I was walking around a gathering place in my hometown the
other day, wearing my “Love Heals” T-shirt. A couple of people remarked about
the message with a smile. One lady walked past me and simply said, “Yes, it
does,’ to me and just kept walking—I will confess it took me a couple of
seconds to realize what she meant. I had to look down at my own chest, and then
call out my agreement to her back as she walked away.
It’s such a magnificent promise that it’s hard to accept it
fully—both for the Ephesians, and for us. William Sloane Coffin remarked nearly
forty years ago, “The tragedy of our country today is that most of us do not
believe that we are loved by God—not really. If we do think so, we don’t think
so emotionally. Consequently our much-vaunted individualism is selfish instead
of selfless. Rather than accepting our value as a gift, we think we have to
prove it.”
Too many of our countrymen are looking around at their
neighbors and seeing nothing but threats. Their solution of arming themselves
publicly then in turn threatens those around them. They look out on those the
see on the streets and in parks and shops and see threats, not fellow human
beings, and they think they can protect themselves through weaponry. Others of
us interpose banners of earthly powers between both ourselves and others, as
well as between us and the banner of Christ. These kinds of fear are
contagious.
Sometimes, this fear of accepting the boundlessness of God’s
mercy and love is rooted in old wounds that have yet to heal. For others of us,
the language of family used to describe our relationship with God and each
other brings to mind memories of times when the love we expected of family or
friends failed us. Some of us have been shattered by being told that our love
is not enough. These kinds of wounds are inflicted by those who themselves have
been wounded by fear. But fear begets fear. Fear poisons the growth of hope and
the ability to trust in promises.
Our reading from Ephesians reminds us that this is a problem
that affects everyone, not just the Ephesians in the first century of the
Christian era, but all of us. We live too often ruled by fear that we are not
good enough—for each other, much less for God. The eyes of the world are often
harsh and judgmental, and yet we spend most of our lives chasing after approval
by what we do and what we have and what we look like. I would take that one step further. The
problem is not JUST that we have a hard time believing God loves us. We start
with being unable to believe that God loves others, especially those some of us
think of as “lesser-than” us—those accused of wrongdoing, those who follow
other religions, those of other ethnicities, those who live in other countries
or are from other countries, those whose
sexual preference or understanding of gender is different from ours, those who
are poor and marginalized.
We cannot truly accept the promise of God’s love for us
unless we also accept the promise of God’s love for all of creation—even a
creation that includes people who have been deeply wounded, either through
their own choices or the choices of others. Because we have a hard time
believing in God’s love of us, we start wanting to draw boundaries or limits
around it. One of the most horrifying
things I heard preached from an Episcopal pulpit this year was the claim that
some people are beyond the boundaries of God’s love. No. Ephesians reminds us
that there is no division in God’s love. God seeks “to gather ALL things in
him, things in heaven and things on earth.” God’s love is a call to
transformation and renewal—to live into our authentic selves as children of
love and light. Yes, love does heal. But only if we allow ourselves to believe
we are worthy of love, and to trust that promise. If we believe that, then
perhaps we could also love each other, just as Christ loves us and gives
himself for us, every day.
In the epistle for this Sunday, we are reminded that we are
made by God to love and be loved by God. We are children of God—and as such,
are fully integrated into God’s love. We
are beloved children of God—and Christ is our brother, as well as our Lord,
Companion, and Savior. God loved us so much that God’s son was sent to us to
show us more fully who God is. God is our Father. God is our Mother. God is the
one who loves us beyond understanding. Like a child emerging from a fever, may
we sink back into the promise of the God who embraces us and loves us beyond
all reason, beyond all flaws.
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