We were called to prayer last week, and will continue in the parlor after church today, because it is good for God’s people to get together to talk with God and to listen to God. No matter the form of prayer, silently or aloud, with music or without, whether lament, praise, intercession, petition, whatever it is, prayer helps us to reach beyond ourselves to the author of our lives.

The Psalm we heard this morning reminds us that prayer helps us to declare what we know in our lives every day – it declares the love and protection of God. If you have survived a situation that felt like deep water, thank God for pulling you out. There are no enemies in this room, and I pray we have no enemies anywhere, but we can become overwhelmed by life and by people. The death of a loved one, the disappointment we visit on each other, the images we see on the news and in our papers, the horrific stories we hear of murder and other kinds of personal violation are enough to make us feel the assault of circumstances that make us feel like we are being attacked by an enemy.

Have you had one of those days when you were down and someone kicked you in the head? You were already hurt, and then in a spiritual or physical way, someone slapped you? They spoke words that were abusive, they treated us as if we were not children of God. They put us down and left us down. We have had those days, we may be in the midst of one of those long days now. If you are, thanks for being here today, and I hope that you will hear this good news that God has for you.

God is our support. God is really more than our support. God loves so much that God cannot bear for us to be left in narrow, hurtful places. The one who put planets in place and oceans in place, and set the mountains in place has brought you and me to this place, what the Psalmist calls a broad, wide place (Psalm 18. 19) and will not abandon us.

So our life of faith is about honoring the God who loves us. It is about God. In the opening paragraph of his book, The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren says, “It’s not about you. The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It’s far greater than your family, career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by God’s purpose and for God’s purpose” (Rick Warren. The Purpose Driven Life. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002. p. 17). Personal fulfillment, peace of mind, our own happiness are powerful gifts from God, and they help us fulfill our purpose of knowing and serving God.

And we can trust the powerful gifts God has given us to discern through our prayer and reflection, through asking God, everyday, what would you have me do with my life today? We can trust that it is not in the nature of God to disregard, disrespect, look down us on, or hate us. We are you and me, created in the image of God who delights in us. God loves us and there is not anything we can do about it except to bask in God’s love, find strength in God’s love, and love others because we are loved. God delights in us enough to want and claim good things for us.

We need to remember the love of God because it can seem sometimes as if that love is far away from us. It could have been that way for Paul as he wrote to the Ephesians. After all, he is writing to them from prison, and that could not have been a pleasant place. While he was locked up for preaching the good news of Jesus Christ, Paul could have felt abandoned by God. But he wouldn’t because he had a relationship with God and with Jesus Christ, and he had a relationship, a good mutually loving relationship with the church. He loved the Ephesians.

Paul knows what we have come to know: through this same Jesus, we can approach our God confidently, boldly, unafraid (3.12-13). God loves each of us enough to bring us Jesus Christ who loved us enough to show us what it is to teach the good news, live the good news, to die for the sake of the whole world and then to live again into eternal life for the good news. And it is that profound reality of the good news of Jesus Christ that leads to worship, to outreach, to stewardship, to study, and to prayer. It is that faith that moves us forward, one step at a time.

You know Paul loved the church, and I love the church, and I know you love the church too. Paul loved each member of the churches he founded and those he served, and I love each of you…that is why you are the good news story I tell when I talk about Broad Street Christian Church. I tell them what I have told you, that there is no church quite like ours in this city, that we have a small but great choir that can raise the roof, and sound like a chorus of angels. We are raising good and polite children here, we are what heaven will look like, young and old, black and white, male and female, gay and straight, of every economic and political persuasion, and it is great to be here. I love talking with other people about how blessed we are to have this glorious space and to sit and worship and work among such glorious people; and what a privilege it is for us to open our doors and share hospitality with others.

But here I have a confession and an apology to make. The confession is that I came here nine and a half years ago in response to your call. I was thrilled to receive the faith and trust you placed in me because I believed in the possibilities for this church, and I still believe we are a faithful and good congregation of God’s people. You may know that it was about 10 years ago, in October, 1995 that I began talking with the search committee before you called me to be the pastor here early in 1996. During those conversations, the Search committee told me, and you told me in a series of meetings that you wanted this congregation to grow and to change. You wanted it to grow spiritually, and you wanted it to grow numerically and most of my ministry with you, in addition to calling on people, baptizing, leading worship, and weddings and funerals, has been about helping us reach those goals. I want this church to live, it is too much of a sign for what God intends for the church to be, not to survive and prosper. And I know you want this church to survive and prosper too.

That is why every time I go to a conference or a meeting and I learn some new thing about transformation or stewardship, or anything that will enhance our life together, I bring it back to the Board, or the EZEKIEL Team, or the congregation. Some things have been received, such as the Ministry Teams and the EZEKIEL Team. Others, we tried and laid aside because they weren’t right for us.

I am so excited about the possibility of us, that I really believe that every spark of growth, will catch fire and bring us to where we all want to be. I assumed that because I saw it so clearly that you saw it too. That is why I have talked so much about what we can be and about the future God holds for us. What I did not realize is that all of that future talk meant to some that we were lacking in some things right now, that there is something wrong with us today. That was not my intent at all. My intent was to help us move in the direction that I discerned in my spirit that God was pointing us toward because if we don’t do some things now to claim a vision, our future will indeed look bleak, and the Proverb will be true, “where is there no vision, the people perish” (29.18). Another translation of that verse says that “where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint”. We are just out there with no sense of direction, and no opportunity to offer faithful ministry. That is a bleak present and it will lead to a bleak future. I do not believe that God wants either death or bleakness for us.

So I apologize if my excitement has gotten ahead of my ability to be clear. I will try to do better from this point. But Rick Warren is right, it is not about us, it is about what God has done, is doing, and will do in us. It is about what we will together do to praise and honor God by being the marvelous, inclusive community that we are now. Let today be a new beginning for us. Let this be the day that we pledge by word and by action to tell each other and to show each other how much love and affection we have for one another. And let’s show the world, beginning with our households, and our friends, and then moving beyond just what and who we know, that God has given us more love than we can contain. A good place for us to begin is by praying for this church and its ministries. It is one of the ways we do not lose heart. The love of God and the love we have for each other is reason enough to bow our knees before God.

When Paul prayed for the church at Ephesus, he gave us a two-fold model for prayer; it’s a good model for us. First he prayed that the church might have inner strength, with power through God’s Holy Spirit, and that they would know God’s love deeply and surely.

He uses a words that were meaningful for his hearers, and for us; rooted, grounded, knowledge, and love. “Rooted is horticultural, denoting a firm bed in which plants are set; grounded borrows the language of architecture and ensures a strong base on which a structure can rest and rise. Knowledge is how we understand fully the redemptive plan of God, and love lies at the heart of God’s nature and purpose” (Interpretation series. Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon. Ralph P. Martin. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1991, p.44-45).

It is as we love and care for each other and share and show our love beyond these walls that we will know even more the blessings of God. I was at the dedication of the new Central Community House Friday. As part of the celebration, a local poet and artist Jon Sunami read an original poem. It talks about one settlement house, but as I heard it, I had a vision of this church as he read it. It says:

God has given to each one of us a wealth of grace, of love, of hope, of joy, all to feed our spirits as the food we eat feeds our bodies. That should make us happy and strong deep in our souls. Finding our inner strength helps to trust God enough with all that we have, so that we really can bring our burdens and our laments to God and leave them there. You have had an opportunity to write down your lament, regrets, the things that have hurt you, the baggage that you carry. Let’s put it in a suitcase and pack it up, and begin to be rid of it. Let’s let go of some things now, so that we can make room in our spirits today.

In the second part of his prayer, Paul prays that the church would have the power to understand in the moment, that the love of God for the church, for his church, and for our church is so wide and so long, and so deep, that it cannot be measured. It is so full that we cannot help but respond to what we know. With the boundless love of God, surely we can pray to discern the gifts that God has given us and then to put them to use in our lives and for the church. We can live out our core values and commit ourselves to knowing God, building our relationships, and doing justice. We can be as open and honest as we can be in our town meeting and planning process next week.

And we can believe that God has already given us what we need if we will claim it, and live it, starting today. I believe in God, and I believe in this church and in our ability to share the good news of Jesus Christ as we listen to each other, feed each other mind, body, and spirit, and as we hold each other as we laugh and cry together, as we together sense the urgency of building up our community, and as we live in hope.

We can know God as we go to God in prayer. And as we pray for the church and for each other, may Jesus Christ be praised. Amen.

Dr. LaTaunya M. Bynum
Senior Pastor