High on Joy and Love: Pentecost 13B Ephesians 5:15-20

Do not get drunk with wine…but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

A beloved seminary professor once stunned me in a chapel sermon by lamenting the fact that most Christians are stuck in the middle. We don’t sin enough to enjoy sinning; but we also don’t act righteously enough to enjoy righteousness.

The author of Ephesians—either a loyal follower of the Apostle Paul, or Paul himself—warned that we should not get stuck in comfortable Christianity, or warm and fuzzy worship. We should get high on Joy and Love.

There are plenty of highs that leave us empty. Genuine high fills us. All through Ephesians the author waxes passionate about fullness. He mentions it in various dimensions five other times. It is God’s purpose always to gather all things in heaven and earth together in Christ. That’s where all history is headed. And people who throw themselves whole-heartedly into a life in Christ—that is when they love one another as Christ has already loved them—they become a living part of that fullness. They become part of the fulfillment and completion of God’s will on earth.

One of my own goals as a parent has always been to keep my children from being bored. This life and God’s world are too full of wonder to be bored. If we get bored, it isn’t because there isn’t joy to be had. It is because we haven’t thrown ourselves in.

God preserve us all from boredom! God wake us up to the genuine high of life. Not booze. Not pills. Not even the emotional contagion of the crowd that can turn from beauty to evil on a dime. But the high of being part of the fullness of gathering together around a God of ultimate meaning—the God who loves us all.