The Context of Our Lives

Ephesians 1:15-23

This is a hard week, friends -- Thanksgiving without most of what we think of Thanksgiving as being, in the midst of a frightening surge of covid and tightening of restrictions. More loss. More hard conversations. More boundary-setting. More disappointment. More loneliness. More grief. More frustration.  More unknown.  

We are weary. That weariness is real and everyone is feeling it. Nobody is doing fine.  None of us is feeling great.
 
But when we we come together, like this, over zoom, when the body of Christ gathers, we are putting ourselves in back in context.  We are again being whose and who we are.  We are placing ourselves to receive the blessings God always has for us. 
 
We come here with our hearts open – our broken hearts and our weary hearts and our grateful hearts and our determined hearts—and the prayers of those gone before are prayed over us even now.  In the timelessness of God, Paul and all the saints, including those we’ve personally known and loved and let go from this life, are gathered here with us, and they’re rooting for us, just as we are rooting for each other and longing that each other be well.  We are part of this community of saints that bridges time and space, transcends continents and centuries, and we’re all in this together.  This is hard to fathom, but it's true.
 
So imagine, dear ones, that Saint Paul has us in mind, that he is even now, face to face with the Divine, thanking God for us, and praying for us that we might recognize God at work, see who God is and what God is up to in this world.  I know about you, dear sisters and brothers gathering as Lake Nokomis Church. I’ve seen your trust that Jesus is right here with you as you are with and for each other, the way you seek to live in love and courage, and I celebrate you and never stop thanking God for you. 
 
And he’s asking God to open the eyes of our hearts to know without a doubt the hope to which God has called us, that we could see and know what is a truly good life, deep and sure, despite any circumstances or struggles, that we might recognize and receive the boundless love and abundant life right here in front of us. 
 
I want to know that hope, I want to see God right here in the world and feel the gift of my life. I want to receive that life however it comes to me, and especially when things feel hard, when grief and gratitude are right here side by side in us like they are right now and will be throughout this week and the holiday season.  
 
Paul says that God’s power, beyond our comprehension or ability to measure is here for us who trust God. I don’t know what that means, to be honest, my heart and head can’t begin to take that in.  I don’t believe it means we get out of pain or escape our mortality, since God chose not to avoid the limitations and discomfort of being human but to come right into it with us.  But he says that the power of God, power beyond measure is available to us right here, in the midst of everything we might be facing right now.  It's this power that helps us to trust.

This power that raised Jesus from the dead, this power that assures us that beyond any president or dictator or regime, greater than any virus or crisis, is the One who was there when the world was spoken into being, who came in vulnerable weakness to share with us every single thing we endure on this earth as human beings, all the senseless suffering and also every breathless moment of joy too great for words to express, who died our death and took death and separation into the heart of God, where it was healed so that even death itself is not to be feared.  This is the power that holds us. This is the love that claims us.  This is the reality in which we belong.  This is the context of our lives.

And just to help the point hit home, Paul goes at great lengths to say that this One who embodies our complete belonging to God reigns, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. There is simply no one and nothing greater.

And then he says that we are Christ’s body, we are the fullness of him who fills all in all. You and I, us!, in our little lives, our ordinary bumbling lives, together, side by side, suffering and laughing with one another, determined to see God in the world, committed to joining Christ in loving the world: the fullness of the one who cannot be contained lives in us.

So you guys, I know we are going to get through this. This part, and the part that comes after. We are going to get through it. We will let ourselves feel it – both the grief and the gratitude, we will let it break our hearts open so we can embrace more of this life that is so generously given to us. We wont be afraid to celebrate, and we wont be afraid to mourn, and we’ll even be so bold as to do both at once when the situation calls for it, as it seems to right now. 

And we won’t just get through - because God will use even this, this extraordinary, unfathomable muddle of year, to bring us deeper into hope, wider into love, to bring healing and hope into this world that needs it so badly. God will use these experiences in this time to open our hearts to see the big picture that we are made for and called to, to help us welcome this ridiculous, bighearted, painful and glorious life that we are given to share with each other in this the world.  

Wisdom, revelation, fullness, hope… I receive that prayer, brother Paul! I welcome that blessing!