Homily For The Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity 2026
St. Paul, in our Epistle, is eager for the Ephesians not to grow weary, not to wilt, as it were, because of his sufferings. He, in his love for the Ephesian church, wants them to know that his tribulations are truly their glory. His tribulations, his sufferings were part and parcel of his apostolic calling. Remember how our Risen Lord appeared to Ananias and told him to meet the newly converted Paul because St. Paul must learn “how much he must suffer for my name”? St. Paul speaks to the Corinthian Church about the glory of his sufferings in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, where he catalogs the marks in his body, the tangible suffering that came with being the Apostle to the Gentiles. His suffering is the glory of the Gentile churches like the Ephesians in today’s Epistle.
Instead of focusing on his tribulations, his sufferings, St. Paul is completely oriented toward the spiritual health of the Ephesian Church.
He directs his prayers - the bowing of his knees, expressing his submission to God’s will - to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Normally, Jews prayed standing up as we see in Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, where both pray standing up but with different postures of heart in regards to their merits before God. The bowing of the knees for St. Paul, here, shows an exceptional degree of earnestness. Ezra fell to his knees when confessing the sins of Israel and our Lord fell to his knees in Gethsemane in prayer, earnest prayer. Intensity of petition is what we should see with St. Paul here.
The Apostle prays earnestly to the Father. The Father who Jesus says is the giver of all good things. The Father whose will our Lord delighted to obey. The Father who is pictured in the story of the Prodigal Son, who receives sinners who repent and returns them to the blessedness of His perfect family.
This Father is the one who makes all believers into one family - in heaven and on earth: one family regardless of tribe or tongue, one family whether alive in the present or triumphant in heaven, a family that cannot be divided regardless of the intentions of the evil one or sin or death.
To this fundamental unity, St. Paul earnestly prays for four things in sequence: “strength”, “love”, “knowledge” and “fulness”. First, St. Paul prays that the Ephesians might be strengthened with might. That is they might have the blessing of the Holy Spirit to bolster, to fortify their inner man. That the Ephesians might have the great weakness and frailty of their inner lives transformed by the indwelling might of the Holy Spirit. Commentators note that there are two similar words in Greek for “dwelling” - one that communicates lodging for a brief time - like passing through an inn, and one that relates to making a home, a permanent residence. The second concept of dwelling is used here by St. Paul.
It communicates that even though every Christian is indwelled by the Holy Spirit, the Apostle is asking the Father that Christ by the Spirit would settle down in their hearts so to strengthen and control their thoughts and actions.
Secondly, St. Paul prays not only for strengthening by the Spirit, he pleads with God for the Ephesians to be rooted and grounded in love. We know from other of St. Paul’s Epistles his estimate of the importance of love - particularly in I Corinthians 13 - that love is the greatest of all God’s gifts, greater than faith and hope. Here in this prayer he makes use of two metaphors - one from the plant world and one from architecture. Like a well-rooted tree and like a well-built house - the Ephesians are to find their stability, their foundation in the fullness of God’s love. Indeed, “love is to be the soil in which their life is to be rooted; love is to be the foundation on which their life is built.”
Thirdly, the strength and stability of the love of God is to grow up as it were into greater knowledge of Christ’s love for us. That they might know more, not being content with what they have learned, but to seek to understand God’s will and Christ’s work. Indeed, fourthly, to know the fullness of Christ’s love - the fullness of its dimensions - its breadth, its length, its height, its depth. One modern scholar says it this way: “The love of Christ is ‘broad’ enough to encompass all mankind (especially Jews and Gentiles, the theme of these chapters), ‘long’ enough to last for eternity, ‘deep’ enough to reach the most degraded sinner, and ‘high’ enough to exalt him to heaven.” Ancient commentators saw a picture of the love of the cross in St. Paul’s use of dimensions here.
Gregory of Nyssa in the 4th century said St. Paul, here, names each projection of the Cross: the upper part is “height,” the lower part sunk in the earth is “depth,” and the two lateral arms are “breadth and length.” The One stretched on it binds together things in heaven, things on earth, and things under the earth, so that the Cross is inscribed upon the universe itself.
Notice here that this prayer is that all the saints may comprehend these greater elements of Christ’s love. While we tend to think of this comprehension and strengthening for the individual, isolated Christian in their personal devotional life, St. Paul here says that it takes the entirety of God’s people - it takes the life of the parish, the diocese, the multitude of ethnicities and languages, all of the body of Christ to understand the fullness of the love of God. So, if you are tempted to live the Christian life on your own, St. Paul says that you will miss out on the fullness of what God intends.
Notice too, that even if one were to know the fullness of the love of God, with all of the saints, there is a great mystery that can never be exhausted. That it passes all human understanding. We never outgrow, we never experience all of it, for it is the fullness of the infinite God.
St. Paul, here, concludes his prayer by glorifying God. The temptation on the front end may have been to focus on his own trials and tribulations, but he is not distracted by that because it is for the glory of the Ephesians and their edification that he prays so earnestly. Intercession here gives way to praising God with a doxology - intercession and concern for the broader body of Christ leads him almost into the throne room of heaven itself.
St. Paul worships the power of God who is able to do more than we even know than we even know to ask for.
He commands us to pray, but let us remember His power does not rely on our understanding, our wisdom in asking, for his power is beyond our capacity to think. He doesn’t need us even to know what he is doing, to think of desired outcomes. He is above it and beyond it accomplishing his purposes. We should take great joy in that reality, take comfort that the limitations of our prayers, our ability to know, is no impediment to His purposes in this world. Moreover, God's power, which is not reliant upon our understanding and imagination, is at work in us. It is through the Church, it is through the Body of Christ, through all the saints, that His glory is known. To Him is the glory for the redemption of Jesus Christ, the Ascended Head of the Church, who knits together the faithful into His Body, the Church. To Him, to this triune God, who loves, redeems and sanctifies His beloved Church, to Him and Him alone be all the glory, honor, power and majesty.
So, this morning, to summarize, St. Paul begins by casting away wrongful meditation on his sufferings. He doesn’t dwell on them other than to use them as a springboard for entering into being mindful of the needs of the Ephesian church. His circumstances, his afflictions only serve to direct him to the needs of others. To make intercession, prayers on their behalf, that all the circumstances of their lives may lead them into greater service of the Lord. That they may truly know the Lord, be strengthened by him, that they may be rooted and grounded in love, so they can meditate on the inexhaustible mysteries of God’s work for us. Not only as individuals but together with all the saints. These prayers are intercessory - they are on the behalf of others, but St. Paul receives the gift of joy. As he prays for others, he praises God for who He truly is. Transitioning from the pain of suffering, to the needs of the Body of Christ, to the glories of God’s presence, his majesty, honor, and power.
Beloved, we become more and more what we give our hearts and minds to. What we meditate on. St. Paul had every reason, from a human perspective, to meditate on his sufferings. Instead, he gave his heart and mind to intercession for the Ephesians and meditating on the gifts of God made available to them in varied sorts. He was helped in his circumstances by what he prayed for them, what he meditated on. This meditation on the love of the Triune God for his people led him to pray for their health, their flourishing. Prayer is the outworking of love within the Body of Christ. Through our growth in love to God and each other, our prayers will become more expansive and more effective. With the solution before us, let us ask a few questions: How is our prayer life? What are the contents of it? What areas of petition are we neglecting? Can we give just a few more minutes to interceding for others? You might consider, the next time you find yourself meditating on what is wrong in your life or in the world, to take it as a cue to pray for others.
Pray for your neighbor, someone you know who has a need. In this you will follow St. Paul in finding one of the secrets of spiritual refreshment, being centered on the concerns of others. May the love of God working in our hearts move us to more focused work in prayer. In doing so, may we have a heavenly vision of God’s glory that transforms our present circumstances, strengthens us to be obedient, to love and serve God’s people. Amen.
