Rev. Rachel Lewis Cooley
“Pray for the Church”
Eternal Hope UCC, Fort Walton Beach, FL
July 25, 2021
Our Scripture this morning is from Ephesians 3: 14-21. It uses masculine language for a God we know to have many names
Ephesians 3: 14-21
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. 16 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 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 18 I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 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, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
The word… thanks be. Will you pray with me?
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on us. We sense in our bodies and our breath, in the space between each of us that you are here. Open our ears and our hearts to hear, to reflect, to respond. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be pleasing to you, our rock and redeemer. Amen.
The whole letter of Ephesians is about the gospel story and how it changes us. About what living in the gospel means. Like a testimonial or a witness to the faith, the Pauline author here describes the faith they experience – sometimes knowing that words and theological knowledge are not fully able to describe the mystery they and their fellow Christians experience. The author prays repeatedly for the church throughout this letter – that they too might witness and live in Christian faith, that they might come together in Christian community that lives in God’s love and with God and each other, they might create and live more beauty and love than they could imagine.
Last week, Pastor Booth brought another scripture from Ephesians, talking about how through Christ, God has broken dividing walls, and the Jews and Gentiles are invited to live as one in community, though they are not the same and don't have to look or act the same. We too today can break down those dividing walls which God has already broken down, we said, and sang, and commit ourselves to.
This letter was likely passed around early churches, and read aloud in them. This was so long ago, these same words were being read! I think sometimes it’s incredible to stop and think about the generations that have heard these words. Can you imagine the early communities, maybe gathered in homes or public places, wherever they could meet and be together in fellowship and learning and witnessing and moving about in God’s love? And through the years since then, in churches of all sorts, communities of disciples throughout the world. Just as the author prays for the churches in the ancient world, he prays for us today, and we are connected through time to our Christian ancestors who sought like us to live in God’s love. In essence, the author is praying for us at Eternal Hope, then, though he had no way to imagine what God would do with and through God’s people throughout the ages, and how Christian communities would spread to welcome more and more folks.
Now of course churches most definitely have not always welcomed all - throughout history and today. We know some of the history, of crusades and witch hunts and colonialism and violent racism and white supremacy and church hierarchies corrupted by love of power, or resentment, or you name it. Churches where dividing walls are built up, where LGBTQ+ people are rejected, fed lies about how they are not welcome, or loved, let alone embraced and listened to. I'm sure that many of us here have witnessed or felt that sting – and to be sure, seeing this rejection or condemnation happen to another is not the same as having it wielded at you, in a homophobic, heterosexist, transphobic environment. But I bet many of us have wished to be like prophets in these spaces, calling the church to be better, to do what it says it will, to welcome the stranger as Christ welcomes them and all others for if we are not following Jesus and his ministry on earth then what are we doing here! Certainly not being the church! I know that some of us here have spoken out and been those prophets on a number of occasions. And yes, I do believe that call within us and when we voice it to be the prophetic work of God, and vitally needed.
So I know y'all know this but--because I'm new here, and excited about this ministry—I hope you’ll permit me to remind you that Eternal Hope is not like any other church in this area, where few welcome LGBTQIA+ folk and embrace them fully. Where queer voices are heard and make this church what it is.
No, Eternal Hope is not like any other church in this world, at this moment, because it has this particular group of people at this particular post-COVID moment (and what a moment it is), and who knows what God is doing and will do with us, who knows what we can do with God. Paul’s letter prays us on, coming through the ages to this moment, calling us to consider what we’ll do here in Fort Walton Beach – how we’ll witness to the faith and live in the Gospel and follow God’s call on to more and more incredible things we maybe can/maybe can’t imagine yet, but will be, with God’s help.
I do believe this text was meant for this moment, as I’ve come to believe in God’s divine timing, and the movement of the Spirit with us, and the presence of Christ in our midst, and our ability to co-create with each other and God –to collaborate, to dream with, to follow, to live out, to embody here on earth as Jesus did, God’s call and love and justice and grace and community.
A good friend, a soul sister, a collaborator with me and God came to visit me this very week that I was set to preach and lead worship the first time with you all, with Booth out of town. I’d say it’s a coincidence the dates of her trip and Booth’s trip came at the same time, but I don’t believe that. though lots of people travel in the summer so there is that factor, I believe God’s Spirit was moving in mysterious, big, ways that I don't know and probably doesn't only have to do with me preaching and seeing a friend this week, but somehow all these things were divinely timed to happen at this moment. You see, Christy jo was my first mentor in ministry, and we have become mentors and friends to each other, I would say. She was just enough years out of seminary to be my official supervisor and mentor for my seminary field education, set for my second year of seminary. It would be her first year in this role, and my first year in a ministry role. I had been going to the church where she worked for a year, teaching Sunday school to the first and second graders, and we knew of each other, but that was about it. Perhaps we sensed something in each other that intrigued us from afar, but it wasn’t the moment for us to come together yet. But when we did – it was magic. She was energized, I was thrilled (and scared and excited and humbled and unsure and full of anticipation and all that kind of stuff as I began in ministry). Little did I know, but I needed her pastoral care, and encouragement, and bold, truth-telling, and ways of being in ministry. And come to find out, somehow, miraculously, she needed me too. We weathered some big time storms together, from personal to professional to global, with COVID 19 beginning during our time in ministry together. I needed her heart for pastoral care, and she needed my focus on embodiment, and mindfulness, and the movement of the Spirit in and among us. It feels as though together, we made something more complete, and we experienced God in one another. We were leaning in to our calls from God, and God had led us to exactly the person, and the place, and the time, that we needed to be together. I really believe that yall.
AND, I know you all have some stories like this. Some moments of divine timing, some people and places you believe came to your life exactly at the moment you, and not only you, but your community, your world, needed it. Some moments where you couldn't help but say, God had to be in this. I must be following God. God must be doing good things in my life and the lives of others. God is good, all the time, and all the time, God is good.
That is your witness, and I’d be honored and thrilled if we could get some time together and I could hear some of your moments of divine timing too, some of the ways you know, in your bones, that God is in the world. Following these calls from God is perhaps one of the most important responsibilities, and gifts, of being a disciple.
So what does the author of Ephesians have to do, or to say about all this? First of all, I have to say that Christy jo always tells me – from experience – that the lectionary texts organized for each week by some long time ago process and group that’s outside of most preachers who follow it today really somehow manages to bring texts that speak to the moment they’re read in, and preached from. It must be invigorated by God’s Spirit, huh? I found that this week, as I marveled at my growing relationship with Christy jo and all the ways that we are connected, as I worshipped with a recording of the United Church of Christ’s general synod – their national gathering every year – and I realized more fully how interconnected we all are. The UCC general worship spoke about this – about our interconnection with all of creation—plants, animals, ecosystems, more—and I said how is it that I’m listening to this at this very moment? Oh, it must be that we are all interconnected!
It wasn’t until I read this ancient letter that I put some pieces together, though. You see, I read in a commentary I happened to have on my shelf because my dad gave it to me from his shelf a few years back, and I had yet to open it until this very week, that in this first sentence of the Ephesians prayer for us: 14”For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name” the original Greek words for father and family sound very similar, and the author is emphasizing that (get this) “God is the creator and sustainer of all the structures in which earthly and heavenly beings are organized.” So we’re all interconnected through God, through living in God’s love. our interconnection is there because God created and sustains and loves and calls all of creation, all the time. God’s Spirit is moving in and amongst all of us! Of course, Rachel! Haven’t you said that before?! … I didn’t realize it quite so fully until I saw it in my life here this week, though.
Further, the author says “18 I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth” of God’s love in Christ Jesus. My newfound, handy dandy commentary said that any insight and spiritual strengthening doesn’t come through ourselves, it comes through the power of God’s Spirit, as the verses say before, and with all the saints. As in, “the individuals Christian finds strength and insight not via a lonely spiritual quest, but through participation in the body” of Christ, and church, the community of the faithful, the interconnection of all of us who follow God’s call. Only through each other can we glimpse and grasp more fully the love of Christ, it’s breadth and length and height and depth (I love that phrase don't you?) So even if I thought maybe this year I’d take a year off from church – which I did consider! Honestly, Considering how tired and burned out I was by the time I graduated in May, and from the church I’d been serving in Nashville—I need a community to be with, to feel God’s Spirit move, to do ministry with, to learn from. I need you all. And I didn’t even know it, God did.
So I am here to offer what I can, to learn from you all, to be intentionally and fully in community with each and every one of you, as part of our interconnection in God, as part of our following God’s call and living in God’s love, individually and together. That’s what I believe. I don’t know what exactly my being here might look like, just like we don’t know what we may be able to do as a church! I think this scripture, at this moment, is asking us to imagine what might happen if we realize we are “filled with all the fullness of God” as it says, and to remember that with God, who’s quote “power is at work within us” we will be “able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.” The scripture says! What might God be calling Eternal Hope to now? What does this church that welcomes all have to offer to this community? How might we invite those who would wish to join in community here? Only we, with God, can bring it about! What do you think? Where do you feel the Spirit pulling you, and us? Where is the Spirit moving in creation, in the interconnection of all of us, with God? What do you hope, and dare to imagine, we might create? What do you hope, and dare to imagine, for the world?? God is inviting us to think, to talk, and to listen. I can’t wait to see. In the name of Jesus the Christ, the one who came to be human with us and calls us to bring God’s kingdom on earth, Amen.