• "God is Able to do Exceeding Abundantly Above What We Ask"
• Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity
• October 5, 2003
• The Reverend Stephen C. Scarlett

The epistle (Ephesians 3:13f.) makes a statement that is illustrated in the gospel (Luke 7:11f.). Ephesians says that God "is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." In the gospel Jesus does something that is exceeding abundantly above all that those present could have asked or thought. He raises a young man from the dead.

As the funeral procession marched towards the grave, those who saw Jesus approaching might have wondered what he was going to do. Would he join in the procession and add his own prayers and words of comfort? Would he direct his disciples to give the woman money (she had lost both her husband and only son and had no means of support)? Or would Jesus commend her to the care of another as he would later do with his own mother from the cross?

It is not likely that anyone present expected Jesus to touch the bier and command the dead man to rise. What Jesus did was exceeding abundantly above all that those present asked or thought.

This provides a model for looking at our own life of prayer, especially our prayers of supplication and intercession. We are faced with wants and needs and we ask God to respond to them. But the things which we ask for, the things we think God might do, are often quite limited in the eternal scheme of things. We ask for temporal comforts, but God means to raise us from the dead.

We say in the Creed, "I believe in the resurrection of the body and life in the world to come." The resurrection of the body that we look for is after the pattern of Easter. Jesus died and his body was buried in the tomb. On the third day he rose from the dead. The resurrected body of Jesus was related to his earthly body, but it was transformed and raised to life on a higher plane of existence.

We believe that God means to restore this fallen world to goodness, perfection and beauty at the Second Coming of Jesus. We believe that at the center of that restoration is the resurrection of our bodies to a new plane of existence in which we will be free from sickness, suffering and death.

But the resurrection is not only a physical phenomenon. Our hope is not merely that we will for all eternity look like body builders and swimsuit models. The resurrection hope is that we will be free from sin, which is the root cause of all physical evils. We will be holy. We will be perfected in our love for God and for each other.

We believe that the power of God that will bring this to pass is already at work in us. The epistle says that "God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us."

We will not understand what God is doing in our lives unless we have the hope of resurrection in our hearts as the goal of our faith. One error of perspective that people bring to the life of prayer is to see the power of God and the Christian hope as being primarily focused on life in this world. The truth is that life in the world is used by God to prepare us for resurrected life in eternity.

This error of perspective causes us to set our sights too low. God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think because he is able to use every circumstance in this life for the good of his new creation. He is able to forgive our sins and replace our weakness with new virtue. He is able to change us from fallen creatures subject to every temptation of the world, the flesh and the devil into new, strong and eternal beings who are free to do the will of God. In our lives of prayer, we often ask for and think of much lower goals. We ask for and think of mere success and health in time. But God is able to raise us from the dead.

Now, do not understand me to be saying that we shouldn't ask for God's guidance and blessing in our endeavors in time or that we shouldn't pray for healing in this life. What I am saying is this: Our aspirations and desires must be placed in the context of our eternal hope. The healing we experience through prayer must be seen as a mere taste of the complete restoration of health we hope for in the resurrection-for, of course, all healing in this life is necessarily temporary. Our successes in time must be seen as a mere taste of the true wealth that God will give us in Christ, in whom and through whom we are heirs of all things.

When we are not healed or do not succeed, we must see this as our share of the cross, which tests, purifies and strengthens our faith; which produces perseverance, virtue and new manifestations of resurrection life that will be revealed on the last day.

Some people belittle the future hope of resurrection as "pie in the sky" in contrast to the tangible world in which we live. Faith gives us the wisdom to see that this is precisely backwards. In fact, this world, which seems so real and certain, is temporary, shaky and passing. The hope of resurrection we have through the Word of God is certain and eternal. As 1 Peter says, we have "an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven" (1:4). And as Isaiah says, "The grass withers, and the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever" (42:8).

Just as the dead boy in the gospel rose to life at the command of Jesus, so our dead bodies will rise at his command when he comes again in glory. As Philippians says, "We... eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself" (3:20-21).

We must keep this resurrection hope in our hearts at the center of our life of prayer. We must aim high, for "God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us."