Andy James

The Signs of Faithfulness

August 31, 2014 By Andy James

a sermon on Romans 12:9-21
preached on August 31, 2014, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

It could be my personality, or it could just be an occupational hazard, but I seem to like telling people what to do. Now before you start agreeing with me about how bossy your pastor is, let me clarify a bit—it’s not that I like telling people what to do in the sense of ordering them around but more that I tend to end every conversation with a bit of an instruction. “Take care.” “Travel safely.” “Have a good day.” “Call me and let me know how it went.” “Email me and let me know what works for your schedule.”

All these closing words are imperatives, sentences that leave someone with an instruction of some sort, usually and hopefully gentle. When I realized this recently, I started trying to come up with other ways to bid farewell to people, but I came up short. For whatever reason, it’s in my being to speak and act in this way. It might be that I am just a demanding person, someone who wants people to do things, or it might be that I am so deeply influenced by our tradition that I just can’t help but leave people with a parting word that gives some sort of instruction.

Imperative, instructional words are a foundational part of our Christian tradition. The apostle Paul offered some classic imperative instructions in our reading from Romans this morning, instructions that guide us in showing the signs of faithfulness every day. You’ve quite likely heard some version of these words before—they form the core of the traditional charge that I use many weeks at the end of worship—but they are also so rich that they can’t just stand alone there. They need some special attention from time to time.

If anyone thinks I offer a lot of commands sometimes, go count them up from Paul here—one estimate points to twenty-three separate imperatives in these thirteen verses! In this long list, Paul is telling the faithful Christians in Rome about the signs of faithfulness that come from a life of following Christ. Some of these are some very simple commands that almost seem obvious: “Let love be genuine.” “Hold fast to what is good.” “Serve the Lord.” “Rejoice in hope.” They’re so simple that sometimes I wonder why Paul even brings them up—they should just be a given in how we treat one another and others! But when you look more closely, these stand as the basis of more challenging themes of how we show genuine love for one another and how we relate in times of disagreement, and for Paul these things are critical signs of faithfulness for us every day.

The first several verses here all point us to how we can express genuine love as a sign of faithfulness. For Paul, all love needs to be genuine—not scattered about without regard for the evil in our world but love that enables and extends good, that gives space for it to be shared, that demonstrates respect and honor for all people. This genuine love rejoices in hope, shows patience amidst suffering, continues in prayer no matter what, steps up when others are in need, and offers welcome to everyone, especially those who might otherwise be excluded.

Genuine love, though, is not simply to be enjoyed but rather must be shared. This love is not limited by the standards of the world but is extended beyond all human boundaries. And this love is ultimately not a human feeling or emotion but rather an expression of God’s love and care in our actions toward others. Genuine love, then, stands at the center of the signs of faithfulness for Paul, for God’s faithfulness is shown most clearly in the love revealed in Jesus Christ, and so we who follow him are called and challenged to make this love real in our own lives.

Love is a pretty straightforward thing, when you get down to it, but Paul’s second set of commands here starts to get a little more difficult. After laying out genuine love as a sign of faithfulness, he turns more directly to issues of how to live with other people in the world, and I think these signs of faithfulness can be divided into things that are hard and things that are harder. In the hard category, we find things like, “Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.” “Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are.” And “if it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” Here Paul proposes a way of life that honors the fullness of the humanity of others, that seeks to go where others are rather than demanding that they come where we are, that walks the path with others before claiming that our journey is better than theirs.

These things are plenty hard. It is much easier to take pleasure in the pain of others, to let hurt and division fester, and to promote conflict as we work with others, but Paul insists that we need to look for a different and better way. Just when we’ve started to address these difficult challenges, Paul gives us more signs of faithfulness that are even harder to live out. Five times, in five different ways, Paul instructs us to show kindness to the very people who are dead-set against us. “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.” “Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.” “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God.” “‘If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’” “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Just when we thought that living the signs of faithfulness was hard, Paul makes it harder, insisting that we seek not the destruction of those set against us but rather their transformation. You can’t say that living all this out is anything less than hard, and Paul knew it. He himself had to struggle with how to treat the Pharisees who had once been his friends and who were now dead-set against his work of sharing the gospel, and he himself surely wondered how to deal with other Christians who objected to his openness to Gentiles. Yet Paul knew that the way of life set forth in Jesus Christ demanded that he treat everyone with kindness and seek to embrace those who disagreed with him.

While he recognized and even rejoiced that these actions of kindness, generosity, and grace might set in motion the destruction of those set against him, he made it clear that transformation, not destruction, was the ultimate goal, leaving any necessary purge of past ways and challenges to God. Paul knew that the way forward is not through negativity and anger, not through answering wrong with more wrong, not even through hoping that God would turn our good acts toward our enemies into their destruction, but rather through a graceful and grace-filled approach to those who have set themselves against us in the hope that they would be transformed to new life.

Living out these signs of faithfulness is never easy, but we are called to walk in this path as we seek to show our faith in our lives and be a part of God’s transformation of the world. As difficult as it is to live out these things, as challenging as it can be to hear these sorts of imperative commands from others, showing this kind of genuine love and broad faithfulness in our lives can be transformative for ourselves and others. Living out this kind of love that shows no boundaries and embraces even the broadest differences can show our broken and fearful world a different way of approaching conflict in days where the emphasis seems to always be on supporting one side at the expense of the other. And seeking the transformation rather than the destruction those who are opposed to us can make our lives a better reflection of the kind of world that God intends for us all.

So while Paul might be a little overbearing in these twenty-three directions of what to do and how to live, may his words pointing to the signs of faithfulness guide us as God strengthens us to make our love genuine, to bless those who persecute us, to live in harmony with everyone we meet, to keep evil from taking over our lives, and most of all to overcome all the evil we encounter with the goodness of God until all things are made new in Jesus Christ our Lord. Lord, come quickly! Amen.

The Rock of Our Salvation

August 24, 2014 By Andy James

a sermon on Isaiah 51:1-6
preached at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone on August 24, 2014

The exile had come to an end, and the people of Judah were finally returning home. It had been a long forty years since a substantial group had been forced to leave Jerusalem and go to Babylon, and even though that first generation of exiles had largely died, the continuing generations did not let go of the hope of returning home that had been shared with them. But what would they find there? They knew that Jerusalem had already been largely destroyed during the multiyear siege that predated their forced departure, and they had to suspect that things had been left to decay even further, that the symbols of their culture and faith, especially the temple, would have been completely destroyed.

So as they made their way home, the prophet Isaiah knew that they needed some words of encouragement. He started out by calling out to get their attention. There was so much going on around them, so many things to distract them, so many things to keep them from being able to catch this new word, so much that would make it easy to ignore what he had to say, yet they so needed to hear him. Once he had gotten their attention, he pointed them to the past, offering reminders of how they had made it through all of the struggles that they had faced along the way in hopes that they would be inspired amidst the new challenges ahead.

Look to the rock from which you were hewn,
and to the quarry from which you were dug.

Isaiah made it clear that all the stories of the past still mattered. Everything that would emerge from this time of transition and change would be rooted in what they knew very well, in God’s continuing faithfulness from generation to generation. The stones of their life together might be cut and chiseled and shaped in new ways, but they wouldn’t miss that it was all from the same rock.

The prophet continued by directly invoking the story of Abraham and Sarah. Just as God’s faithfulness broke through the bleak desperation of their lives in giving them a son after years of barrenness, so God would make a new way for them as they returned from exile. They too could count on God for amazing faithfulness, to comfort Zion amidst continuing distress and change, to transform the wilderness and desert into the lush beauty of Eden, and to show them a way of joy, gladness, and thanksgiving for the journey home.

In our world these days, we too need the prophet to remind us of the rock from which we are hewn. We certainly may not have all the burdens of the returning exiles, but there is plenty that weighs on our hearts in these days. Our world is filled with much strife and sorrow: war in too many places, conflict that simmers and so easily boils over, the devastation of infection attacking people and places in our world that already face incredible struggle, people who face persecution or death because of their confession or the color of their skin. All the pain and hurt is enough to make you want to move as far away from it all as possible. But then we still face the grief that emerges so close to home on days like today, when we mourn the death of one of our own and carry all the other concerns that weigh on our hearts and minds each and every day. There is so much to distract us from the source of all things, from “the rock from which [we] were hewn,” from the one who bore us into this life and who journeys with us every step of the way.

So when the prophet invites the exiles of Judah to listen, he might just be speaking to us too. He might just be offering us a memory of God’s promises that we have experienced in our own lives. He might just be giving us a reminder of God’s presence amidst all that weights on our hearts. He might be showing us a way of comfort amidst all the pain of our lives. And he might just be giving us hope for new life when we find ourselves in our own desert places, places where joy and gladness can blossom abundantly and thanksgiving and rejoicing will spring forth.

The prophet might have stopped there, thinking that comfort would be enough to get the returning exiles through their first days back home. But the comfort and hope we have in God is not the end of the story—there is more still ahead. These promises, this comfort, this new life—all these things are not just for self-preservation but rather are given so that they may be shared. As much as the returning exiles were desperately desiring the fullness of God’s hope for themselves, they also needed to share it with others. All their actions in rebuilding the city, in reshaping their life together, in restoring God’s promises in their midst, would help demonstrate God’s salvation and God’s hope to others in the world who needed to see these things for themselves.

Just as the exiles had waited so patiently and hopefully for God’s new life to emerge in their midst, so the prophet said that even “the coastlands wait” for this good news and that God’s salvation will reach to every shore. All the new things ahead would not just be for the benefit of the returning exiles—they would be for the blessing of all creation. These new things would replace the old in a dramatic transformation:

the heavens will vanish like smoke,
the earth will wear out like a garment,
and those who live on it will die like gnats.

But this was not the end but rather a beginning, the beginning of a world where God’s “salvation will be forever,” where the old things, as good as they might have been, will be replaced with something far greater.

Just as the prophet’s words of comfort and confidence speak to both the exiles and us, his words of challenge call to us as well. Amidst all that weighs us down, amidst all that distracts us from God’s new thing, amidst all that keeps us focused only on ourselves as we seek God’s comfort in our lives and our world, we too are called to bear God’s new life into the world. We are called to share the teaching and justice of God with all people and to work to make it real here and now. The faithfulness of God that sustains us also calls us to share that faithfulness with others, to share our confidence that God’s salvation and new life will prevail amidst everything that changes, to make God’s deliverance clear here and now and forever.

So amidst all the things that weigh us down in these days, with death and sadness and pain near and far, with all creation crying out for a new way, God’s promise of comfort and new life resounds loud and clear, inviting us to make these things real not just for ourselves but for all people, reminding us to return to the source of our being and find the hope of new life.

So amidst all the challenge of these days, amidst the pain and hurt and sorrow of our lives, amidst the war and strife of our world, may we return to our roots, look back to that rock from which we are hewn, find our comfort in God’s promises, and share this hope of new life with all the world each and every day. And when we struggle to hear and live amidst all the noise around us, may the rock of our salvation, the comfort that comes from God alone, and the promise of new life in Jesus Christ our Lord, bring us back to our faithful God, who promises to bring us comfort and peace and to make all things new. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sitting at the Welcome Table

August 17, 2014 By Andy James

a sermon on Matthew 15:21-28
preached on August 17, 2014, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

(“I’m Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table” audio)

That wonderful song, rooted in the life of slave communities in the deep South and sung in that recording at a rally during the Civil Rights Movement, seems strangely appropriate for today’s reading from the gospel according to Matthew. The Canaanite woman in this text seemed intent upon singing exactly those words even when Jesus himself tried his best to deny her a place at that table. Just as Jesus arrived in a town away from everything, in a region filled with people who were unlike him, this woman came up to him, begging him to heal her daughter: “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”

At first, Jesus completely ignored her. You have to wonder what was going through his mind to drive him to behave like this. Was he just tired and a little zoned out after an intense week of teaching and healing, not to mention all the traveling involved? Was he so marked by the cultural influences of his day that he could not look past her different race, gender, religion, and ethnicity to offer her compassion? Or was he so intent on completing his mission to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” that he could not offer even a little to others along the way? Whatever the reason for his silence, when he ignored this woman in this way he looked a lot more human than divine to me.

The woman, though, didn’t give up so easily. When Jesus ignored her, her cries grew louder: “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” Now she was starting to get on everyone’s nerves. The disciples started complaining to Jesus, but why? Were they just reporting the unrecorded complaints of others? Were they too embodying the sort of attitude of their time toward people who were different? Or were they a bit afraid that she might draw more attention to them in this community where they were actually the outsiders? Whatever the reason, the disciples told Jesus to send her away, and he did, finally telling her, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Still, this was not enough to convince her to go away. When her loud cries for help were ignored, she fell on her knees before Jesus, pleading with him, “Lord, help me.” This time, Jesus’ response to her went from quietly disrespectful to directly demeaning: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Again he insisted to her that his purpose for ministry didn’t involve her or anyone like her. While we may lose a bit of the cultural or linguistic play on words at our distance, Jesus’ intent in his response to the Canaanite woman seems clear to me: he had had enough of her. It was time for her to go away and leave him alone, and he would tell her whatever was needed to make that happen.

But even with this response the woman did the unimaginable and came back at him a fourth time. As one commentator paraphrases it, she basically told him, “Yes, Lord, I am a dog, so treat me like one. Give me the crumbs [from that table].” (Stanley P. Saunders, Preaching the Gospel of Matthew, p. 153) After this, Jesus couldn’t turn her away, so he turned toward her instead. He healed her daughter and praised her faith, her belief that “she and her daughter should receive mercy from the ruling activity of God.” (Jae Won Lee, “Exegetical Perspective on Matthew 15:(10-20) 21-28,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 3, p. 361) With her persistent faith in God’s mercy and compassion, she had claimed her place at that welcome table. She was willing to accept a lower-level grace for now, for the sake of her daughter, but by her persistence she made it clear that she would one day sit at the table, no longer relegated to lap up the crumbs on the floor with the dogs. She knew better than Jesus did in that moment that the incredible depth and breadth of God’s love breaks through every human limitation and makes a place for all at the welcome table.

Over the centuries since this first encounter, the followers of Jesus have often been too much like Jesus at the start of this story. We have let our exhaustion or anxiety in the moment shape our reaction to those in need. We have been so focused on our own understandings of ministry that we miss the people we weren’t expecting to encounter along the way. We have even fallen into the traps of the world’s ways to ignore those who cry out for help because they don’t look like us, live like us, think like us, love like us, or even cry out for help like us. If we haven’t done it ourselves, others surely have done it in the name of Jesus at one point or another.

We need people like the Canaanite woman to remind us that our reaction to injustice is so very often shaped less by God’s commitment to the humanity of all and more by our preferences. We need people like the Canaanite woman to step up and sing loud and clear, “I’m gonna sit at the welcome table,” claiming their place not under the table scavenging for the leftovers of justice and peace but a place where the fullness of new life from God is provided abundantly for all. And we need people like the Canaanite woman to urge us to action so that we can respond to the cries for compassion that are offered right in front of us, to challenge us to set aside the fears that all too often drive our actions, to bring us together in offering a united cry for justice and peace that is more than empty words, to join in God’s work of making all things new.

There have been plenty of people in our world crying out like this Canaanite woman in recent days, insisting that they too are gonna sit at the welcome table. Even on vacation over the past two weeks, I couldn’t escape the cries and shouts for justice in our world. All over London, thrift shops run by the relief organization Oxfam highlighted the great need of response to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, where two generations of occupation have kept the Palestinian people from living life to its fullness and left Israelis at risk, only to have recent warfare bring further death to both sides in this intractable conflict as everyone seeks a seat at the welcome table.

Then, when I tried to turn to my social media friends on Facebook and Twitter to provide a bit of company along the journey, I was overwhelmed by the outcry over the troubling death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager stopped for walking in the middle of the street by a white police officer in a suburb of St. Louis last weekend. When the police offered limited, confusing, or conflicting answers to reasonable questions about the incident—in the rare moments when they spoke at all—the community’s peaceful protests escalated as the police approached the protestors in military riot gear. Images of these protests bear an eerie similarity to photos from the Deep South during the Civil Rights Movement, and it is clear that even fifty years later, with some real change in our world, there are still people crying out for a seat at that welcome table.

And there are so many other places where women and men cry out for justice and peace and wholeness and new life in our world—among Ebola victims in west Africa, amidst renewed conflict in Syria and Iraq, alongside power struggles in the Ukraine and Russia, even among the poor and marginalized much closer to home—women and men and children cry out for a seat at that welcome table.

So what are we to do with all this pain around us, both far and near? Is our best response to be like Jesus at the beginning of the story, to ignore those who cry out in hopes that they will be respectful and just go away, or to tell them that they are a distraction from our bigger purposes, or even to insist that they are something less than human because they have dared to challenge the established order of things and seek a seat at the table with us? Are we to take a step even further and respond with violence? Or can we find a better way than what Jesus did that honors both these cries and the humanity of those who cry out, that shows compassion to those who suffer, that offers a word of grace to those in need, that embodies God’s love for all—love whose power is greater than even the smallest portion of crumbs—that offers a much-needed seat at the welcome table of our world?

In the midst of all the pain and war and suffering that marks our lives and our world, we can live and pray and work in ways that honor the loud and soft cries of those who are in need so that God’s love might touch each and every place where new life is needed. So may we join in God’s work to make space for everyone to have a seat at the welcome table, not leaving anyone just to pick up the leftover crumbs but ensuring that all God’s people can know the full abundance of God’s grace, mercy, peace, and love. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Loaves and Fishes

August 3, 2014 By Andy James

a sermon on Matthew 14:13-21
preached on August 3, 2014, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

Our beloved former member and ruling elder Jackie Acampora had a miserable dread of dealing with the church budget. She was one of the most gifted and talented ruling elders I have ever known, but church finances were not among those gifts. I think Jackie would have preferred swimming in a pool of hungry sharks to being a part of most of our budget conversations, and more than once we playfully threatened to elect her treasurer, knowing that if we did she would have immediately resigned!

Jackie’s church financial philosophy can best be described, as she herself put it, as “loaves and fishes”—as in put in what we have, see that it surely can’t be enough to meet our needs, and trust that God will work out the details. It’s a wonderful philosophy in theory, but it rarely satisfies the accountants among us, let alone those like me who depend on the church to help pay our bills, but for better or worse, we had to admit that Jackie’s philosophy was often about as good as a more structured approach, because at the end of the year the numbers usually came out better than we ever imagined they could.

Our reading from Matthew this morning directly references that miracle that Jackie regularly referred to when it came to church finances. This strange and wonderful miracle of Jesus feeding a crowd of thousands with just a few loaves and fish is one of the few stories told in all four gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry. It all began with a tired Jesus and a hangry crowd. One of my pastor friends who is also a mother recently introduced me to this new word “hungry,” a mix of hungry and angry that makes things particularly miserable but is such an accurate description of what happens to us—and what I think was happening in that crowd that day.

The disciples sensed what was going on in the crowd, and they asked Jesus to call it a day and send everyone away to get something to eat in one of the nearby villages. Jesus would have nothing of this, though. “You give them something to eat,” he told them. Now this seemed preposterous and crazy. While many of Jesus’ followers in our time have developed incredible skills in preparing meals for churchgoers on short notice, the first disciples were not quite as gifted, and there were no professional caterers in the Yellow Pages of Palestine! Even more, the disciples seemed ready to get away from the crowd, too. They had not expected Jesus to welcome this hangry crowd of thousands to their private retreat by the lake, and so they had no confidence that even the amazing healer Jesus could pull off such a massive meal on such short notice!

So the disciples took inventory of the food they had available—five loaves and two fish—and reported their supplies to Jesus. But instead of giving up on what seemed to be an impossible challenge, Jesus took what they had, “looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.” Along the way, somehow, someway, something happened. The five loaves and two fish multiplied to be enough to feed the crowd of five thousand men—the only ones who seemed to count in those days!—plus the accompanying women and children, with twelve baskets full of leftovers, too.

Did the crowd manage to order delivery to their picnic blankets via their iPhones and so eliminate the need for the disciples’ small stash to feed everyone? Did God miraculously multiply those small provisions into enough to feed such a large crowd? Or did something change the hearts and minds of the crowd and convince them to share the food that they had brought along with those who were not quite so prepared? Whatever happened, it was another triumphant moment for Jesus. The hangry crowd was calmed, empty stomachs were filled, and another miracle added to the books.

This feeding of the crowd of five thousand plus is absolutely amazing, but like so many of Jesus’ miracles, it isn’t always so clear what this means for us today. What do these loaves and fishes matter for us today anyway? Is there anything more to this story for us than yet more proof of Jesus’ abilities to make things work despite the bungling of the disciples? Does this miraculous meal suggest that our approach to church picnics might need to be changed a bit, with the menu made a bit more limited and supplies trusted to go further? Can we carry anything more from this than that sometimes we should back down from stressing out over the details and trust that God will provide?

I for one surely hope that there is more to this story for us than any or all of that. All too often I look around and see our world filled with the mindset of scarcity brought by the disciples, with concerns that we simply don’t have enough to go around and so we shouldn’t even try to share, with fear that we must preserve what we have and use it only for ourselves rather than offer it generously for the good of all. Far too often, our default response is that there is not enough to go around—not enough bread and fish to feed the crowd, not enough wealth to support those who are in need, not enough security to treat others with the full dignity of humans created in God’s image, not enough food to share with those who are not just hangry but truly hungry, not enough resources for us to welcome a few more children who face danger and death in their homelands. Some days I think it would take a miracle in our own time to set aside our risk management and fear-mongering so that we can live like people who have enough to share.

But Jesus is always ready, even now, to step in and tell us that we already have enough to go around—enough bread and fish to feed the crowd, enough wealth to share, enough security to step back from our fear, enough food to share generously with the hungry, enough resources to let us be confident that we will have enough to care for ourselves and others. Jesus is ready to show us this miracle that we need in our world, the miracle of a new spark of generosity, the miracle of new care for those truly in need, the miracle of sharing amidst our fear and trembling, the miracle of an abundant feast that is enough to remake and reshape us and all creation.

And ultimately that miracle begins at this table. This table stands as yet another place where just like that grassy spot by the lakeshore Jesus can work a miracle. This is the place where bread and juice become something more than just the ordinary things that grace our table, the place where a little becomes a lot because we share it with one another, the place where we are mysteriously united with the women and men who have gathered here before us and beside us and will come behind us, the place where somehow we miraculously meet Jesus. God’s promise is made clear at this table: Jesus always brings us enough—enough to sustain us at this table, enough to carry us on the journey, enough to allow us to set aside our fears, enough for us to share with others who are in need, enough for everyone to gather and be fed.

So maybe Jackie was right. Maybe we don’t need to worry so much about how things work and how the bills get paid. Maybe we can trust that loaves and fishes will be enough. Maybe God’s abundance can be miraculous for us too. So may the strange miracle of the loaves and fishes be a miracle for us, too, so that we can share God’s miraculous abundance far and wide each and every day. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Incredible Love

July 27, 2014 By Andy James

a sermon on Romans 8:26-39
preached on July 27, 2014, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

During my seminary years, a week or so after my grandfather died, I received a brief handwritten note from the president of the seminary, Laura Mendenhall. I received three of those notes during my time as a student there, but that first one comes to mind every time I hear this morning’s text from Romans. She lifted up a slight adaptation of these beautiful words, “In life and in death we belong to God,” that is familiar to many Presbyterians from the opening question of the Heidelberg Catechism and the Brief Statement of Faith in our Book of Confessions. Those words that had grown in meaning and importance for me even before those difficult days had been a tremendous comfort to me through my grandfather’s illness and death. Laura thoughtfully reminded me in her note, though, that our tendency in such times is to focus on how our loved ones belong to God in death, so she encouraged me to remember that he had belonged to God in his life, too.

So today, amidst these familiar words that bring us so much comfort and hope for a life beyond our known days on earth, I think Laura’s encouragement to me to remember that we belong to God in life matters so much more than ever. The news tells us about so much death these days: continued civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip, repeated rocket launches into Israel, a commercial airliner shot down in the midst of internal conflict in Ukraine, two other aviation accidents in Africa, capital punishment administered with unexpected and unnecessary suffering in our own nation, new conflict emerging in Iraq and Afghanistan despite our best efforts to bring peace, and so much more.

But when we remember Paul’s words to the Romans only in these times of death, I think we end up giving them less power over us. They may bring us comfort in such moments, but the gift of God’s love in Jesus Christ is not only to change things for us for eternity—God’s love in Jesus Christ changes things for the whole world now, and the real power of this love comes when we allow it to change us and our world.

This transformative power of God’s incredible love is not something we embrace only when things are good—in fact, I think that it is when things are most complex and confused that this love matters the most. Paul knew that for himself. His life had been filled with joy and sorrow, trials and tribulations, and so he wanted his listeners to have the same kind of trust in God’s love that had sustained him through all those things.

So in Romans 8, he asks a series of rhetorical questions that make it clear that the gift of God’s love takes hold in us when things don’t go as we expect.

If God is for us, who is against us?
Who will bring any charge against God’s elect?
Who is to condemn?
Who will separate us from the love of Christ?

The answer to all these questions is simple. Nothing. No one. Not anything. And so amidst all the confusion and uncertainty of our world, amidst the death too often that seems to pervade our lives and our experience, amidst all the war and strife that seem to reign, amidst all the evil that creeps into things, amidst the exhaustion and confusion that so easily become the norm for us in these days, we have everything we need in the gift of God’s love in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Secure in this gift of God’s love, comforted by God’s presence amidst anything that may come our way, it is then our call to embody this love throughout our world. If we have truly been changed by this incredible love, then we will want to change our world with it, too. When we look around, there are sure plenty of places that could use a good dose of God’s love these days. What would it look like if God’s love for all people and our common creation in the image of God stood at the center of our reaction to the conflict in Israel and the Gaza Strip? What would it look like if God’s love for the victim and the perpetrator was the first thing that we considered when we thought about how and whether to administer capital punishment? What would it look like if God’s love for all the children of our world was first on our minds when we are confronted with the influx of child refugees from Central America in our nation? What would it look like if God’s love for our enemies came to mind when we found ourselves at odds with another person? And what would it look like if God’s love for the world stood at the center of our budgets for our households, for our church, for our city, and for our nation?

I suspect that if we took a close look at these and other things, we would find that sometimes we allow our actions to create barriers between us and our experience of God’s love. But the good news is that while we may put things between us and our understanding of this love, not even these actions in our lives and in our world can separate us from God’s love in Jesus Christ. Nothing, Paul says, can separate us from God’s love,

neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation—

nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

With this incredible love in our midst, pervading our lives and our world even when we try to push it away, it is our call and our responsibility to offer this love to others without reservation or fear. We may get love wrong and share it too broadly, but I for one cannot believe that a God who loves us so much would ever penalize us for sharing too much love with our world. We may find new and better ways to embody God’s love in Jesus Christ over time, but even the smallest steps toward doing that are a gift to our broken and fearful world. And sometimes we may even get hurt for loving too much, but in those moments God’s love shines through all the more, for when we love others as God loves us, we see God’s love for us in new and different ways.

So as we go forth this day, with these wonderful words of love ringing in our heads and echoing in our hearts, may we embody this love with everyone we meet so that all the world may know God’s love in Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to God! Amen.