Just
You Try and Separate Us!
June 9, 2013
BMC- Romans 8:28-39
Introduction: Jim
and Spock
Recently,
I went to see the new Star Trek movie.
It is the second in a reboot of the original television series that I
watched as a kid. It builds on aspects
of the original show, but also incorporates some new twists.
One
of the things that it takes from the original series and movies but then builds
on is the friendship between Captain Kirk and his first mate, Mr. Spock. In the original second movie when their ship was
about to be destroyed, Spock did the logical thing and sacrificed his life for
the lives of those on the ship. As he was
dying, Spock said to Kirk, “I have been and forever shall be your friend.”
It
is a deep friendship that has been through much and now appears to be separated
by death. But in later movies by
unforeseen circumstances, Spock is reborn and their friendship is
restored. Not even death could separate
them. Of course, that is in the world of
science fiction, but perhaps there are echoes here of our passage for this
morning. Because here Paul seems to be
saying, “Just you try and separate us from the love of God, because it isn’t
possible. Not even death can separate us
from the love of God.”
Series/Text
Background
This
is where our quilt block for this week comes in. You’ll notice that at the center is the cross
and that the cross touches each of the other pieces within the block. Each of these pieces are inseparable from
Christ who is at the center of it all.
This is a significant portion of this text and yet there is more to it,
isn’t there?
In
his reflections on this passage, William Barclay notes that “This is one of the
most lyrical passages Paul ever wrote.” Certainly,
the imagery that Paul uses to describe how inseparable we are from the love of
God is poetic.
But
Barclay goes on to say that “The words Paul uses of God are the very words God
used of Abraham when Abraham proved his utter loyalty by being willing to
sacrifice his son Isaac at God’s command.
God said to Abraham: ‘You have not withheld your son, your only son, from
me’ (Gen 22:12).
“Paul
seems to say: ‘Think of the greatest human example in the world of a man’s
loyalty to God; God’s loyalty to you is like that.’ Just as Abraham was so
loyal to God that he was prepared to sacrifice his dearest possession, God is
so loyal to men that he is prepared to sacrifice his only Son for them. Surely we can trust a loyalty like that for
anything.”[1]
And
yet even with all of this encouragement and warm fuzzy feelings about our
relationship to God, we may be troubled by the words of verses 29-30 which
suggest that God has predestined us to be saved. Typically this inherently means that God has
also predestined others to not be saved.
But Barclay suggests an alternative understanding.
“This
is a passage which has been very seriously misused. If we are ever to understand it we must grasp
the basic fact that Paul never meant it to be the expression of theology or
philosophy; he meant it to be the almost lyrical expression of Christian
experience. If we take it as philosophy
and theology and apply the standards of cold logic to it, it must mean that God
chose some and did not choose others.
But that is not what it means.
“The
Old Testament has an illuminating use of the word to know. ‘I knew you in the
wilderness,’ said God to Hosea about the people of Israel (Hosea 13:5). ‘You
only have I known of all the families
of the earth,’ said God to Amos (Amos 3:2).
When the Bible speaks of God knowing
a man, it means that he has a purpose and a plan and a task for that man. And when we look back upon our Christian
experience, all we can say is, ‘I did not do this; I could never have done
this; God did everything.’ And we know
well that this does not take freewill away.
God knew Israel, but the day came when Israel refused the destiny God
meant her to have. God’s unseen guiding
is in our lives, but to the end of the day we can refuse it and take our own
way.
“It
is the deep experience of the Christian that all is of God; that he did nothing
and that God did everything. That is
what Paul means here. He means that from
the beginning of time God marked us out for salvation; that in due time his
call came to us; but the pride of man’s heart can wreck God’s plan and the
disobedience of man’s will can refuse the call.”[2]
Lessons within the Text: Call
With
all of this background in mind, I want to suggest three lessons that we should
take away from this text and they all happen to begin with the letter “C.” The first is that of call. We have been called. But this is not a new experience to those who
follow God.
We
see numerous examples of call throughout the Old Testament. Noah was called to build an ark and gather
the animals. Abraham was called to leave
Ur and to father a people. Moses was
called to free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and to lead the people to
the Promised Land. Jeremiah was called
to deliver the word of God in the midst of difficult circumstances. Many have been called and we are also called.
Lessons within the Text:
Christ Intercedes
The second lesson is that Christ intercedes. Paul declares that Christ died, rose from the
grave and sits at the right hand of the throne of God. In His position there, Christ intercedes for
us.
But this shouldn’t surprise us given the many stories in
the gospels of how Christ interceded for people even while He was on
earth. Christ often forgave people their
sins even though the ruling authorities questioned His right to do so. Jesus interceded for the woman caught in adultery
that all of the men wanted to stone.
Jesus often interceded even on the Sabbath and performed physical
healings. And Jesus interceded for Mary
when she anointed His feet and Judas accused her of being wasteful.
Lessons within the Text:
Can’t be Separated
And third, can’t be
separated … we can’t be separated from the love of God. Paul declares that he is convinced that
neither life nor death, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the
future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all of
creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Christ Jesus is the
fullest manifestation of this inseparable love of which we are the
recipients. Joseph experienced God’s
inseparable love through the hardships and the victories that he experienced in
Egypt. Job experienced God’s inseparable
love through the losses and the restoration that he experienced in his
life. And we see this in the testimony
of Stephen and the words that he declares as he is stoned and looks up into
heaven.
What to do with this…
With these three “c” lessons in mind; call, Christ intercedes, and
can’t be separated, we are given not only the truth of these words but also the
opportunity to respond to them in our lives.
Our faith is more than just head knowledge or heartfelt feelings. It is also active response to the movement of
God in our midst. And it is through our
active response that we are most fully formed by these passages.
Respond to the Call
We have received the call and now we must respond to it. When the call comes, we cannot ignore
it. We must respond to it. We must choose to accept the call or to
reject it. And yet, if we have truly
accepted the Lordship of Christ, it seems to me that our choices are rather
limited.
Certainly in our freewill, we have the choice to say “no” to God when
God calls us. And yet as we see in so
many of the call stories of scripture there is also a compelling nature to the
call of God. We can reject it and yet it
does not go away. It continues to gnaw
at our very being, leaving us wrestles and unsettled until we accept our
calling. That is not to say that things
get easy when we accept our call, but with our acceptance comes a certain level
of peace within us.
This past December the first installment of the Hobbit can out in the
theaters. Bilbo Baggins is a simple
hobbit who wanted nothing to do with adventure, but the wizard Gandalf called
him to serve in a company of dwarves on a quest. Many, especially Bilbo, doubted his abilities
to fulfill his duties. And Bilbo had
every intention of not accepting this call.
In fact, the company left without him, but Bilbo chased after them and
joined the quest. Things do not go
smoothly for him; but time and again, his presence in the group proved vital
for their survival and their success.
Bilbo accepted the call.
Intercede for Others
Respond to the call. Also
intercede for others. Christ has
interceded and continues to intercede for us.
And Paul declared in this passage that we are to be conformed to the
image of Christ. As such since Christ
intercedes, so should we. We should be
in prayer interceding for those who are in need. But we should also be interceding by aiding
those who are in need whether that be by giving the aid of needed supplies or
advocating for justice for those who are without it. This begins locally but it extends globally.
A little later in the service, we will be seeing a brief video about
the work of MCC in addressing the crisis in Syria. Along with this in an invitation from the
Peace and Justice Lunch for us to gather after church on June 23rd
to learn more about the crisis and to discuss what we can do to intercede on
behalf of those who are affected by the crisis.
“In the two years since the armed conflict
began in Syria, 70,000 people have been killed and 3 million Syrians have fled
their homes to seek shelter in other countries or safer areas within Syria.”[3] In
fact “Whole villages are being displaced as … conflict escalates between
government and opposition forces... Resources of Syrians to help those who have
left their homes are becoming increasingly scarce because those who had
resources to help others at the beginning of the crisis, now have nothing to
give.
“Unemployment
figures and costs of basic goods have also continued to rise, causing even
those still in their homes to struggle to meet daily needs. Kidnappings have
increased, sometimes for religious reasons, but more often for money, said
Adams, who is from Westerville, Ohio, and is based in Beirut, Lebanon.”[4] As Christ intercedes for us so we should
intercede for those affected by the crisis in Syria.
Extend Love
We can respond to
the call. We can intercede for others
and we can extend love. Paul has so
beautifully described how we cannot be separated from the love of God and yet I
wonder if our love for others is as strong.
Are we able to love so deeply that others are inseparable from our
love? Do we who are conformed to Christ
offer as deep of love for those that we care for?
I fear that all
too often our love for one another is cleaved by much more mundane
circumstances than those that Paul describes as unable to separate us from the
love of God. Are we able to love those
are around us this deeply? Moreover, are
we able to love the unlovable this deeply?
Christ tells the
parable of the Good Samaritan. It is a
parable about who our neighbor is, but it is also a parable about extending
deep love even beyond boundaries. It is
not the priest or the Levite who stops to help his fellow Jew who has been
beaten and robbed. It is the Samaritan,
the filthy half breed who stops, cares for his needs and takes him to a safe
place. We too must extend our love
across these boundaries because as Paul attests, God’s love of us cannot be
separated by tremendous boundaries.
Conclusion:
In Romans 8, Paul tells us of the
call that is upon us, of Christ interceding for us and how we can’t be
separated from the love of God. Consider
with me for a moment what that really means for us. We cannot be separated from the love of God.
In just a moment, Bryon will lead us
in singing SJ #44 “The Love of God” by F.M. Lehman; but first I want to share a
bit of background to this hymn. “Lehman
heard stanza 3 quoted at a Midwestern Camp Meeting around 1900, attributed to a
rather strange origin. He preserved the
words and in 1917, while working at ‘hard manual labor’ in California, he
‘picked up a scrap of paper and, seated upon an empty lemon-box pushed against
a wall, with a stub pencil added the two stanzas and chorus of the song.’”
When published it included the
following comment, “’The last stanza of this song was penciled on the wall of a
narrow room in an insane asylum by a man said to have been demented. The profound lines were discovered when they
laid him in his coffin.’…
“In 1944, Lehman discovered the
author of stanza 3 to be Meir ben Isaac Nehorai, a medieval Jewish writer who
lived at Worms, Germany, and died in 1096.
He is known to have written many poems and hymns, often reflections on
the past.”[5] These words are very old and have been passed
on from generation to generation and to people in very difficult
situations. Let us join together in
singing SJ #44.
{Sing SJ #44 “TheLove of God”}
The Love of God. What does this mean to you personally? How have you experienced this in your own
life? We want to give opportunity for
sharing responses to this. If someone
has something to share, raise your hand and a microphone will be brought to
you.
{Take Responses}
Let’s pray together.
{Pray God’s blessings upon the congregation as they live this out in
the week ahead.}
Amen.
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