Sermon: "Mama Do You Love Me?" & Romans 8: 31-39: Gifts of Faithfulness September 1, 2019
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So what are we going to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He didn’t spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. Won’t he also freely give us all things with him?
Who is there who will bring an accusation against God’s elect? Will it be God, who has in fact rectified our relationship with himself?
Who is there who is going to condemn? Will it be Christ Jesus who died, indeed who was raised, who sits at God’s right hand and who actually intercedes for us? Who or what is there that can separate us from Christ’s love? Will it be any of those perils that characterize the age that is already passing away, which to be sure still happen to us? Of course not! Rather, no matter what befalls us, we are made more than conquerors by the God who loves us.
I’m convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angels or rulers, not present things or future things, not powers or height or depth, or any other thing that is created.
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Holy and life-giving God,
Open our ears,
Open our hearts,
Open our minds.
By the power of the Holy Spirit,
Plant your Word within us,
That it may grow and bear fruit,
For the sake of love and in the name of Jesus.
Amen.
The foundation of my faith is this: There is nothing you can do to make God love you more. There is nothing you can do to make God love you less. God loves you. Full stop.
God loves you, and there is nothing you can do about it.
God’s love is not conditional.
I say it, I say it again: God loves you. Yes, even you. Yes, even knowing that thing.
I say it, I say it again: God loves you – with a love greater than anything we can even fathom.
And maybe, you are sick of me saying it. Like my kids at home, ugh, Mom I know, God loves me, alriiiight already.
I say it, I say it again: God loves you. And I will go on saying it until my dying breath because someone every day in every place – some one here today, needs to hear it. And that is church. We are holders, here, of that Gospel, that good news that Jesus taught – that God is here, and God is not going anywhere.
We are broken people and we come from broken places. We are hurting – maybe not each one of us, and maybe not today, but being a human means we endure hurt, suffering, hardship. Sometimes those things come from inside our homes or within the walls of a church. Maybe we have been on the receiving end of someone’s coercion or manipulation, using out of context Scripture to control or condemn us.
Maybe we are afraid of God. Maybe we have all but given up on God.
The Gospel tells us that God never gives up on us.
I say it, I say it again: God loves you.
Now, many of us come to this place with a lot of old ideas about God – ideas that don’t jive with what I am saying here. Like a picture of God with a long white beard up in the clouds, thunderbolt in hand ready to hurl it at anyone who steps off the right path. Liar! Kerpow! Thief! Kerpow! Adulterer! Kerpow! Or perhaps an idea of God like Santa Claus keeping a naughty and nice list – an in and out, good bad, heaven or hell kind of list.
I invite you to take out your hand and hold it in a little cup. If that feels a bit weird for you, imagine a little box in your minds eye. Now, take any idea of God that is not loving and stuff it in there. Pluck it out of your mind and stuff it in. Each little tidbit from your childhood, from heavily lacquered tv preachers and distorted messaging from the media about God. Anything about God that doesn’t square with the message that God loves you. Take it out, put it in there. Now throw it away! There is no version of God that does not love you.
And that I am completely assured of. As is the Apostle Paul! In our Scripture today, we pick up part way through Paul teaching the Roman church that they are – we are – set free in Christ as precious and beloved children of God. That they are – we are – claimed as God’s very own.
And then it seems like Paul gets almost cocky about the whole thing:
“So what are we going to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?” (8:31) It sounds elitist but remember these were a persecuted minority – a group who had a lot of people against them.
What Paul is doing here is helping ground them – ground us – in the surety of God’s Grace.
And he does it in this beautiful rhetorical way – he asks this series of three questions, each of which is answered by an absurdity also placed in the form of a question.
And before we dive into that I want to make something clear from the time that this took place in. A central activity in the life of the community was the drama of justice – that is to say, two parties with a grievance coming before a judge to make a ruling. There was even this role of what we now would call a defense attorney- someone speaking on your behalf. So the scene Paul sets for this dramatic escalation using questions and ridiculous answers, is the ancient version of the courtroom drama – imagine it! Judge, lawyers, accuser, defendant – gallery with the murmur of hushed gossip in the background.
Question one: “Who is there who will bring an accusation against God’s elect?” Absurd answer one: “Will it be God, who has in fact rectified our relationship with himself?” Who is going to haul us into court? God? The one who freed us from blame?
Question 2: “Who is there who is going to condemn?” Absurd answer two: “Will it be Christ Jesus who died, indeed who was raised, who sits at God’s right hand and who actually intercedes for us?” Who will sentence us? Our own defense attorney?
Paul expands that idea of God as Judge here. If God is our judge, then Jesus Christ is our defense attorney and we have already been exonerated.
One more absurd question: “Who or what is there that can separate us from Christ’s love?” Absurd answer three: “Will it be any of those perils which, to be sure, still happen to us?” What can separate us from Christ’s love? Any awful thing that has already happened to us and has not already cut us off?
And then what does he say?
“Of course not! Rather, no matter what befalls us, we are made more than conquerors by the God who loves us.”
Of course not, we overcome all things, through the power of love.
And then Paul gives us these beautiful lines – words of comfort, assurance, solace, shelter, promise:
“I’m convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love … not death or life, not angels or rulers, not present things or future things, not powers or heights or depths, or any other thing in all creation.” (8:38-39)
Paul confirms for us one more time that our suffering is not evidence of God’s lack of love for us. That God is with us, loving us through our suffering. God has not and God will not reject us, abandon us, desert us.
I say it, I say it again: God loves you. And there is no thing that can destroy that.
But, let me tell you, we sure try.
This is the basic story arc of the Bible and the basic story arc of most of our lives. The Hebrew Scriptures teach us over and over again about God’s simple, loving guidance, and the Israelite people’s inability to stick with it. The messes they make and the 589th chances they get with God to try again. It is the same story with Jesus and his disciples – he would teach them something, only for them to mess it up, him come along and correct it and give them another chance.
This is us – we pause and pray and worship here together, we hear and discern Gods guidance, and we act in selfish, arrogant, judgemental, unloving ways. And God corrects our course, leads us back into Her will, forgiving us and offering us another shot.
We put lemmings in God’s mucklucks, run away and hide in caves, and put oil on God’s lamp all the time. And we have since the very beginning.
Now, this is an amazing dimension of Paul’s assurance: nothing in all of Creation can separate us from God’s love. God loves you, and there is nothing that can get in the way of that – not even ourselves.
We can be our own worst enemies – and we are held in the truth that even our own almost limitless ability to rebel against God is overcome by God’s enduring faithfulness to us.
I say it, I say it again: God loves you. God loves you no matter what you do to screw it up.
This is why today’s sermon is called Gifts of Faithfulness. Perhaps we are faithful people…maybe even mostly faithful after a while. But any faithfulness we have is actually an effect of God’s faithfulness. Our faith is a gift from God – not something that can be produced by us. We can have confidence in God’s faithfulness, we can prepare, engage, and be involved in our faith, but the action of faithfulness is first God’s (I Jn 5:4; Ro 12:3, Eph 2:8,9).
What a relief. There is no amount of good works that we can do to earn God’s favour, there is no wickedness we can spew that will cut us off.
Just like Mama in the story assuring the child of her faithfulness, Paul assures us that that no behaviour, no distance, no form will break Mama’s love. That God our Mama says to us, “I will love you forever and for always, because you are my dear one.”[1]
In Jesus’ time, the Greek word for faith was pistis. In secular language, pistis was referred to as a guarantee or warranty – and faith is essentially God’s warranty, Gods guarantee of Love[2].
If God is for us, who can be against us? We belong to God – sheep of the fold, precious children, beloved.
I say it, I say it again: God loves you.
No matter what. Not because of what you have done or not done. Not in spite of the things you have done or not done. Not because of who you are or are not, but because of who God is.
I say it, I say it again: God loves you.
Amen.
[1] Barbara M. Joosse, Barbara Lavellee, illus., Mama Do You Love Me? (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1991), 35.
[2] Strong’s Concordance #4102 pistis (πίστις, εως, ἡ) word study.