Pentecost 9A July 30, 2023 Romans 8:26-39
INTRODUCTION
This is the last week we’ll be hearing from Matthew’s parable discourse, and, like the finale of a 4th of July fireworks show, Jesus will give us one parable after another – bam, bam, bam! In this series of short parables, Jesus will use several everyday images to help us understand what the kingdom of God is like. Yet when he asks his disciples if they’ve understood these things, and they say, “Yes” – I call their bluff! Each short parable is so dense and complex to unpack, they couldn’t possibly have understood it all! That said, perhaps they can best be summarized in this way: God’s kingdom shows up even in small, ordinary, and often unexpected ways.
Perhaps that is why this Gospel is paired with Solomon’s prayer for wisdom. King Solomon is best known for his surpassing wisdom, and today’s reading shows us when and why he was given this gift. A prayer for wisdom is one I think we all could stand to offer; with so many unknowns in life, it seems near impossible at times to make wise choices! Thankfully, we will also hear today this beautiful portion of Romans 8, in which we are assured that whatever hardship comes our way, nothing can separate us from the love of God, and that the Spirit is praying with us and for us through it all, with “sighs too deep for words.”
There’s a lot of good news in our texts today. So whatever burden or trouble you may be carrying today, I pray that these texts can bring some relief to it. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
We had a wonderful trip to England and Ireland earlier this month, but I’ll tell you what, it has been a rough go since we got back! First, as you may remember from last week, I tested positive for Covid - and all the fatigue that goes with it. Then last Sunday morning at 8am, my computer wouldn’t turn on. Michael had accidentally spilled soda on it the night before, and it is now presumed dead. Finally, Monday, I woke up feeling normal, healthy, and energized for the first time since our return… except that I had some persistent pain in my lower abdomen that was getting worse instead of better. My doctor urged me to go to the ER, where I spent the whole day getting tests, and at 10pm I was wheeled into surgery to have my appendix as well as a ruptured cyst removed.
As I sat on ER overflow bed #14 for 10 hours on Monday, I just kept thinking, “No use freaking out about things you don’t yet know. This is inconvenient, yes, but it’s going to be okay.” To distract myself, I figured I might as well try to get some work done. So I pulled out my phone (since my computer was kaput) and started reading the assigned texts for this week, so I could begin mulling them over. And when I got to this beautiful text from Romans, I could feel tears brimming in my eyes. Here in these few verses are some of the most comforting and encouraging words in all of Scripture.
“The Spirit helps us in our weakness… interceding for us with groanings too deep for words.” Boy, I felt that. As I listened to the moans and groans of my fellow ER patients, I took a deep breath on the spot, trusting that the Spirit would take those sighs and groans and turn them into the prayers I (and we) needed.
“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God.” Well. I admit that was difficult to see from bed #14 in the ER. And yet, with a bit of hindsight, I could see how much good there really was: I went in when my only symptom was localized pain, before anything became infected. The best laparoscopic surgeon they’ve got was on call that night. This happened this week and not when we were in Europe, and not when the nurses are scheduled to be on strike this week! If it had to happen, the timing was pretty good. And, we have plenty of excellent hospitals to choose from here, and the insurance to cover the cost. All in all, pretty good.
“If God is for us, who can be against us?” As I proceeded reading through Paul’s powerful testimony, I could feel my heart being bolstered and strengthened. That’s right, I thought! God IS for us, for me. With God on my side, I’ve totally got this. It is scary, and lonely, but I can do it. We’ve got this, God and I.
But perhaps what struck me deepest in my heart’s need was this bit at the end, in which we are promised that we share with God an enduring connection that will never fail us: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” Paul asks. “Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” I thought of the list of things that had been floated that could be wrong with me, or that I knew were wrong, and subbed them into Paul’s litany: What will separate me from the love of Christ? Will infection, or kidney stones, or appendicitis, or surgery? Will loneliness or inconvenience or pain or broken computers or financial burdens? Or thinking beyond my specific predicament to what is going on in the world around me, will divorce, or unemployment, or secularism, or mental illness, or sexuality, or hate crimes, or cancer, or miscarriage, or infertility, or guns, or bullying?
Suddenly, Paul’s next statement hits with a much harder punch: “No!” he cries. “In all these things, we are more than conquerors!” In all of these acute problems and everyday realities that threaten us, that threaten our safety and our views and our self-image and our dreams and our way of being in the world – in all these things, we are more than conquerors. The Greek there is the same word from which we get the English “hyper” – so, we are hyper-winners! The winningest of winners! Notice, he does not say we are conquerors over these things, but rather, conquerors in these things. Paul is not saying, “If we are faithful enough, or pray hard enough, we will not have to endure these things.” No, he isn’t promising that challenges will not come our way, but rather, that when they do, we still have victory in Jesus Christ, because we still have the love and grace of Jesus Christ. In all these things, we are more than conquerors.
Still, we may not always feel much like conquerors. I sure didn’t feel like a conqueror this week when I was in so much pain I couldn’t get myself up and to the bathroom on my own! And I sure don’t feel like a conqueror when I think of all the other problems that plague this world. As Paul notes, we may feel more like sheep lined up to be slaughtered – standing up for counter-cultural ideals, living in a way different from how the world would have us live, loving our neighbors of all stripes, standing up for the poor and marginalized and disenfranchised, like Jesus did and like he commanded. This is not an easy job. It was not easy in the first century, and it isn’t easy now. It would be much easier to be socially acceptable, to watch out for number one, to seek our own good instead of the good of the poor or the other. We do sometimes feel as if we are sheep to be slaughtered by this harsh world.
Yet Paul responds to each sheep as they ask their most pained question, fearful of the backlash, and instead receive a grace-full, pastoral response. A man riddled with tumors asks, “Does my cancer separate me from the love of Christ?” No! A recently widowed woman who is so overcome by grief she can barely leave the house asks, “Does my grief separate me from the love of Christ?” No! A man whose mental illness is tearing his family apart and destroying his relationships, asks, “Does my mental illness separate me from the love of Christ?” No! A woman who has endured a sexual assault comes, broken and ashamed, and asks, “Does my trauma and brokenness separate me from the love of Christ?” No! A person who was born male, but has always identified as a woman, asks, “Does my gender dysphoria separate me from the love of Christ?” No! A man who cannot shake his dependence on alcohol to get through each day asks, “Does my addiction separate me from the love of Christ?” No!
Finally Paul stops them all and says, “Listen up, everyone! There is nothing in all creation that can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing! That covers everyone, everything, every conceivable situation you could ask me about.” Whatever our brokenness, whatever our pain, whatever our sordid pasts – we are never, ever separate from the love of God.
And so we are more than conquerors. No matter the failures and struggles we face, we have this love, and we have the assurance that the Spirit intercedes on our behalf to pray when we don’t know how, and we have the enduring promise that, because Christ died for us, and rose again, and brought us with him into eternal life, we need not fear the grave.
Let us cling to that promise, my friends. Let us rejoice in our victory, knowing that it does not save us from having to face hardship, but that it promises that in all we face, we are never alone, and never without the life-changing love of God.
Let us pray… God of love, when we face hardship, distress, persecution, hunger, vulnerability, danger, or violence, and when we feel so very alone in our struggles, remind us that we can trust that your love is always with us. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen
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