“If God is for us then who can be against us!?” This isn’t just a quote from Romans 8:31, it was scripture cited by Ray Lewis at the conclusion of super bowl 48 as he stood surrounded by microphones and cameras announcing not only his own victory but his retirement from the NFL as well.
I’m not sure which translation Mr. Lewis used that day but I am also not sure if he fully realized the context of those words. I still remember Pastor Phillip’s frustrated tweets and posts following the game. The verse cited at the conclusion of that game was the second half of Romans 8:31 in what I would assume was the implication that God put 40 bucks down on the Ravens that night. I disagree with that implication and not just because I too, like Pastor Phillip am a Steelers fan but because Mr. Lewis should have checked out what Paul wrote leading up to that conclusion.
But Paul’s letter to Rome appears to be addressing a team that isn’t spiking the ball in the end zone. In fact, it doesn’t sound like they are playing a game here. Paul and the church in Rome seem to be discussing a very real sense of agony, pain, suffering, and groaning. We may be many centuries removed from this context but things have not changed that much have they?
We have and continue to suffer and we are still groaning out. We here at Epiphany over this past year have suffered loss, sickness, and tragedy and it isn’t over yet. Paul doesn’t deny this and neither will I, because just like Paul I have no choice, I cannot deny the reality of it. Just as Paul clearly states WE, sisters and brothers, KNOW that the whole creation is groaning and suffering in agony and it still is at this very moment.
Paul takes the road a little less traveled in this letter. He doesn’t pull any punches, he calls it like he sees it; yes, we are suffering. But what should we do about our suffering? Do we resign to it? Maybe we should try to cover it up or numb ourselves to it? Is that what we are called to do in this place?
One of my dearest friends watched the Lego movie last year while we were working at VCU as chaplains. There is a scene in the movie where the Lego version of Batman, who accompanying his fellow protagonists, takes refuge in a place called “cloud coo-coo land” where a character called “Princess Unikitty”, a unicorn Lego cat, explains the rules of cloud coo-coo land. The rules include no frowny faces, no negativity of any kind, and no consistency along with a few others allusions to what Unikitty envisions as the perfect place to live in community. As they are being given the tour of this tacky brightly colored realm of cloud coo-coo, Lego Batman pauses with a dinosaur and a clown dancing on either side of him as he stands on a fluffy cloud. In a dark and brooding voice he exclaims, “I hate this place”.
The following day my dear friend immediately took me by the arm and advised me that based on my dark and brooding demeanor as well as my comfort level with the emotional lows of the hospital….
I was Lego Batman
For the record, I don’t think I’m alone.
This isn’t cloud coo-coo land, this is God’s Church, and this is where all are welcome especially those who suffer and groan. We share in one another’s suffering and groaning; it is what we do as a faithful community and don’t let Unikitty fool you, there is no escape from suffering, it is part of the nature of our existence.
Is our faith just something we want to use to pacify ourselves in order to endure our suffering, or is it something that truly makes us existentially different, new people, new beings, truly children OF God? Is it something that makes us closer to how God intended for us to be in relationship to God?
Man, I just let the bottom drop out of this one didn’t I? If you came to worship this morning seeking out Jesus sliding down a rainbow into a fluffy pink cloud I am sure you didn’t anticipate watching him slide down a metal slide in mid July wearing a pair of shorty shorts into a pile of dirt. But what is the context in which we cry out for a savior? Isn’t it in our suffering? Why do we have to deny it? Hide it?
Do we want to be a church that heals the pain of the suffering or do we want to just numb the pain by medicating it with smiles and the reassurance that “if God is for us then who can be against us?” Taking words out of context, abusing theology, and presenting a false God that is no better than a genie in a bottle?
Sisters and brothers, trust me, I want that Genie in a bottle myself. Tomorrow I will walk to section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery where 5 of the Marines and Corpsmen that I went to war with are buried. I will face their parents, siblings, wives, and friends knowing full well that their love ones came home in a box and I… I just came home. There are still times when all I want is that Genie, I want to rub the lamp and bring them all back.
I try not to ask for that as often anymore because it is in the acceptance of that pain I have come to realize something; The Spirit that comes to us as our advocate in the Pentecost story is not called to be some theological or spiritual dopamine drip, nor is the church called to be the earthly embodiment of a divine anesthesiologist. The Spirit and the Church are called to strengthen and renew a cold, broken, and weary world full of cold, broken, and weary people.
Paul never claims that the Church will heal ALL suffering.
Jesus doesn't allude to such notions either, whether through the Spirit or the Church. What we are reassured of is hope. The hope in a new creation through Jesus Christ, which WILL heal all suffering and wounds, ONE DAY. We are also reassured a change in our nature as one body, the Church, strengthening one another and the world by the change that continues in us, as Christ’s body
Paul talks about a glory that will be revealed to us, we the ones who have and continue to receive the first fruits of the Spirit. It is there sisters and brothers in that light, that Spirit, that glory. Paul doesn’t distract us with his depiction of cloud coo-coo land. Paul assures us that the change is now and the change is in us here in the midst of all our pain right now.
Paul knew that the cross didn’t end with Christ; the very roads he traveled were frequently lined with those who had been crucified by the authorities of Rome throughout the lands where Paul’s mission occurred.
Peter and Andrew certainly knew the cross was a continued reality since they themselves were reportedly crucified as well.
So then why? What’s it all for? What was the point?
Christ didn’t abolish the literal cross, so how on earth could Christ take our crosses away from us today? Here is the bad news for today, he didn’t. We still carry those crosses, we are still nailed to those crosses, we still die to those crosses. It’s why we have one hanging right in front of us here in worship today. What I have always been proud to say is the centerpiece of worship here at Epiphany.
Now, how about the good news? About time, right?!
Jesus Christ is crucified and killed because it is in that moment that we are reassured that from that day forward regardless of the crosses we bear, we do not bear those crosses alone. God bears the weight of our crosses with us. When our arms are outstretched on the wooden plank of our crosses, God lifts us up off that cross providing the comfort to take that deep breath that our collapsing lungs are being deprived of. And when that moment comes that we cry out “My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me”? That is THE God that stands at the foot of the cross through Christ Jesus.
We no longer suffer alone in the dark; we now suffer by the light of a candle that grows ever brighter in the hands of the God who will not abandon us. What’s more is that light kindles the flame of that glory that we receive in Christ Jesus in us. It changes the very nature of our being as children of God. It is the unseen hope that shines the brightest in the darkness moments of our lives.
This past year a letter was released following news of the death of a young woman being held in captivity by Daesh, or ISIS as they are most commonly referred to in the media.
The humanitarian aid worker had been captured traveling between Turkey and Syria while attempting to provide aid to Syrian refugees. Kayla Mueller’s letter to her family left me in awe when I read it this past February. Her mother released the letter in hopes of depicting her daughter as more than a victim but as a model for others. In one portion of the letter Kayla writes:
“I remember mom always telling me that all in all in the end the only one you really have is God. I have come to a place in experience where, in every sense of the word, I have surrendered myself to our creator b/c literally there was no one else…. + by God + by your prayers I have felt tenderly cradled in freefall. I have been shown in darkness, light + have learned that even in prison, one can be free. I am grateful. I have come to see that there is good in every situation, sometimes we just have to look for it. I pray each day that if nothing else, you have felt a certain closeness + surrender to God as well + have formed a bond of love + support amongst one another”
Kayla was reportedly killed in a Jordanian airstrike in Syria following the dispersion of a group of hostages. Kayla was just 26 years old but her letter gives us a powerful interpretation of what Paul is talking about.
Paul and Kayla both address the change that occurs through us in Christ. It is a change that is taking place by the Spirit, and much like Kayla, we can trust in that unseen hope and free fall into such a change. By participating in that hope one can be truly free of the shackles we have bound around the whole of God’s creation and strive that much closer to being as God intended.
It is the change that takes place in us because we are not alone. In Christ that is the change and the comfort no one can take from us is that we are never alone in our pain. In the darkness of our pain Christ is the glory and that Spirit is the light that shines in you. It is that faith in the unseen hope of Christ Jesus that reverses the course of human history away from the consequence of our fallen world.
So let’s revisit that quote from Romans again with what we have just considered;
“If God is with us, then who and what could be against us?”
Amen.
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