Ephesians 3:14-19
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith-that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
This text is all one sentence. It is as if, in one breath, Paul bears his heart.
Here is a pastor every true pastor ought to emulate. His first reverence is for God. "I bow my knees before the Father," Paul writes. He doesn't bow to anything or anyone other than to our gracious God and Father. His heart and confidence rests on the One from whom every believer, including himself, derives the name Christian.
He doesn't bob around, first to what's popular and then be bent by what's nerve-racking, never sure where to put his feet down or his knees down. He doesn't carom back and forth in ever shifting loyalties, first to this method, then to that style. He doesn't hop around from one belief to another without an inkling of what confession to adopt today or which new thing might catch his fancy tomorrow. Instead, he depends only on the Father for the Father's gifts.
He looks only to the glorious riches grounded in Christ and trusts only the power of the Holy Spirit through the Word to implant faith in the hearts of people and build up the ranks of the saints.
He considers only one thing essential for the church he loves, that Christ may dwell in their hearts through faith. He doesn't consider it essential that folks be comfortable. He doesn't regard it important that they be amused, successful, popular, or prosperous. He only wants them to receive Christ. That's why he prays. That's why he preaches the Gospel. That's why he distributes the fullness of God in the sacraments. That's why he confesses his own sins and counts how unworthy, like himself, is anyone to represent Christ.
He only wants these people to know the breadth, length, height and depth of the love of Christ. To have people comprehend, not with masterful knowledge but with faith in the Word, the love of Christ-- this is the cardinal hope and yearning of the apostle.
He wants these people to be filled with the fullness of God because he knows this was God's intent in sending us His Son and the continuing reason God delivers Christ to us in Word and Sacrament.
I have a long way to go to become such a pastor, and I know many of my colleagues in ministry feel the same. That is why we never want you to focus on us. We never want you to be persuaded by force of personality or the range of someone's talents. That's why we hope you will not ask us to be more effective or more believable. Pray simply that we will be faithful. The best pastors come with nothing but the mercies of Christ. The best pastors are invisible within the office of Word and Sacrament.
For it is Christ alone in whom you are rooted and grounded. The "riches" we receive come not from the flair or genius of men but hidden in water, bread, wine, and words from ordinary men. The riches are gifts centered in Christ and flow from Him. They are forgiveness, righteousness, providence, and paradise. They are Baptism and the Eucharist. They are the words which speak the life and peace of Christ into the ears and hearts of sinners reborn from the Father through the Son and by the Holy Spirit.
These are the jewels of our faith.
Not even someone like St. Paul belongs on a pedestal. And certainly, most certainly not I. I pray only that we gather at the foot of the cross, hear only the Word of Christ, and celebrate nothing else but the infinite breadth, length, height, and depth of God's goodness who gave His Son into death that we may live.
