11th Sunday after Pentecost [Pr. 12] July 27, 2008 “Series A”
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, through your Son, the Word become flesh, you have revealed your steadfast love and faithfulness to our sinful world. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, open our hearts and minds to receive your living Word, and empower us to trust that nothing in this world can separate us from your redeeming grace, in Jesus the Christ. This we ask in Christ’s holy name. Amen.
It was a privilege for me to have known Ada. She was a member of my former parish, and was one of the most beautiful persons I have ever known. She was advanced in years, in her late seventies or early eighties when I came to serve as her pastor. She never owned a car, and so she spent most of her days within walking distance of her home, which was a little less than a quarter mile from the church.
It was a huge house, badly in need of repair, but she basically lived in only one room, keeping the rest closed off to save on fuel. In that room there was an old gas range; a sink with a hand pump attached, from which she drew water; an old wooden table with three chairs; a small gas furnace she used for heat; and a day-bed on which to sit and sleep. She also had a radio, a large print Bible that was well worn, but no TV. It was obvious to me that she didn’t have much money, and eked out a living from whatever she received from Social Security.
Ada never missed a Sunday at worship, unless she was ill, even when she had to walk through deep snow to get there. She had one of the most pleasing personalities, and I can honestly say that I never heard her speak a bad word about anyone.
But she did have one habit that really bothered me. At Christmas and Easter, and a few other times during the year, Ada would greet me at the door on her way out of worship, and palm a fifty or hundred dollar bill into my hand and whisper, “Get something nice for your children.” It would always bring tears to my eyes. For here was a woman who had so little by today’s standards, and yet, from what little she had, she gave in love.
Ada became seriously ill. She acquired an inoperable stomach cancer. I visited her often in that one room of her large house. But as she neared the end of her life, she was hospitalized, which seemed to upset her. On my last visit with her, I took her communion.
As a part of the service, a portion of our second lesson from Paul’s letter to the Romans was read. Listen again to these words: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, 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.”
When I finished reading the lesson, Ada looked up at me, with tears in her eyes, and asked, “Pastor Ron, do you truly believe this to be true?”
I took her hand and said, “Yes, Ada. I certainly do.”
Ada then blinked at me and said, “Well, if not even death can separate me from the love of Christ, a love I have tried to share all of my life, then I guess that I can just trust God to see me through this ordeal.” And with those words of hers, I could see a sense of peace come over her. We finished the service and our visit, and that night, I received a phone call, informing me that Ada had died. She had placed her life into the hands of God’s love, in Jesus the Christ, and died in peace.
I think of Ada every time I read this lesson. And every time I read it during a home communion, I secretly pray that God’s Spirit might grant the assurance of God’s love and grace through these words and the sacrament to everyone who receives it.
Erik Stadler, in his comments on this text, made several comments that I would like to share with you. “To be loved is a desire we all have. We desire to have that comfort and warmth around us. A child blossoms and feels secure when he or she knows their parents love them. Where would many of us be without the support and care and, most importantly, the
love [we receive] from our husband or wife?… If you’re ill or suffering, how but you have your loved ones around you, how much easier it is to cope? How many of us still remember when we were sick, how our mothers or spouses stood by our side and took care of us. Their love made the suffering bearable…
As Christians, we also know and take comfort in God’s love. We can see God’s love in the many blessings we have from the air we breathe, to the fact that we are simply alive, to Jesus’ love we see at the cross. Yet when we suffer we may question, “Does God really love me?” and the answer is that Christ is there indeed in our suffering and he will never forsake us nor be separated from us.” End quote. [“Nothing can separate us from Jesus,” Sermoncental.com]
There are a couple of other points that Stadler makes in his comments, which I would like to share with you in my own words. First, he points out that suffering is the result of a sinful world. I think this is important to note. When illness strikes a loved one at a young age, or when we get the news that a friend has been killed in a car accident, or some other calamity strikes at our heart, have we not felt or uttered the words, “How could God let this happen?”
Well, I hope that this doesn’t disillusion you, but I surely don’t believe that God sits up in his heavenly office, in front of a massive computer, pushing buttons to create the stressful suffering that we encounter in life. We live in a sinful world, and God didn’t create it that way. All we have to do is think about the many diseases that have been linked to corporate greed or naiveté. Think of the hazards that coal dust, asbestos, and other chemicals have caused to human health, not to mention the dumping of hazardous waste, even the recent report that our cell phones may increase our risk of brain cancer. Add to this our willful participation in smoking and the abuse of drugs and alcohol, and we have to admit that it is not God who destroyed life in Eden, but the evil within us.
I believe that we don’t take the concept of sin seriously enough in our society. We have this tendency to blame everything on someone or something else, without looking at sin as a part of our human condition. As individuals, we may strive to live according to God’s law, and obey his commandments, but we all know those times in which we have failed. Yet there is also a corruption of God’s created order that reaches beyond our individual sinfulness. We live in a sinful world!
Thus, as we encounter life, there are a multitude of events and conditions that would lead us to believe that God has abandoned us. In all honesty, however, I don’t believe that Ada felt that her illness was the result of God’s doing. In fact, I don’t even feel that she felt abandoned by God’s love in Jesus the Christ. This may seem a little egotistical, but I have, over the years of thinking on this occasion, come to believe that it was Ada’s way of palming me another gift. She has forced me to listen to these words of Paul over and over again, and take them to heart.
This is the second point that Erik Stadler makes in his comments. This is the true grace of God, working through God’s Spirit, to bring us to faith in his redeeming grace. Yes, we live in a sinful world. Yes, we often sin and do not live as children of God. Yes, we will experience times in which we feel as though we have been abandoned and left alone in our suffering. But there is, according to our lesson for this morning, nothing in all creation, that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Just look at this cross that hangs above our altar. It has the Greek letters Chi and Rho emblazoned on it, the early church’s symbol for Christ. It is a beautiful cross. But the real beauty of the cross is the love of God that it symbolizes, in the rough-hewn cross on Golgotha, which was stained red with the blood of Jesus, as he gave his life in love and redemption for each and every one of us.
Can we ever feel abandoned by God’s love? Perhaps for a moment. But if we really take this message of Paul to heart, we, like Ada, can live our lives without anxiety, truly give of ourselves in love, and die in peace, because we live in the redeeming and ever present love of God, in Jesus the Christ. This I learned from Ada who was a disciple of Christ, and a teacher to mine.
Amen.
