“Putting Down Roots”
Ephesians 3:14-21, NRSV and First Nations version
A few of you here may remember that four years ago, I preached a sermon series on this passage from the Pauline letter to the church in Ephesus.
Back then, in the early fall of 2020, we were still very much in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic. Back then, all but four of us—Dick, a cantor, maybe a scripture reader, the tech person, and myself—were worshipping every Sunday from home, and with no vaccine or clear program for ending the pandemic in view, we had no idea when we would be able to meet in person again.
Beyond church, most of us had no idea when we would be able to go back to school or work or something resembling normal life again.
Back then, the police murder of George Floyd was still top of mind, and major cities across the country were being ravaged by nightly Black Lives Matter protests and counter-protests.
Back then, we were entering the home stretch of a closely-contested, high-stakes presidential election, and no one could predict how it would turn out.
All of which is to say: It was a most unsettling time. It seemed like every day brought more bad news, a new conspiracy theory, and more effort just to keep going.
Back then, it seemed like a good time to explore this beautiful prayer for spiritual rootedness and groundedness. And so I preached three different sermons: the first on being rooted and grounded in power; the second on being rooted and grounded in love; and the third on being rooted and grounded in God.
Back then, in those unprecedented times, I drew on the prayer and other stories from our scriptures to talk about both the importance of being grounded and some suggestions for ways to do it. Looking back at those sermons, I can see that even then, I was trying to nudge us toward focusing on and developing spiritual practices. Those sermons also read a little bit like tips for surviving a time we weren’t quite sure we would make it through.
We did make it through, of course, in no small part because the God whose love is higher and deeper and wider and longer than we can even begin to imagine was with us in and through it all. We made it through, in part because the circumstances made it easier to see what was most important, in part because we held onto and grounded ourselves in what was real and true, in part because we hung on to the people, relationships, and communities—like this one—that we loved.
You don’t have to have been at First Church or to have heard those sermons to remember that time.
Or do you?
Do you ever remember and, like me, have a hard time believing what we endured, and for how long? Does it feel so surreal and vaguely traumatic that you don’t want to dwell on it?
Well, rest assured that I have no intention of taking us back there in any sort of detailed or emotional way. And yet, coming across the same prayer in our lectionary readings this week, I was struck again by a couple things I know to be true:
First, that—unprecedented circumstances or not—our lives will always be shaped by change.
Take a moment to call to mind just one thing that has happened in your life in the past four years that makes it different now.
Maybe it was the death of a beloved. Maybe it was new love—or the ending of an important relationship. Maybe it was becoming a grandparent or having a child. Maybe it was retiring or graduating, moving or settling down, losing a job or getting a new one. Maybe it was an illness or injury. Maybe it was joining this church.
Whatever it was, chances are you may not have ever imagined that thing happening. Whatever it was, even if you saw it coming, you might not have been able to predict its impact on you or the people and relationships you care about.
Take another moment now—to consider who and what carried you through that change.
Might it have been God’s love and grace working through the people and circumstances in your life? Might it have been the power of the Holy Spirit giving you the strength you needed? Might it have been the love and light of Christ dwelling in your heart and filling you with whatever you needed just when you needed it?
Might it have been the love that you had rooted and grounded yourself in, the love that goes beyond our small and weak ways of thinking to reveal and engage the very fullness of God?
Our scriptures are filled with images of groundedness: trees planted by streams of living water, houses built on rocks, church communities built on the solid foundation of Christ’s radically inclusive and loving ways. Our scriptures are likewise filled with warnings about what happens when lives are not rooted and grounded; Jesus said they are like houses built on sand that, when the rains come and the floods rise and the winds blow, will come crashing down.
When the storms of life are raging, Jesus said, or just to get through the normal and even good changes, you’d best be grounded in something something real and meaningful and rooted in something life-giving and unchanging.
But here’s the second thing, and the reason I love this prayer about spiritual rootedness and groundedness so much: In this prayer, groundedness is portrayed not as a survival strategy for unexpected and difficult situations, but as an invitation to live into the full promise, blessings, and imagination of God’s love and grace.
Yes, when we go through life feeling like a nail, we will experience everything as a hammer. When the ocean seems like little more than a series of punishing waves, we will focus on nothing but trying to stand—or else stay out of the water altogether. In the same way, when life and the world present us with one unpredictable challenge after this or that outrageous or discouraging development, it is understandable to focus on survival and just getting by or making it through.
But life was not created to be a burden. The gift of life and all that comes with it is not simply something to be survived. God wants so much more for us than that. God has for us so much more than that. God wants us, all people, and all creation to know healing and wholeness, justice and peace, hope and joy, kinship, community, and life-changing, world-changing love.
And that’s where rootedness and groundedness come in. That’s where this prayer comes in.
Rootedness and groundedness open the door of our heart, that it might be filled with all the fullness of God. Rootedness and groundedness open the doors of our mind and spirit, that they might be filled with the power of the Spirit and the faith of Christ. When we are rooted and grounded in a love too big to fathom, we begin to see all of life as grace. When we are rooted and grounded in the fullness of God, there is space in our hearts for joy. There is room in our hearts for peace. There is room for our hearts to overflow with a love bigger than anything we have ever known, greater than anything we can imagine.
And it is that fullness that gives us what we need—both to weather life’s storms and to fully enjoy life’s blessings. Our rootedness and groundedness paves the way for a life—and a world—transformed.
And that is one of the key invitations of the life of faith: To live not in fear, but in hope. To live not defensively but openly and expectantly. To live not worried about what will happen or not happen, but with trust that God’s love, power, grace, and strength will be with us always.
So let us put down roots. May our roots go deep into the soil of Christ’s great love, so that from those roots we will draw the strength and courage we need to walk this sacred path together. May we trust that this path of live is higher than the stars, deeper than the great waters, wider than the sky. May we know that this love comes from and reaches to all directions.
And may we trust that the Holy One, by God’s great power working in us and through us, can do far more than what we ask for, more even than we can imagine.
Amen.
