“Rooted in Grace, Growing in Faith”Ephesians 3:16-21 Theme InterpretationMACBF Annual MeetingMarch 14, 2026

The theme of this year’s annual meeting is “rooted in grace, growing in faith,” and is drawn from Ephesians 3:16-21.

I never thought I would see the day when a theologian no less would declare that empathy is a sin.  During his tenure as president of Bethlehem College and Seminary, Dr. Joe Rigney wrote a post several years ago warning of what he referred to as the dangers of empathy.  One of those dangers, he wrote, is that it pulls the Christan down into the pit of sin along with the person in need.  His assumption is that empathy—unlike sympathy—requires acquiescence to any and all beliefs, including those that run counter to the Christian faith.

Fortunately for me, several years ago I completed some very good Stephen Ministry training that correctly explained that empathy is simply but importantly the ability to sense the other person’s inner world as if it were your own, but without ever losing the “as if” quality.  So, what Rigney was actually referring to was what my Stepen Ministry training called

“over-identification,” which occurs when we take on the feelings of the other person and characteristics to the point that we as the caregiver are just as overwhelmed as the other person is. 

In our overheated political climate, empathy has become a casualty in our current culture wars that perceive things like empathy and mercy as being somehow weak.  Fortunately, we have both the very incarnational example of Jesus and passages like this from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians to serve as our model and guide.

The first century Christians to whom Paul wrote were sometimes fighting for their very lives as enemies of an Empire that also viewed peace-through-strength as a virtue.  But in this passage, Paul talks about a power that was literally inconceivable to those who were not yet followers of Christ and indwelt by his Holy Spirit. 

Some American evangelicals today are so concerned about possessing theological accuracy that they have not planted themselves in the seedbed of love that Paul refers to in verse 17.  The Christian faith is not just a set of propositional truths to be ingested and regurgitated whenever we feel threatened by the world’s ways, but a relationship with a loving God that grows and reaches out to connect with others in need of eternal life found only in Christ. 

If our theology causes us to hate others, we need a new theology.  Martin Luther King, Jr., reminded us that hate is too heavy a burden, and understood from actual experience in the civil rights movement that divine love, when tended and watered, can become a powerful, transformative force to overcome hatred and prejudice and injustice, even and especially when flexed by misguided followers of Christ.

There is a phrase that will be weaving its way like a vine through all of our breakout sessions and even our worship this morning, and that phrase is “well-being.”  That too is a biblical word when you realize that it comes from “shalom,” a wholeness that is found only when one is rooted in love and growing in faith in a God who wants so much for his creation to be whole again that he sent his Son who modeled shalom in so many ways throughout his incarnated ministry. 

I think that we would agree that we desperately need well-being in all facets of our lives, in our communities and certainly in our congregations.  We need to be reminded once again that we are agents of shalom, who are being continually nurtured and watered by the all-sufficient grace and truth of God’s Holy Spirit, being transformed into empathetic, hate-busting, outcast-loving, incarnated followers of Jesus Christ.