“Rooted and grounded in love”
Ephesians 3:14-21 (July 28, 2024)
Our scripture reading this morning begins with prayer. “For this reason,” the writer of Ephesians says, “I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name.” 
I bow my knees. I pray. He prays for the church: for us, for you and me.
But I wonder if this prayer sounds anything like the kind of prayers that you offer? Of course, I don’t presume to know what your inner life with God is like. I just know that for me, sometimes little things can take centre stage.
“Help me through this next thing in my life, Lord. Give me strength for the challenge of this day: this appointment, this encounter, this thing that needs to be fixed. Whatever it is …” And don’t get me wrong, these are not bad things to pray for! We have a God who cares for every little detail. The birds of the air, the lilies of the field – none of them go unnoticed to the one who gives us life.
Certainly, it’s OK to pray for little things. But in this prayer, the writer of Ephesians has larger things in view. He prays for the whole church. For all the people of God. The “you” being prayed for throughout this passage is you plural. “That you, the church, may be strengthened by the Spirit. That Christ may dwell among you and within you.”
And here’s the most important thing, toward the end of the prayer: “That you might know the love of Christ and, knowing that, be filled with all the fullness of God.” You see, these are big things. This is a big prayer. And love is at the centre of it all.
The lectionary passages for these next several weeks offer us an opportunity to reflect on the letter to the Ephesians. And that’s where I’d like to focus. Because I think it has some important things to say to us. Today we hear Paul’s prayer that we might know the love of Christ, that we might comprehend its enormous dimensions, and be rooted and grounded in the soil of God’s love.
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Now there’s a danger in sermonizing about this. And I’m not quite sure how to overcome it. The problem is that, for us, love can seem to be a nice idea, but not much more. Love, we think, is the stuff of fairy tales and romance and greeting cards. An emotional indulgence. And yet, in our heart of hearts, don’t we have a sense that God’s love is something more?
Still, we come to church, as we’ve been coming all these years. And every Sunday, I’d venture to say, somewhere in the service, we hear that word love. In our music, in our prayers, in 100 different sermons. Every Sunday, all our lives.
You know what the danger is? The danger is we hear that word again and we tune out. Love? Been there, done that. We’ve heard it 1,000 times before. Don’t we know it all already?
Tell us something new, Pastor! Except new isn’t always what we need to hear. Sometimes we need to be reminded of things we know already. Sometimes we need to be drawn back, back to the centre of who God is, and who we are, and what the church is supposed to be all about.
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I remember being on vacation one time, and Lindsay and I went to church. It was a little church, and not all that friendly. I don’t think anyone said a word to us, though we were clearly visitors. No one felt the need to make us welcome.
In the sermon, the Pastor said the problem with the church writ large, by which he meant all those other churches, was that there was too much preaching on love. Yes, that’s right, too much love being poured out from the pulpit. In fact, he said, one of the churches nearby had recently been struck by lightning. Clearly it was God’s judgement upon them. Yikes!
Now let me say that there are many dimensions to our faith and many subjects worth preaching on. But too much love? I don’t know. When I think about my own life, I think there are times I have not been loving enough. And I want to know more about that. And I want to grow deeper into the love that brought this creation into being. The love that sent Jesus our Lord to redeem it when it went astray. The love that is the life-blood of each and every one of us.
Without love, says Paul, in that famous passage from the first letter to the Corinthians, we are nothing more than noisy gongs or clanging cymbals. We can have prophetic powers, great knowledge, many accomplishments. But without love we’re nothing. (1 Cor. 13:1-3)
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Ephesians talks about the whole church being “rooted and grounded in love.” Because that is the very foundation of who we are. It’s the ground on which we stand. That is the soil, the rich fertile soil, that gives us life.
“Rooted and grounded in love,” says Ephesians, “as Christ is dwelling in our hearts through faith.” This is one of those passages that imagines God as a cosmic gardener. Planting us like seeds in soil that is saturated with love. Love is what makes us grow. Without love, we wither up and die.
We know this to be true. From the moment of our birth, as we are held and cradled and comforted in the arms of our earthly parents, it is love that forms and shapes our lives. The love of families and friends and communities and churches.
If you think that none of that matters, then consider those who’ve not known love – but only neglect or indifference. Or twisted love, which is abuse. Or selfish love, which takes advantage of and uses others. These are all sick distortions of the generous, life-giving love that comes from God. A love that generates life in all its goodness and beauty and fullness.
Ephesians prays that we might be filled with all the fullness of God! This is no small thing. No trivial matter that may or may not be part of the church’s life.
“I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name.”
This prayer is addressed to the Father of all people. Every family, all nations, cultures and ethnicities. This one God is Creator of all. So if you were thinking of drawing lines and limiting that love – offering it only to people like you, who are part of your particular tribe, forget it!
We all have this tendency, don’t we? We love our own people, people we know, who look like us, and talk like us, and agree with us. But growing beyond those lines of demarcation can be challenging.
We make God’s love too small. We shrink God down to size. Yet this passage from Ephesians calls us to something far greater: A God whose love is enormous, beyond our imagining!
“I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, (with every child of God who’s ever lived) … now listen to this: “What is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.”
What are the dimensions of God’s love? Do you know?
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A few years ago I officiated at a wedding. As a token of their appreciation, the couple gave me an unusual gift: something very practical. They bought a tape measure, and had it engraved with their initials and the date. I thought it was a great present, and I’ve been using it ever since.
The tape is not very long – 12 feet. You pull it out to the end, and then you find the word “Caution” in bright red, with an exclamation mark. You should only go past this point to replace the tape. Because you’ve reached the limit.
You can’t use an instrument like that to measure the width and length and height and depth of God’s love. The writer of Ephesians says that God’s love is beyond measure. It would be like me taking my tiny little tape and trying to stretch it all the way across the Grand Canyon.
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Have you ever seen the Grand Canyon? It’s pretty awesome. Our scripture today is inviting us to know the great Grand Canyon of God’s love. “To know the love of Christ, which” the writer freely admits, is beyond our knowing. It surpasses knowledge.
You see, there’s an irony to this prayer and the big thing it holds before us. Paul’s desire is that we know God’s love. And in the very same sentence he says we can never do that! Because it’s far too big. Too broad, too long, too high, too deep. You can’t possibly get your mind around it!
Yet Jesus embodied God’s love, and lived it out among us. Jesus gives to us as much of God as we can humanly receive.
Scholars through the years have pondered this passage, trying to explain it. Augustine said the four dimensions refer to the cross – the top, the bottom, the arms that stretch to either side.
I kind of like that picture! How much does God love us? Well, this much! It is a big love! And if you think you’ve come to the end of it, let me assure you that you have not.
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I remember Lindsay and I taking our children on a hike when they were young. We thought, “Let’s just get up to the top of that next hill, so we can have a view.” And up we started. It was hard work, a steep climb. As we came toward what we thought was the top, our hearts fell. For there was still another hill beyond it. We couldn’t see it from down below.
So we continued. Another climb anticipating a look-off at the top. When we turned around, the view was indeed glorious. We were up so high, we could see so far! But lo and behold we still weren’t at the top.
In the Christian life there is always another hill to climb, another view to behold. We don’t ever get to the end of it, not in this life. But the farther we go the more we see, the deeper we know.
Until we come to the end of our journey. And sometimes it seems our life has closed in to a very small space. The people around us are few. Our physical world becomes small. Our capabilities diminished.
We think we’re at the end. But then God brings us to a new place, a heavenly place more good and beautiful and full of God. A love that is infinite and never-ending. “Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (1 Cor. 13:12)
In the end of C.S. Lewis’s books about Narnia, the known land begins to fade into unreality, and a new land opens up. The children are invited to leave the Shadowlands behind. What they thought was so real and so wonderful is only a shadow of what is still to come. “Further up and further in,” they cry as they run toward the love of Aslan.
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A love this big has big implications. I want to leave you with two things this morning.
First of all, the knowledge that you are loved. Even if you don’t feel it, or can’t imagine how. Every one of us has been loved by God before the foundation of the world. Every one of us is loved infinitely and unconditionally. Sometime today, I invite you to find a quiet place where you can set yourself down for a moment and contemplate, with gratitude – the brilliant, dazzling wonder of that love.
And the second thing is this: We are called to be loving people. To live out of the extravagant dimensions of God’s love. So that it flows from us to others, from the church to every family, to the whole creation. Think of someone you find hard to love. Pray that God will stretch your limits and show you how.
Love is not an option for the church, or for any of us who are part of it. The love of God in Jesus is who we are. May we journey together faithfully.