nothing can separate us from the love of God

from my sermon on 8/7/11 from Romans 8:31-39

We often read this passage at funerals. At funerals we may be asking the question, "Can death separate us from the love of God?" I don't want to make light of death. Grief can hurt. Wen we lose someone, there can be shock, numbness, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and just pure exhaustion. We wonder if we have been left all alone.

We who believe in the God revealed in Jesus Christ have a particular answer to the question, can death separate from the love of God. In Jesus, we have a God, who has lived our life with all of its thoughts and feelings, who has died our death, and lives again so that we might live also. We follow Christ in life, in death, in life beyond death. So can death separate us from the love of God? We say, "No!" Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul is so sure that of this that he lists some 17 things that could threaten to cut us off from God's love: tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, angels, rulers, powers...
What's on your list? My suspicion is that you have a list of things that you think might keep God's love from you. Maybe it's who's on your list? What person threatens you.

Your list might contain the loss of your job. We have many euphemisms: laid off, made redundant, reduction in force, etc. It may be that you have retired. I know of us males it is particularly hard. So much of our identity is tied up in what we do. Can the loss of your job separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus? No.

Maybe it's cancer, such a dread disease. Yesterday, a longtime friend of ours was buried. Kelli was a teacher, a worker at NASA, a wife, a mother. She was a seeker. When we first came to know her, she was not a believer. We invited her to Bible study. She came with her questions. When she got cancer, her questions got clarified. I don't mean that God caused her cancer. I mean that Kelli started asking about the meaning of her life. She came to believe in Jesus Christ and to testify to his goodness. Can cancer separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus? No.

Can the start of school? It won't be long now, but the answer is still no. Can this awful Texas heat?...well, the answer is still no.

How about something you did a long time ago, something you still hold against yourself. You know right where the evidence is kept. You keep it carefully filed away. No. Paul says, nothing in all creation. We are God's creatures. Not even ourselves, our worst enemies, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Our greatest fear is the fear of being alone. Paul affirms that nothing can separate us from the love of God. We are never alone.

There is one part of the passage I would like to omit, the part of being sheep being led to the slaughter. I don't like that imagery. I went back and read Psalm 44 from whence the quote comes. It is an affirmation of faith in the Lord God who has worked our salvation all down through the ages. It says though that faithfulness to God does not equal success and big rewards. In fact, sometimes faithfulness to God engenders persecution and hardship. Still, we remain loyal to God, in spite of the outward circumstances.

That leads me to my closing, a film clip, which I rarely do. It comes from Places in the Heart, a movie set in Waxahachie, Texas, during the dust bowl, during the Depression. In the opening scene, a young black man accidentally shoots the sheriff and kills him. A lynching follows. The widow, played by Sally Fields, who wins an Oscar by the way, is struggling with 2 small children. The bank officer places a blind relative as a boarder with her. She gets a black man to help her farm. They must produce a crop to keep the bank from foreclosing on the farm. There is a drought, a tornado, and all kinds of trials. They make it through. In this final scene, they are in a church service. The critics pan this scene, but I think it is so powerful. See them pass the elements of the sacrament of communion along the pews--the bread and the tray with the little cups. There are ordinary citizens in the town. Now watch closely, the black man who helped them farm is sitting in the pews with the racist white folks. He serves the blind man boarder next to him. He serves the 2 little children. They serve their mom. She serves her dead husband, who serves the young black man who shot him. The young black man says ever so softly, "Peace of God."

That is what is happening today in this sacrament of communion. As we gather at the table, we claim that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.