Love That Surpasses Knowledge
Sermon
Sermons on the Second Readings
Series III, Cycle B
Object:
I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge -- that you may be filled to the measure of all fullness of God.
-- Ephesians 3:17b-19
Burned into my memory is the image of my father, a few days before his death, clinging to his well-worn King James Bible. It was the source of his inspiration, the place where his favorite scripture passage was written: "Who shall separate us from the love Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" (Romans 8:34-35 KJV). Despite a life of considerable challenge and personal stress, my father had most certainly been blessed with the power "to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ," a love that surpasses knowledge.
It is difficult to grasp the fact that the root and foundation of creation is love. It "surpasses knowledge." So far removed are we from the source of creation, so caught up are we in the human transformation of life that we have to struggle and pray and meditate in order to catch even a fleeting glimpse of "how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ."
We know and understand the love that comes as a reward for being good, for being faithful, for being kind, for giving gifts, and for acting with appropriate behavior. But this is not the love that is embedded in the foundation of creation. This is not the love that surpasses knowledge. This is not the love that Paul prays we might have the power to grasp. It is a love that flows freely, without consideration of reward or plan for recompense. This is a love that is not inherent to human nature. We are more inclined to return love for love and enmity for enmity. Scripture says, "... how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps" (1 Peter 2:20-21). If we are to approach the way of biblical love, we must spend a long time meditating on what it means when the Bible says we must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Christ.
In the book, The Fire of Your Life by Maggie Ross, there is the story of a Jewish woman, a holocaust survivor, who every day at 4 p.m. stood outside the door of a New York cathedral, screaming obscenities and cursing at Jesus Christ. Week after week this went on as she vented the pain she had suffered as a survivor of death camps. It was her perception that Christianity had done this to her. One day, Bishop Coleman Myers came out of the church as this woman was screaming. He looked down at her and said in a kind and soft voice, "Why don't you come in and tell him?" He took her into the chancel of the cathedral and left her alone at the foot of a large cross upon which hung the figure of Jesus. He waited an hour, but didn't hear anything. When he reentered the chancel the woman was on the floor at the foot of the cross. He laid his hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him and said, "Well, he was Jewish, too."1
He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.
-- 1 Peter 2:22-23
This is not the love of Hollywood cinema. This is a love that surpasses human understanding. Although we are called to follow in his steps, it is only through faith that we are able to do so. Although we may not be humanly capable of performing it, we can become transformed by it.
In the book, God's Word in Man's Language, author Eugene A. Nida explains that the Indians of eastern Nicaragua and Honduras say that love is "pain of the heart."2 The Mayan people of the central highlands of Mexico understand the verse from John 3:16 to read, "God so hurt in his heart that he gave his only son."
Anyone who has loved long enough and deeply enough understands this connection between love and suffering, love and pain. When we review the greatness of many men and women of history, we realize that one of the most outstanding measures of greatness is their capacity for suffering ... suffering love.
M. Scott Peck, in his book The Road Less Traveled, describes the difference between love and dependency. When someone says, "I love him (or her) so much that I just can't live without him (or her), Peck explains: "What you describe is parasitism, not love ... Love is the free exercise of choice. Two people love each other only when they are quite capable of living without each other but choose to live with each other." Peck continues to describe this condition of dependency as the most common psychiatric disorder. "People with this disorder, passive dependent people, are so busy seeking to be loved that they have no energy left to love ... They are starving people, scrounging wherever they can for food, and with no food of their own to give to others. It is as if within them they have an inner emptiness, a bottomless pit crying out to be filled but which can never be completely filled ... They tolerate loneliness very poorly."3
There are occasional instances in which human acts become the conduits for what the Bible calls agape love. But normal human behavior finds us standing behind barriers of political opinion, religious views, and personal differences. We take offense at how some dress. We cling obsessively to personal hurts. We allow our bitterness to separate us not only from neighbors, but from the closest family members.
"She hurt me and I can't forget her words."
"They never sent a thank-you note. That's the last time I do anything for them."
"How could anyone with an ounce of intelligence vote for him?"
Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote, "We must love them both: those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in the search for truth, and helped us in the finding of it."
One of my favorite quotations comes from the ancient philosopher Cicero: "There is no more certain sign of arrogance, narrow-mindedness, and ignorance than to stand apart from those who think differently from us."
Too often, we allow differences to grow walls among us. How helpful it would be for us to remember that the one for whom we harbor bitterness, the one who holds a different opinion, the one who has different values, the one who dresses oddly ... all these are individuals whom Christ loves and for whom he died. God grant you strength in your inner being to grasp the depth of this love of Christ, so that you may attain to fullness of being.
You and I have an incredible resource for achieving greatness in suffering love, for becoming great lovers. Listen to Paul's prayer: "I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power ... to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge -- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
Filled with the fullness of God! Just think how that could change our behavior toward others. No longer would we reflect our human frailty, our shallow hurts and bitterness, our resentments at the unfairness of life which we all experience. Instead, we could become blind conduits to sheer love and acceptance and kindness.
Hear the words God speaks to you, just as he spoke to his Son at the Jordan River: "You are my child, my beloved, with you I am well pleased" (Mark 1:11 cf).
These words remind us that God's acceptance is not dependent upon our performance. God loves us for who we are, not what we have done. Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. God proclaimed at your baptism, "You are my son, you are my daughter, you are my beloved. I love you!" May you have the power, Paul writes, "to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ."
We see occasional glimpses of this love reflected from time to time in the great names of history: Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. You and I see it from time to time in our own circles, in a mother's patience or a father's labor.
One story that reflects this love is about little Willie, the smallest child of a sharecropping family in the 1940s. They had just enough money to survive. One time through the mother's careful saving, they had an extra dollar. She sent it into the Sears Roebuck catalog for their first luxury, a small mirror. When it arrived, each family member looked at it. When it got to Willie he gasped in horror. His face was full of scars. As an infant he had been bitten by a dog. As a toddler he had been kicked in the head by a horse. He looked at his mother: "Mama, did you know I looked like this all along?" "Yes, Willie, I knew." "And you still loved me?" "Yes, of course I loved you, Willie, and I do love you, and I will always love you, because you are mine. You are mine!"
There are times when I look at the scars of my sinfulness and I have to ask the Lord: "Can you love me the way I am? Even though I neglect you and come to you only at my convenience?" And then in the solitude of my prayers I hear him whisper, "Yes, I love you. I love you because you are mine."
As one preacher put it: "There is nothing you can do to make God love you. There is nothing you can do to make God stop loving you."
For this reason I kneel before the Father ... and I pray that he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge -- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Amen.
____________
1. Maggie Ross, The Fire of Your Life (New York: Seabury Books, 2007).
2. Eugene Albert Nida, God's Word in Man's Language (New York: Harper, 1952).
3. M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), pp. 98-99.
-- Ephesians 3:17b-19
Burned into my memory is the image of my father, a few days before his death, clinging to his well-worn King James Bible. It was the source of his inspiration, the place where his favorite scripture passage was written: "Who shall separate us from the love Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" (Romans 8:34-35 KJV). Despite a life of considerable challenge and personal stress, my father had most certainly been blessed with the power "to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ," a love that surpasses knowledge.
It is difficult to grasp the fact that the root and foundation of creation is love. It "surpasses knowledge." So far removed are we from the source of creation, so caught up are we in the human transformation of life that we have to struggle and pray and meditate in order to catch even a fleeting glimpse of "how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ."
We know and understand the love that comes as a reward for being good, for being faithful, for being kind, for giving gifts, and for acting with appropriate behavior. But this is not the love that is embedded in the foundation of creation. This is not the love that surpasses knowledge. This is not the love that Paul prays we might have the power to grasp. It is a love that flows freely, without consideration of reward or plan for recompense. This is a love that is not inherent to human nature. We are more inclined to return love for love and enmity for enmity. Scripture says, "... how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps" (1 Peter 2:20-21). If we are to approach the way of biblical love, we must spend a long time meditating on what it means when the Bible says we must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Christ.
In the book, The Fire of Your Life by Maggie Ross, there is the story of a Jewish woman, a holocaust survivor, who every day at 4 p.m. stood outside the door of a New York cathedral, screaming obscenities and cursing at Jesus Christ. Week after week this went on as she vented the pain she had suffered as a survivor of death camps. It was her perception that Christianity had done this to her. One day, Bishop Coleman Myers came out of the church as this woman was screaming. He looked down at her and said in a kind and soft voice, "Why don't you come in and tell him?" He took her into the chancel of the cathedral and left her alone at the foot of a large cross upon which hung the figure of Jesus. He waited an hour, but didn't hear anything. When he reentered the chancel the woman was on the floor at the foot of the cross. He laid his hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him and said, "Well, he was Jewish, too."1
He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.
-- 1 Peter 2:22-23
This is not the love of Hollywood cinema. This is a love that surpasses human understanding. Although we are called to follow in his steps, it is only through faith that we are able to do so. Although we may not be humanly capable of performing it, we can become transformed by it.
In the book, God's Word in Man's Language, author Eugene A. Nida explains that the Indians of eastern Nicaragua and Honduras say that love is "pain of the heart."2 The Mayan people of the central highlands of Mexico understand the verse from John 3:16 to read, "God so hurt in his heart that he gave his only son."
Anyone who has loved long enough and deeply enough understands this connection between love and suffering, love and pain. When we review the greatness of many men and women of history, we realize that one of the most outstanding measures of greatness is their capacity for suffering ... suffering love.
M. Scott Peck, in his book The Road Less Traveled, describes the difference between love and dependency. When someone says, "I love him (or her) so much that I just can't live without him (or her), Peck explains: "What you describe is parasitism, not love ... Love is the free exercise of choice. Two people love each other only when they are quite capable of living without each other but choose to live with each other." Peck continues to describe this condition of dependency as the most common psychiatric disorder. "People with this disorder, passive dependent people, are so busy seeking to be loved that they have no energy left to love ... They are starving people, scrounging wherever they can for food, and with no food of their own to give to others. It is as if within them they have an inner emptiness, a bottomless pit crying out to be filled but which can never be completely filled ... They tolerate loneliness very poorly."3
There are occasional instances in which human acts become the conduits for what the Bible calls agape love. But normal human behavior finds us standing behind barriers of political opinion, religious views, and personal differences. We take offense at how some dress. We cling obsessively to personal hurts. We allow our bitterness to separate us not only from neighbors, but from the closest family members.
"She hurt me and I can't forget her words."
"They never sent a thank-you note. That's the last time I do anything for them."
"How could anyone with an ounce of intelligence vote for him?"
Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote, "We must love them both: those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in the search for truth, and helped us in the finding of it."
One of my favorite quotations comes from the ancient philosopher Cicero: "There is no more certain sign of arrogance, narrow-mindedness, and ignorance than to stand apart from those who think differently from us."
Too often, we allow differences to grow walls among us. How helpful it would be for us to remember that the one for whom we harbor bitterness, the one who holds a different opinion, the one who has different values, the one who dresses oddly ... all these are individuals whom Christ loves and for whom he died. God grant you strength in your inner being to grasp the depth of this love of Christ, so that you may attain to fullness of being.
You and I have an incredible resource for achieving greatness in suffering love, for becoming great lovers. Listen to Paul's prayer: "I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power ... to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge -- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
Filled with the fullness of God! Just think how that could change our behavior toward others. No longer would we reflect our human frailty, our shallow hurts and bitterness, our resentments at the unfairness of life which we all experience. Instead, we could become blind conduits to sheer love and acceptance and kindness.
Hear the words God speaks to you, just as he spoke to his Son at the Jordan River: "You are my child, my beloved, with you I am well pleased" (Mark 1:11 cf).
These words remind us that God's acceptance is not dependent upon our performance. God loves us for who we are, not what we have done. Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. God proclaimed at your baptism, "You are my son, you are my daughter, you are my beloved. I love you!" May you have the power, Paul writes, "to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ."
We see occasional glimpses of this love reflected from time to time in the great names of history: Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. You and I see it from time to time in our own circles, in a mother's patience or a father's labor.
One story that reflects this love is about little Willie, the smallest child of a sharecropping family in the 1940s. They had just enough money to survive. One time through the mother's careful saving, they had an extra dollar. She sent it into the Sears Roebuck catalog for their first luxury, a small mirror. When it arrived, each family member looked at it. When it got to Willie he gasped in horror. His face was full of scars. As an infant he had been bitten by a dog. As a toddler he had been kicked in the head by a horse. He looked at his mother: "Mama, did you know I looked like this all along?" "Yes, Willie, I knew." "And you still loved me?" "Yes, of course I loved you, Willie, and I do love you, and I will always love you, because you are mine. You are mine!"
There are times when I look at the scars of my sinfulness and I have to ask the Lord: "Can you love me the way I am? Even though I neglect you and come to you only at my convenience?" And then in the solitude of my prayers I hear him whisper, "Yes, I love you. I love you because you are mine."
As one preacher put it: "There is nothing you can do to make God love you. There is nothing you can do to make God stop loving you."
For this reason I kneel before the Father ... and I pray that he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge -- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Amen.
____________
1. Maggie Ross, The Fire of Your Life (New York: Seabury Books, 2007).
2. Eugene Albert Nida, God's Word in Man's Language (New York: Harper, 1952).
3. M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), pp. 98-99.
