love.
One writer has called this prayer “the Holy of Holies in the Christian life.” Another writer called it “a prayer for the impossible.” I’m very grateful there’s nothing timid about Paul’s prayer: nothing bashful; nothing retiring; nothing reserved. It’s simply one of scripture’s most powerful and commanding prayers, because it asks for everything: [iii]
- That the breadth, length, height, and depth of the love of Christ surpasses our fears and goes straight to our hearts;
- That we may be filled with all the fullness of God; filled – not with what we think we want and have to have – but filled with a prayer so potent that our very desires are embedded in acts of kindness and care;
- That we may be filled to brimming with all the completeness and wholeness of God;
- And that the Gift of Christ Jesus is a glory to all generations.
In these days of our world being shaken upside down and turned inside out, Paul comes to us with a prayer that convicts us to get down on our knees, asking God to fortify us. Root us. Ground us. And Love us into sanity.
I often tell couples who come to me for counseling, both the soon-to-be-married and decades-long-married that the most intimate moments in their life together – in any of our lives together – are the moments we are at prayer together.
- When was the last time you prayed with someone you love? It will change your life.
- When was the last time you sat beside a friend and laid a hand on them with a prayer for healing and comfort? It will change both your lives.
- When was the last time you held a child’s hand and bowed your head and gave thanks? It will change a generation.
My friends, when you have experienced
the anchoring love of our God –
you can never be the same:
- that the breadth and length; height and depth
of that love will never leave your side;
- that you are bowled over in wonder,
- and that there is nothing left to do,
but to praise the Lord all your days.
Amen. And Amen.
ENDNOTES
[i] Ephesians 3:14-21: For this reason, I bow my knees before the father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now, to him, who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
[ii] Imagery inspired by a sermon by Cynthia M. Campbell. “Rooted and Grounded.” Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, IL, July 2003, www.fourthchurch.org.
[iii] Ronald Olsen. “Thinking and Practicing Reconciliation: The Ephesians Texts for Pentecost 8-14.” Word & World, 17/3. Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1997, 325.