An Experiment in Love--June 9, 2020

An Experiment in Love--June 9, 2020

"I pray that, according to the riches of [God's] glory, he may grant that you 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." [Ephesians 3:16-17]

It all comes down to love.

Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Say it again with me: it all comes down to love.

Once more, louder, for the folks in the back--it all comes down to love.

I mean, think about this for a moment.  Let the flow of this rather lengthy sentence (which is even worse in the Greek!) soak in, and watch what the apostle is saying here.  Of all the things he could pray for that God would give to us... and of all the infinite lavishness of God's abundance... the apostle here prays that we would be strengthened by being (here it comes now) "grounded and rooted in love."

Ask the book of Ephesians what gift Christians need most, and the answer isn't, "Politically powerful well-connected friends," or "To get the economy booming again!" or even "A more privileged position for the church in society."  Those don't even make the list.  Instead, if you ask the writer of Ephesians what is worth praying for... what to look for as the tell-tale sign of genuinely strong faith, the answer comes back simply: love. We will be rooted and grounded in love.

Think of how you would picture that.  Being rooted is an image of where you start from, it's the soil you are planted in.  It's about drawing on that good solid place so that the love that feeds and sustains you flows through you and out in the rest of your life.  Like when a kid gives food-dye-colored water to a vase of plain white carnations and the petals change colors as the stem drinks in the water, God has rooted us in love so that it will soak deep into us and blossom out of us.  Love is the starting point. Love courses through us along the way.  And love is the goal that comes to fruition in us, too.

And to be clear about it, this love that the author of Ephesians is so fervently praying about isn't merely a feeling.  Paul isn't praying for his readers to find romance, and he's not particularly interested in It's not that we would always "feel" a certain way, but that we would be rooted in God's unconditional commitment to do good to us, even when we are turned dead-set away from God, so that we, too, will seek to do good for others, even when they have shown nothing but rottenness to us.  To be rooted in God's love is to be free from needing to "get" something in return for our goodness toward others. It is to be done with the shallow and empty logic of transactions, where everything is a matter of giving in order to get.  And the followers of Jesus are freed from it, because instead of cutting deals, we are rooted in God's kind of graceful love.

Now, if you want to know how to practice--how to get better at this love we are rooted and grounded in--then start with this: find someone you have a hard time getting along with, someone who irritates you, someone whose opinions always run counter to yours, someone you really have a hard time putting up with, and do something good for them.  You don't have to "like" their terrible social media posts that you completely disagree with, or become their best friend.  But you can do something that is genuinely, rewardlessly good for this person.  Don't do it in the hopes that it will change their heart; right now it's not about them.  It's not even about you.  It's about letting the love you've been rooted in flow through you and out the other side as it blossoms in your words and actions. But try it.  Try it, and watch what happens to you as you do--feel the strength that rises up when you refuse to let someone else's rottenness to you define your response to them.  Try it, and feel the power that surges within you, like water flowing through a stem, to bring you more fully to life. That's what the writer of Ephesians has been praying for you... for you and me.

It all comes down to love.

And it all flows out from love, too.

Lord Jesus, strengthen us in your love so that we can do good for all around us, and so that we can bring your love to blossom within us.