Eyes of the Heart

John 1:35-42, Ephesians 1:15-23

So, why do Presbyterians with presbyopia love responsive readings? Because if they cannot quite see their line, they are confident someone else will read it for them, decently and in order. And what is the difference between presbyopia and Presbyterian polity? Presbyopia makes it hard to see things up close. Presbyterian polity makes sure at least three committees study the problem before anyone admits it. Presbyopia is the age related loss of the eye’s ability to focus on close objects. It is caused by the hardening of the lens. For me, it meant starting with reading glasses and eventually wearing glasses most of the time.

But the truth is, we do not need corrective lenses to see what is happening in our world. We can see the political turmoil and violence that saturate our news feeds. We can see the deepening division and rancor, the abuse and oppression of those who are marginalized and vulnerable, from recent immigrants, to day care workers, to trans kids. We hear government leaders declare that there is no such thing as international law, that might makes right. We grieve lives lost to gun violence, including the recent killing of Renée Nicole Good, a mother, a youth mission worker, the widow of a veteran, and the child of a Presbyterian pastor, now living in Valley Falls, Kansas, who described her as relentlessly hopeful and optimistic, with a seemingly infinite capacity for love. It is all too easy to see these things and become bitter, cynical, angry, or simply exhausted. It is tempting to turn away, to numb ourselves, or to tune it all out. Into that reality, the apostle Paul offers a prayer, and with it, another way of seeing.

Paul begins by giving thanks for the faith and love of the church in Ephesus. He then prays that God would continue to deepen that faith, not simply by giving them more information, but by giving them what he calls a spirit of wisdom and revelation. This is more than intellectual knowledge. It is knowing with our heart, the way we know a best friend, a sibling, or a spouse. At the heart of the prayer is this striking phrase, that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, literally to let the light of your heart illuminate your vision. Paul prays that with enlightened hearts they may perceive three things: the hope to which God has called them, the richness of their shared inheritance, and the immeasurable greatness of God’s power at work in Christ and also at work among them as the church.

What does it mean to see with the eyes of the heart? It is not the denial of what is broken or painful in the world. Paul is not naïve about suffering, injustice, or fear. Rather, seeing with the eyes of the heart means perceiving reality through the lens of God’s love. To see with the eyes of the heart is to look at every person and recognize a beloved child of God. It is to notice not only the violence and cruelty around us, but also the quiet, persistent power of God’s love still at work in the midst of it all. It is to hold on to hope, not optimism and not denial, but hope grounded in God’s faithfulness.

Paul roots that hope in God’s power, a power that is deeper and stronger than the self proclaimed power of rulers, empires, and principalities. Paul uses two different Greek words for power in this passage. The first is dunamis, which refers to potential power, latent energy, like a stick of dynamite before it is lit. The second is kratos, which refers to forceful, exercised power, the explosion of that dynamite, the raw force often associated with earthly rulers and systems of domination. Paul proclaims that God’s kratos power is revealed in Christ’s resurrection and exaltation. Christ is raised above every rule, authority, and dominion. No empire, ideology, or violent force has the final word.

And yet, and this is crucial, the church is entrusted not with Christ’s coercive power, but with Christ’s dunamis, the living, potential power of God’s love at work in the world. As the body of Christ, we bear that power in our shared life and witness. Christ continues to call the church, just as he called the first disciples, saying, “come and see.” To see with the eyes of your heart enlightened. To see Christ’s love alive in the world. To be a witness to its transformative power in our lives, in the life of this church, and in our community.

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke directly to this tension between love and power. He rejected the idea that they are opposites. In his 1967 address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he said, “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.” True power, he argued, is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice is power correcting everything that stands against love. King believed not in brute force, but in moral power, the power that transforms hearts, redirects human longing, and bends history toward justice. That is the power Paul is pointing to, not domination, but love that acts, not withdrawal, but courageous and compassionate engagement.

A similar insight comes from the fourteenth century Christian mystic Marguerite Porete. In her book The Mirror of Simple Souls, she imagines a dialogue between Reason and Love about the life of the soul. At one point, Love says to Reason, “Ah, Reason, you will always see with one eye only.” Reason matters. Thought matters. Theology matters. But if we rely on intellect alone, our vision is incomplete. We are called to see with our hearts as well, to allow love to illuminate what fear, cynicism, and calculation alone cannot see.

Paul ends his prayer by reminding the church then and now that we are the body of Christ, the fullness, the plērōma in Greek, the complement and abundance of the One who fills all in all. In his paraphrase of Paul’s letter in The Message, Eugene Peterson puts it this way: “The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ’s body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.”

The church is called to be Christ’s body in the world, not just on Sundays and not just in the glow of stained glass windows, but in the world amid division, rancor, pain, and violence. To be the church is to live in that world with hearts enlightened by the abundance of God’s love. It is to let our ministry, our mission, our protest, our service, and even our grief bear witness to the love first shown to us in Christ. It is to live in the faith and trust that God’s power of love and life is greater than the earthly powers claimed in hatred and violence. It is to see the world with the eyes of our heart.

Seeing with the eyes of the heart does not mean looking away from suffering. It means refusing to let fear have the final word. It means trusting that God’s love is still at work and that, by grace, we are part of that work.

Paul’s prayer for the church in Ephesus is also a prayer for us, that the eyes of our hearts may be enlightened. May we see one another as beloved. May we recognize the quiet but resilient power of love at work among us. And may we live as a church worthy of our calling, grounded in hope, shaped by love, and sustained by the power of God made known in Christ. May it be so in your life, in the life of your family, in the life of our congregation, and in the life of Christ’s church.