George A. Mason 10 th Sunday after Pentecost Wilshire Baptist Church 29 July 2018 Dallas, Texas “The Prayer” Ephesians 3:14-21

It’s stunningly beautiful, especially when Josh Groban or We come this morning to the end Andrea Bocelli sings it with of the first half of the letter Celine Dion. It’s just called The attributed to Paul and addressed Prayer and it’s one of the most to the churches in and around popular songs at weddings. My Ephesus in Asia Minor—which is favorite memory of it was Amy modern day Turkey. The first Acker’s wedding in Napa Valley. half of the letter—as with most Amy is a daughter of Wilshire, of Paul’s epistles—celebrates the and of course of Judy and things we know to be true in our Rodney. She was marrying James Christian experience and praises Carpinello in 2003 (can it be that God and the church for them. long ago?). Mother Judy thought The second half of his letters call the song was just the kind of for renewed ethical behavior in prayer she would want to offer light of these things. It’s a to them. So, one of James’s grammatical move from Broadway friends, Tim indicative to imperative, from Fitzgerald, belted it out as we all what is to what should be. It’s stood in rapt wonder with tears also a theological move from running down our cheeks, the God’s initiative to our response, singer moving from English to from grace to action. Italian and back again. As he closes the first half of this I wish I had the voice to do it letter, then, Paul offers a prayer justice, but The Prayer begins for the church followed by a this way: benediction. It’s a stunningly I pray you’ll be our eyes beautiful prayer, one we might And watch us where we go imagine brought tears to those And help us to be wise who first heard it read in their In times when we don’t know assembly. Let this be our prayer As we go our way After praising God in chapters 1 Lead us to a place and 2 for allowing the Gentiles to Guide us with your grace join with the Jews in the To a place where we’ll be safe … peoplehood of God through Jesus Christ, inheriting both the have been twinned for more blessings of the saints and the than 25 years. The pastor told mission of Israel to take the good about this church located in the news of God’s love and salvation former East Germany, about how to all people, Paul kneels before they helped bring down the God and bows his head to pray. Berlin Wall in 1989. The The first thing about the prayer Communist government of East for the church is the proper Germany knew they were address. He prays to God the finished when all over the Father, from whom every family country, faithful German in heaven and on earth takes its Christians would worship on name. In other words, Paul Sunday nights, then march into begins his prayer with an the streets with candles, praying affirmation of the unity of all and singing hymns and even humanity under God. No matter some songs from the American the human differences of tribes civil rights movement. and cultures and nations and religions, all of them—every last The pastor told about bringing one of them and not one of them Menter Baker, a Crested Butte more than any other of them— World War II veteran, with him owes their identity as children of on one of their trips there. Baker God to God, and God alone. The was reluctant to go. He had been church is witness to this truth, one of the first American having become one place on soldiers on the front lines during earth where all can see that the defeat of the Nazis. He had every dividing line that has borne a hatred for Germans and separated one people from the destruction they had another is erased through Jesus wrought for half a century. But Christ. this church in Stromberg welcomed him as a brother in Kim and I were vacationing last Christ. The church still had the Sunday in Crested Butte, names on their walls of those Colorado with Cameron and who had once died in defense of Garrett and their three amazing the Fatherland, when Hitler had girls. We worshipped with the convinced so many of the Union Congregational Church, superiority of their Aryan blood which was hosting their sister over all others. The church left church from Stromberg, the names there to remind them Germany. The two churches of how easily the gospel can be

2 distorted by racism and as worshippers of the one Father nationalism. of every family in heaven and on earth is proof of their continuing Baker was overwhelmed by their importance. love and acceptance. With tears in his eyes, he said that after all But then Paul’s prayer turns those years, he had been able to toward emphasizing what is let go of his hate. It was like an already true about them. He exorcism; the demon of hate had doesn’t pray that the Holy Spirit been cast out by this church that will be present among them or showed him what it meant to be that they will begin to be rooted one family under God. and grounded in love or that Christ will come finally to dwell This was not so different from among them in their hearts or what the Ephesians had that they will have knowledge of experienced. These Gentiles once God’s surpassing fulness in their were considered less than lives. He assumes that all these human by Jews: unclean, dirty things are already true. He prays people who behaved so that their experience of these immorally that they were no things will be strengthened and better than dogs. And yet, increased day by day. through the coming of Christ, many Jews came to see that God When you have a child or a had accepted them and brought grandchild, a niece or nephew, them into the household of or someone else’s child in your Israel. From then on, Christians care, how you speak to them would share in the blessings and matters deeply to their responsibilities of God’s people. developing sense of who they And even today, while Jews are. If you are always laying out uniquely continue to carry out for them the things they need to their special calling to hallow the do in order to please you or name of God to all the world by receive your affirmation or feel being a holy people, Christians your pride in them, they will are living witnesses to their assume they are lacking effective witness. Despite all our something. They will walk differences—and what we have through life wondering if they in common is also where we will ever achieve enough or differ, which is over the person become good enough to have of Jesus—still, our very existence arrived. People who live with

3 this nagging lack at the center of unmeasurable. their being will often seek approval all their lives from This story from the Spanish other people. And as long as you Navy caught my attention. It are seeking it from others, it will turns out they have a submarine always elude you. problem. Some years ago, they commissioned four new Instead, Paul shows us the way, a submarines to be built. So far, way that always leads from the cost overruns have pushed it being to becoming. It’s a way to about double the original from enough to more than allocation, about $1.2 billion enough, from all the fullness you dollars, each! That’s enough to need to a fullness that is greater sink a sub itself, don’t you over time as your heart expands know?! But sinking was also a to handle it. problem. Turns out the original engineering of the subs made When children know they are them too heavy to be able to loved as they are, that they resurface. A sub has to float as belong before they are expected well as submerge. So, they to behave as if they belong, they lengthened the design by 33 feet move through life from strength to give it more buoyancy. But to strength. It’s the same with then they ran into another the church. The church always problem: the home port in has all it needs to be whatever Cartagena didn’t have a dock God is calling it to be at any time. large enough to receive the subs. And yet it can become even So, the port itself had to be more, as its heart expands and dredged and redesigned to strengthens. accommodate the subs, all to tune of $18.6 million so far. And Paul prays for the church that get this, engineers have still not they may know the full been able to design a proper dimension of God’s love in propulsion system for the subs. Christ—the breadth and depth, the height and length of it. What The church has been perfectly he means by that is not that in designed by God to doing so they will find some accommodate all who enter into limit to it, but rather that in it. There is no need to draw trying to measure it, they will limits to its breadth or depth, its find it limitless and height or length. And there is

4 always a place in God’s home of the fullness of God’s love that port for it to dock, so to speak. has already accepted us and The only time the church gets in graced us with every blessing in trouble is when it tries to Christ, there is always room in reengineer itself in measurable our hearts for others, too. and limiting ways. This is the best reason for This beautiful prayer of Paul’s Christian mission work. We goes down easy as long as it don’t bring Christ to people in remains abstract. It causes no order that they may come to discomfort for us to hear its Christ. We go to people whom words about God and Christ and Christ has already loved and the Holy Spirit, about faith and made his own, so that we may love and knowledge. But push come together in his name. And comes to shove when we we pray for them that they will remember what came before know for themselves what we it—namely, those words about have come to know ourselves; the unity of humanity under God that is, what is already true that we are expected to live up to about them in the eyes of God: and live into. that they belong, that Christ is their peace, and that we are all The former Archbishop of one humanity under God. Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said this: Once we recognize Wilshire, in the spirit of this God’s great secret, that we are all epistle, I want to offer this same made to be God’s sons and prayer for us that is rooted and daughters, we can’t avoid the call grounded in the love of God. I to see one another differently. No- pray that we will continue to be one can be written off; no group, strengthened in our inner being, no nation, no minority can just be to comprehend all the more the a scapegoat to resolve our fears surpassing love of Christ, and to and uncertainties. be filled with the fullness of God. I pray that the dimensions of our See, when our identity seems to hearts will be enlarged to us a zero-sum game—where we welcome all those God is are more only if someone is bringing to us. I pray that our less—then we are always fearful confidence will grow and grow of and threatened by others. But and grow in the limitless and when we operate out of a sense unmeasurable grace of God

5 through Jesus Christ.

If I could sing those words like Josh Groban in English and Italian both, I would. But I promise you my heart sings them anyway. And, by the way, my heart has perfect pitch.

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