November 14, 2004
The Well Church:  Where There is Love Like Christ's.
Riley E. Jensen

Here at Westminster we call this Sunday “Loyalty Sunday”.  Now “Loyalty Sunday” is not to be found on any liturgical calendar that I know of.  Before arriving at Westminster I called this particular Sunday by many names but never “Loyalty Sunday”.  I have known it as Commitment Sunday, Pledge Sunday, Stewardship Sunday, but never Loyalty Sunday.

To be historically accurate it hasn’t always been known as Loyalty Sunday around here either.  Actually, it was my friend and colleague, Al Weenink, who helped to bring us around to this way of thinking as we have tried to ground our stewardship in the spiritual depths of who we are as the Church of Jesus Christ.

While this is certainly a Sunday when you will be given the opportunity to make your commitment of financial giving for the coming year, it is grounded spiritually in something far deeper than your ability to give or even your desire to give.  That’s why I have chosen as our text for this morning one of my favorite passages of scripture and one which I frequently read at funeral and memorial services.

Furthermore, my favorite translation is the one found in the New English Bible which reads like this, “I kneel in prayer to the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name, that out of the treasures of his glory he may grant you strength and power through his spirit in your inner being, that through faith Christ may dwell in your hearts in love.  With deep roots and firm foundations, may you be strong to grasp, with all God’s people, what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ, and to know it though it is beyond knowledge.  So may you attain to fullness of being, the fullness of God himself.”

Apart from the beauty of its poetry and the cadence of its rhythm this is a passage that grounds us as the church.  It’s like a pile driver making sure that our foundations run deep and secure, because it is only with those deep roots and firm foundations that we will be able to grasp the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ.  For it is that love that both marks us, sustains us, and flows through us.

I.   Knowing the Unknowable

The first thing that we are asked to do with the love of Christ in this passage is “to know it, though it is beyond knowledge”.  Now that is a poetic non-sequiter if I have ever heard one striking the ears of a scientific culture as having a certain beauty of language, and yet failing to state its truth with objective meaning.  It’s a bit like a professor I once had who spoke with such eloquence that he regularly held his classes in rapt attention.  We would walk out of his classes feeling that we had just heard from a Greek oracle, but when our feet started to touch the earth we would ask each other, “What did he say?”

While I don’t recommend having surgery to secure some additional reading time, one of the unintended benefits of my recovery period was the opportunity to catch up on my reading.  One book that I am still working on (because it is written in small print and filled with great ideas) is Karen Armstrong’s Battle for God in which she surveys the development of fundamentalism in Islamic, Jewish, and Christian cultures.  At one point she uses two 75-cent words to make a helpful distinction.

The words are orthodoxy and orthopraxy.  Orthodoxy is a word familiar to many Christians as meaning “right belief”.  Orthopraxy is a helpful word to understand the major thrust of our religious cousins because it means “right action”.  Both Islam and Judaism put more emphasis on right action than right belief.  Both feel that it is right action that leads one closer to God rather than right belief.  It is in this light that we are to understand the 5 pillars of Islam as well as the 613 commandments of Jewish law.

However, without minimizing all of our differences, I would argue that we are not as far apart as some might think.  For us it comes down to knowing the love of Christ though it is beyond knowledge.  How can we know something that is beyond knowledge?  Frankly, it is not as much of a mystery as one might think because our knowledge as Christians is rooted in love, and our love is rooted in action.

For us, our orthodoxy and our orthopraxy come together.  In Philosophy 101 we learned the wisdom of Rene Descartes, “Cogito ergo sum” as though it provided the bedrock for an enlightened society.  But Jesus challenges the wisdom of “I think therefore I am” with a way of life -- “Amo ergo sum” -- “I love therefore I am”.

“It is terribly important,” says William Sloane Coffin, “to realize that the leap of faith is not so much a leap of thought as of action.  For while in many matters it is first we must see, then we will act; in matters of faith, it is first we must do, then we will know.”  There are a lot of things that we know or at least we think we know.  But it is not until that knowledge moves from the mind and is wrapped in the blanket of love that we know in the very heart of our being.

Friends, for us knowledge is a relational word.  The way we know God is through experiencing the love of God.  Therefore, love is an action word.  I have always known that you are a loving congregation.  I have seen it; I have rejoiced in it; but I had never experienced it in quite the way I did this fall when the prayer blanket was delivered to me as it has been to so many.  To wrap myself in that blanket was to experience the healing power of the love of this congregation in a very concrete way.

You see, when you have been touched by that kind of love, loyalty can never again be seen as a matter of duty.  It is rather great gratitude that defines the impulse that makes me want to see that kind of ministry continued.

II.   Measuring the Immeasurable

The truest thing that we can say about this church to which we have pledged our loyalty is that its most indelible mark is the love of Christ in action.  Honesty also prompts us to confess that there have been many unloving acts of the church in the name of Christ.  Nevertheless, we keep on trying and we keep picking ourselves up after we have fallen.  We keep on loving even when we don’t feel like loving because love is kindness and compassion in action.

It is this continuous and immeasurable quality that our passage is getting at.  It is interesting that the writer of Ephesians uses the language of measurement in trying to get across the concept of infinity.  We’re talking about the height and depth and breadth and length of the love of Christ here, and while that is self-evident beyond measure we still need to try to measure it.

You have heard that description “they are so heavenly minded they are no earthly good”!  That may be a description of some religious folk, but it is not a description of the church we are meant to be.  This preacher is using the language of accountability; he’s holding our feet to the fire.  We may not be able to measure the love of Christ, but we need to try.

And here at Westminster we have tried.  If we are not all that we are meant to be, it is not for lack of effort.  Some of the reading I have been able to do over the past few months should have been done earlier because it included my friend Bill Bennett’s wonderful history of the women of Westminster.  Appropriately enough, it is entitled “Love in Action”.  It is well worth the hour or two you will spend on it because it explains a lot about the heart and soul of this place.

My friends, the church that you know and love today is no accident.  Others have gone before.  It is no accident that we have a heart for global mission or that we try to reach out with the love of Christ to support our partners on 6 continents.  Our Presbyterian Women planted such seeds of love in action when they sent almost 7000 surgical dressings to hospitals in the Caribbean and Cameroun 80 years ago, and they planted seeds for our involvement in the local community as they reached out in support of the housing needs of families in crisis.

You can read all about it, and if you do you will know that our past is our present and our future.  Of course, our ability to live up to that past and continue it into the future depends upon our ability to measure the immeasurable.  We know that the church is about faith and that at some point God will provide, but if we are to be part of a place where love is put into action then the response of commitment will be in evidence.

I want you to know that during these challenging times, I have that kind of faith.  I have that kind of faith in God and I have that kind of faith in you.  My inspiration is in a little story that one of you passed on to me.  The occasion was another Sunday morning when another preacher stood in the pulpit to challenge the congregation to be all that they could be.  He began with the good news by telling them that they had adequate funds not only for that year's program but for every year into the foreseeable future.  Great applause erupted in the face of such an announcement and the congregation was hysterically happy.  However, the mood began to change when the minister said, “It is only fair for me to share with you the rest of the story for there is some bad news which could affect this bright future.  And that is that the money is still in your pockets.”

My friends, on this Loyalty Sunday I invite you to consider once again what is the height and depth and breadth and length of the love of Christ, and to know it though it is beyond knowledge.  We love God because God first loved us.  Once we have experienced the love of God, it then becomes our joy and our privilege to share it in every way we know how with all that we are and have.  You see, resources are never a problem when love is at the heart of our faith and our church.

Amen.