Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost Year A 2008

11 Pentecost A 08
July 27, 2008

Romans 8:26-39
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.
31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered." 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God’s Peculiar Love

We are unable by ourselves to manifest the image of God without suffering as Christ suffered. We therefore don’t even know what to pray for. In AA they have a saying, “I didn’t know; and I didn’t know that I didn’t know.” That’s our situation. We don’t miss what we need because we don’t even know what it is. The Holy Spirit is the means by which we pray for what we don’t know we need.

What comes, if we are truly open to it, is the power of God to transform us into something we can’t even imagine, something we don’t even think we need to be. Jesus was the Son of God, and we, if we follow him as our Lord, become sons and daughters of God like him. And we become these new beings in the same way he became who he was: by being chosen, called, justified and glorified.

“He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?” The whole message of Romans is not just that God forgives the sinner. The message is that God loves his enemies.

God sent his son into a world that hated God. And Christ died rather than to fight back against the world’s violence. In doing so he revealed the mysterious power and majesty and grace of God: God loves us, his enemies, and gives us life and blessings beyond all measure, despite our nailing his child to the cross.

Those who embrace this peculiar love as a way of life are those who have been chosen, called and justified. To be justified is to be made righteous, that is, to be made anew in the image of God, the image of a God who loves us, his enemies.

God loves us, his enemies.

And if this is so, how can we hate ours? To allow this possibility to enter our souls is to begin to enter into the kingdom of God. It is the very antithesis of all human organization, all human government, all human thinking, for human beings organize themselves against others. The purpose of every human nation is to defend its citizens with the threat of violence.

Jesus told Pilate his kingdom was not of this world, that if it had been, his followers would have fought to protect him. And Jesus himself, perhaps the one person in all of history with the most righteous excuse to defend himself, chose not to. Quite the contrary. Hanging on the cross, he loved his executioners. This was his moment, this was his glory.

To be glorified is to be given the opportunity to love one’s enemies in the eyes of the world. The ultimate glorification, strangely, is to die rather than to fight, just as Jesus did. But this is not just a passive rolling over to die, but a very clear and significant choice, a choice that speaks love to the murderer. It’s no wonder that a centurion involved in the execution of Jesus converted on the spot.

This is not just living passively. This is seeking out the enemy and loving him or her. It is not just forgiveness, not just the willingness to be friends with someone you think is a sinner, though even that is a very good thing. It is to love those who hate you. It is to deliberately and lovingly and creatively engage people who stridently despise you and everything you stand for, and love them.

I recently read a story of a young Rwandan named Celestin who heard the call to the pastorate just before the explosion of violence there. He saw his ministry as a ministry of reconciliation between the Hutus and the Tutsis. He served in that ministry throughout the insanity of that massacre. Seventy members of his church, including people in his family were brutally murdered with machetes. And still he sought out the enemy, and tried to love them. He had been beaten, seen his family and friends tortured and murdered, but never, never did he give up. Today, there are many stories of murderers who have repented through Celestin’s ministry and are working at reconciling themselves to the families of those they murdered. One example: a Hutu who killed most of a certain Tutsi family, including several children, has dedicated his life to caring for an elderly grandmother in that family.

Africa is a deeply Christian continent, and there are a number of these reconciliation ministries going on. Interestingly enough, the international community is incensed. They want to have war crimes trials and execute the murderers. More death. Some are calling it “the myth of redemptive violence.”

I’ve read of a community in Philadelphia that is trying to practice this peculiar love of God. The story is told of the young pastor in that community walking in a dangerous neighborhood with an eleven-year-old member. They were haunted by a gang of teenagers obviously interested in a little of that incomprehensible violence-for-fun that seems to be all the rage in the inner cities these days. The pastor and the boy tried hard to simply ignore them, but it wasn’t long before the gang was literally beating them with sticks.

The pastor couldn’t think of what to do. Finally, he just stood up and looked into the eyes of his attackers and said something to this effect, “My friend and I can’t fight you because we are followers of Jesus. We believe you were made for something better than this. All we can tell you is that no matter how you hurt us, we will still love you.” This threw such a strange wrench into the process the gang scattered.

“Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”

Paul is talking about those peculiar opportunities he and many of his compatriots experienced in pursuing the hostile world with the love of God. He is singing a hymn of praise because he is amazed that he and they have never given up, that those who have discovered this amazing, peculiar love of God are so filled with the Holy Spirit that they are able to live this very peculiar life.

We have spent this month thinking about Philippi’s future. We have used Paul’s letter to the congregation in first century Rome to frame our discussion.

What is amazing about Philippi is the emerging reality that there are people of widely divergent views who gather here together in Christ’s name. To me, this is a sign of God’s peculiar love.

Another story I’ve read recently involved a boy in an inner city congregation who had become the target of a bully at school. His teacher at church told him, “this is your opportunity to show that boy what it is to love.” The kid said, “Man, this love business is hard.”

It’s not just hard. It’s impossible. To love someone when they are firmly opposed to you, this is inexplicable apart from the power of God. And God is what people are looking for when they come to church.

And here at Philippi, we can feel just that power at work. Whatever plan we make for the coming years, I hope that at the center of the plan is the awareness of God’s love for us, his enemies, and that peculiar love as the center of our lives. I believe that awareness is the font of tremendous creativity.

G.K. Chesterton, who apparently devoted his life to coming up with quotable sayings about faith, once said that a Christian is wildly courageous, absurdly happy and constantly in trouble. If we are to embrace the love Christ showed us in the cross, we are likely to draw some fire.

Well, to paraphrase some general who once said, “Give ‘em hell,” I encourage you and our congregation to “Give ‘em heaven.”

Amen.