The Eyes of Our Hearts
All
Saints' Sunday – C
Ephesians
1:11-23
November 4, 2013
Rev.
John M. Caldwell, PhD
First
United Methodist Church
Decorah,
IA
Four
miles to the east of the city of Stirling, Scotland, lie the ruins of
Cambuskenneth Abbey. Founded in 1129, it
was one of several abbeys established by David I of Scotland. For several hundred years, it was the home of
a community of Augustinian brothers.
To
get there, you have to park on residential street, and then walk along a path, across
a pasture—being careful where you step.
A sign reminds you to close the gates.
A small herd of dairy cattle grazes near the path and apparently someone
occasionally forgets and the cows wander into the abbey enclosure itself or out
into the quiet neighborhood of neatly kept houses.
The
church and its abbey lie in ruins. All
that remain are a few low stone walls and a tower that was rebuilt during the
Victorian era when everything old was all the rage and old buildings were
"restored" at great expense. I
say restored. What I mean is that they
were rebuilt to look more medieval than anything built in the Middle Ages, because
that's what the rebuilders thought they should have looked like. Think Middle Ages meets Disneyland. Everything else has either returned to the
elements or been carted off for building materials.
As
a tourist destination it leaves a lot to be desired. You don't find this place without knowing
what you are looking for and how to read a map.
There are no attendants to take your money and tell you stories about
who lived here and what their lives were like.
The
National Trust Scotland has installed small placards at various places telling
the visitor what function was served by each room: Here is where the community ate its meals. There is where the community gathered for
chapter meetings, listening to the abbot read from holy books, submitting
themselves to the spiritual scrutiny and correction of their brothers. Along this path within the walls they walked
in silence and prayed.
It
is a sad place now. Nothing is left of
their shared life. Nothing is left of
their devotion, their stumbling pursuit of spiritual depth and holiness. The echoes of their chanting voices have long
since faded into silence. No one is
there but the cows and a few well-read tourists.
On
a hill to the west is Stirling Castle.
The hill has been fortified since before the Romans and it's not hard to
see why. Stirling is the gateway to the
highlands of Scotland. To the east of
Stirling the river Forth is too wide to bridge and too deep to ford. To the west of Stirling is marshy ground, impossible
for horses. If you wish to invade the
highlands from the south (and I have no idea why you would want to do that), you
must use Stirling Bridge. And you must come
past Stirling Castle. This is
blood-soaked ground.
I
wonder about these friars, these brothers.
Did their gospel of the gentle Jesus make any difference at all in their
violent times? Did their preaching of
peace stay the hands of kings and rebels?
The history books don't even hint at that
Did
they gather on some All Saints' Day centuries ago and hear these words from a
pulpit long since crumbled into dust?
I have heard of your faith in the Lord
Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease
to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and
revelation as you come to know God, so that, with the eyes of your heart
enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which God has called you, what
are the riches of God's glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the
immeasurable greatness of God's power for us who believe, according to the
working of God's great power. God put this power to work in Christ when God raised
him from the dead and seated him at God's right hand in the heavenly places,
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. And God has
put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the
church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Were
they struck, as I am, by the extraordinary irony of it? The power of God, the very power that raised
Jesus from the dead, the very power
that, at least in principle, has subdued every rival and exalted Jesus to rule
over everything, that power is at work in us, at work in the church described
here as the "fullness of Christ".
Yet
that power doesn't often seem very much in evidence. When we summon the courage
to cry for peace (and that doesn't happen very often), that power doesn't alter
the counsels of the powerful. That power
doesn't seem to keep the walls of the church—even stone walls—from crumbling. That power doesn't get the apportionments
paid. That power doesn't keep us from
squabbling with each other.
Is
it because we come short of those ancient heroic times?—those times I learned
about a half-century ago in Sunday School classes taught by the ancient members
of my church—those times when dedicated apostles were missionaries to the Roman
empire, spreading the good news of God's peace in a culture that celebrated war,
those times when Christians marched to their deaths in the arena with hymns on
their lips and praise in their hearts. Is
it because we no longer have the fiery spirit of those earlier times?
No,
those times were not so different from ours.
The Ephesians were not so different from us. When they faced persecution
they were frightened, just as we would be.
When they faced their culture's pressures on them, they were discouraged,
just as we are. When they considered
their mandate to demonstrate the life of the reign of God in a fallen world, they
felt overwhelmed, just like we do. They
did not feel like God's power was at work in them. They felt ordinary and small, too small, they
feared, for what God was asking of them.
This
letter was written to the church at Ephesus to tell them something they did not
know. They had eyes in their heads: they
could see that they were few in number, probably fewer than a hundred. They had
eyes in their heads: they could see that they were not rich. They had eyes in their heads: they could see
that they were not powerful.
But
what they could see with their eyes was not the whole story. The writer of Ephesians wants them to see
more than the eyes in their heads will reveal, so he prays, “…that the God
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom
and revelation as you come to know God, so that, with the eyes of your heart
enlightened…” With the eyes of your heart
enlightened. The heart sees what our eyes do not, the writer suggests, the eyes
of the heart affirm—in a gesture of defiance and hope—a reality that our eyes deny.
This
All Saints' Sunday, this text is asking us not to trust too much in what the
eyes in our heads see. This afternoon we
will gather for our Charge Conference.
Five other congregations will join us and Jackie Bradford will be the
ringleader, presiding over a six ring circus.
We’ll receive reports. We’ll set
the pastors’ salaries. We’ll elect some
leaders. That’s what the eyes in our
heads will see. But the text isn’t
asking us to see with the eyes in our heads.
This
text is asking us to use the eyes of our hearts instead, to see three things, three
things that the eyes in our heads cannot see.
It's asking us to see this Christ—crucified as a criminal under Roman
injustice—with the eyes of our hearts as the one who reigns over all the
rebellious powers of the earth: over war, over poverty, over disease, over
death, over everything that opposes God's perfect purpose for us and for our
world. The text is asking us to see our
church, First United Methodist Church—with all of its faults—with the eyes our
hearts as “the body of Christ,” as the only way that Christ has of being
present in this place, as the concrete embodiment of Jesus' love and mercy. The text is asking us, finally, to see
ourselves—in all our brokenness, in all our foolishness, in all our weakness—with
the eyes of our hearts, as saints, as God's holy ones, set aside in this time
and place for God's use.
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