If God is For Us...

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Romans 8:26-39

Sermon

I donʼt know about you, but for me, the hymn “In the Garden” is not about Easter and the resurrection, but is more closely associated with death. Whenever I hear it, it transports me to one funeral or another where I have heard the hymn sung. Perhaps most prominent in my memory was when we sang it together at the funeral of my grandfather. Whether or not it was its intended purpose, for at least our current generations, this hymn calls to mind funerals, and grief, and death.

So too does today’s scripture from Romans. Though I have done no formal study, I think it is safe to say that this scripture appears at funerals perhaps even more often than “In the Garden.” It is of course a very appropriate text- it speaks of the Spirit helping us when we are at our weakest....when our grief is so profound that it will not allow us to speak. It speaks of a God who will never be apart from us, even, and perhaps especially, when we are in the midst of tragedy.

Can you remember a time when you heard “In the Garden” or this passage from Romans at a memorial service? Take a second and think back to that moment. What did you see, feel, touch? Were you overwhelmed with grief at the time? Perhaps some of you still are.

Though you may have held it together on the outside, what kind of emotions were swirling within? Did you find it hard to speak? To carry on a conversation with others about your loved one? Did it difficult to pray to God in those moments?

If you did, know that you are in good company. Almost all of us struggle and go into a phase of almost shock following the death of someone around us. In an initial stage of acute grief, the severe emotional trauma experienced can manifest itself in actual physical responses- Tightness in the throat, shortness of breath, fatigue, and a lack of muscle strength. Is it any wonder that words are hard to come by in that moment? Thus, it should be a particular comfort that Paul tells us that we have no need for words in those moments. When we are racked with grief, when we canʼt form a word, let alone a sentence or a prayer, the Holy Spirit “intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”

In those moments, God knows our hearts, and the Holy Spirit within us prayers on our behalf. Those prayers could be shouts of anger, screams of grief, or groans of misery, but God intimately hears our prayers. In the midst of death, we are surrounded by the love of God, and the Spirit is acting within us even, and perhaps especially, when we cannot sense it. We should praise God that we cannot be alone in those moments. The God whose love was demonstrated in Jesus Christ cannot bare to see us suffer alone. In these moments, we can rest assured that, we need not understand, we need not be able to explain why a particular death occurred.

But eventually, through time, through prayer, through talking with a pastor or loved one, through going to a grief support group or seeking professional counseling, we move from those initial stages of grief and begin to resume the normal patterns of life. And at some point, whether it be weeks or months or years afterward, we begin to regain our words. If we are honest with ourselves, perhaps the first word that we are able to form is - “Why?”

Now, its important we donʼt try to answer that question too quickly. We have to give ourselves the time to go through our wordless agony. This especially goes for those who care for someone wrestling with grief. In our legitimate desire to comfort, we sometimes will say things like “God needing one more angel in heaven,” or “that it was Godʼs will for that person to die” or that “this life doesnʼt matter.”

These generally arenʼt well-thought theological statements, but almost sweet nothings whispered to try and comfort. But we ought to be particularly cautious about speaking lightly of God and Godʼs will here. At best, it can be a cold comfort to someone experiencing loss. At worse, it can seriously disturb or even destroy their faith. We, and those in grief, are much better served when we simply hug them and express our sorrow than when we try to pontificate about our theology of God in those moments.

But the time does come, however, when we are obligated to begin wrestling with why. When we have to consider a Christian response, or theology, to death and dying. This last Wednesday, we had a social issue forum that explored the “Rights of the Aging.” One of the conclusions we drew was that so many of the issues raised required us to have frank conversations about death and dying, about the importance of quantity or quality of life, about funeral planning, and about end of life care. These prove to be sticky subjects for us in the United States. We tend to be particularly immature about death- look at the uproar that occurred in the country over the supposed death panels- merely suggesting people meet with doctors to discuss end of life care created a national uproar.

We struggle, in part, because we do not understand. After all, if God is for us, who could be against us? After all, isnʼt God the most powerful thing in the universe? If God really loves us, and if God is really powerful, why doesnʼt God stop bad things from happening?

That is the fundamental question, isnʼt it? We canʼt reconcile a powerful, good God who allows things like the shooting in Norway. Why allow such evil?

I think the primary reason we struggle with this question is that we misunderstand the power of God. In this country, when we think of power, we generally think of the ability to manipulate, to dominate, to control. It is the ability to bend the world around you to your will. We think of politicians as powerful when they are able to bend congress, or the country, to their will. We think of a country as powerful if its military or economic prowess can force other nations or leaders to make changes to the way they govern their country.

But what if thatʼs just a base, common misunderstanding of Godʼs power. I mean, is raw power really a holy and awesome thing? If I could physically force you to do more mission work, would that be a Godly thing? If I tricked you into giving more, and then used that money to feed those who are hungry, would that be a demonstration of the love of God? If we believe that power is this raw, sometimes violent expression of control, and if we believe that God is the ultimate expression of power, why would we be surprised when people draw the wrong conclusions about God. Mildly, we might ask, if God just manipulates the world in that way, why wouldnʼt God prevent evil? And, in a more pernicious misunderstanding, if God represents raw power, why wouldnʼt God, and Godʼs followers, strike out against “Godʼs enemies?”

This was the kind of power the crusaders believed in when they marched into the Middle East and slaughtered Muslims and other non-Christians. Though it is still early, it appears to be the kind of power
that the man who on Friday killed at least 92 people in Norway, Anders Breivik, believed in. Based on posts on his facebook page and anonline manifesto, he considered himself to be a modern Christian knight,

“charged with driving out Islam and immigrants and the political correctness that he said had been wrongly invited into Norway and was thriving there.”

His

“manifesto, entitled “2083: A European Declaration of Independence,” equates liberalism and multiculturalism with “cultural Marxism,” which the document says is destroying European Christian civilization.”(NY Times)

This idea of armed defense of Christianity, of our God, is born out of the equation that God equals power. But this is not the God to which scripture largely testifies. Though you can scrape together a few bible verses to justify about anything, Jesus speaks of the power of God differently. It is the power that allows a tiny seed to grow into a large tree. It is like a yeast that almost magically turns flour into life-sustaining bread. This is a different kind of power. The mightiest of powers cannot make a seed turn into a plant. This isnʼt a power of raw dominance, it is a power of life and of growth.

When Paul tries to answer the question “If God is for us, who is against us?”, he does not speak of Godʼs might. No, Paul speaks of a God who would send his only son into the world to bring about reconciliation. He testifies about Jesus, who willingly sacrificed himself at the hands of the dominant, powerful Roman empire, in solidarity with and to bring about reconciliation with the weak and lowly to whom Jesus loved intimately. Godʼs power was not one of dominance, but one of self emptying and sacrifice. Godʼs power was not in flexing muscle, but in demonstrating all consuming love. Even unto death.

If we understand God in those terms, how does that help us answer that question of why? When we begin to understand that we are not pawns who God manipulates at will, we can release ourselves from the notion that God caused a car crash or allowed a shooter to pull the trigger. Thatʼs not how God works. The power of life is not in manipulation, but in bringing forth new life out of tragedy. Jesus Christ was crucified, so God brought forth new life by resurrecting him. Godʼs work cannot be seen in the killing of 92 people in Norway, Godʼs power of life will be revealed through the outpouring of love and the recommitment the people of Norway, and Christians throughout the world, make in seeking to fan the flames of tolerance and love rather than bigotry and hate.

God does not work by preventing death or tragedy. Such exercise of raw power, even for seemingly good purposes, would be a violation of free will. No, God works in the same way that Jesus did. By being present with us so that 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, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. God will be with us through it all. And should we open ourselves up to Godʼs healing love and life sustaining power, we too will see hope, and love, and life flourish out of our grief.