July 26, 2020
Hope Lutheran Church
Pastor Mary Erickson
Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Nothing in All of Creation
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid. Then in his joy he goes and sells all he has and buys that field.”
“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
St. Paul revealed what his heart treasured. Today we hear his soaring declaration of the hope that sustains him:
There is nothing – in all of creation – that can separate us from the love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord! No, NOTHING can separate us from this great love! Nothing!
Paul speculates, “Well, what about hardship? Can hardship separate me from God’s love?” No! he replies. Nothing!
He tries again, “So if not hardship, then what about persecution? or famine? Where is God when we’re being persecuted? Where is God in times of want?”
But Paul remains steadfast, “No, I said NOTHING! Nothing in all of creation can separate us from the love of God. Don’t you think I know a thing or two about hardship and persecution? I do, and I’m tellin’ you, Paul, God has been with me through it all! When I was parched and hungry, when I was beaten and left for dead, yes, even then, God’s steadfast love never failed me!”
Paul tries again. “Are you sure, brother? Because it certainly feels like we’re sheep being led to the slaughter here! I think you’re delusional, brother.”
But Paul is resolute. “No, I am convinced! There’s nothing! Not even death! Not even higher, transcendent powers. No angels, no demons, no earthly tyrants, nothing, brother! Nothing that has happened or is happening or will happen. From the highest high to the lowest low. There is NOTHING, brother. Nothing can possibly separate us from the love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord!”
It’s not that Paul had never wavered. He knew the dark night of the soul. His heart had trembled with fear, with doubt and indecision. Paul wasn’t a Titan; he wasn’t super human. He wasn’t immune from terror and misgivings.
But Paul had lived through a lot. This was the man who’d been beaten more times than he could count. He’d been shipwrecked; he’d been jailed; he’d gone to bed hungry and cold. He’d had to escape a lynch mob by being let down in a basket from the city walls of Damascus. It was precisely because of his humanity and his vulnerability that he knew!
He’d been bruised up and banged up. He’d been rounded up and rung up. But he’d learned not to let them bring him down. Because there was a higher power. There was a power, a love so high and so wide. It ran deep and strong. And nothing could exterminate it. Nothing! This divine love had him.
Paul knew the gasps and SIGHS of despair. But it was then, then in his lowest hour, when he felt the gentle uplifting of the Spirit underneath him. “Paul,” it whispered, “I’m with you now. Nothing can take me away from you. Nothing can overcome me, because I’ve overcome … everything.”
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid. Then in his joy he goes and sells all he has and buys that field.”
This is the great treasure of God’s kingdom. It’s the blessed assurance that God’s love envelops and embraces us with a love that will not let us go.
My heart has been sad this week because a leader from the Civil Rights era of the 1960’s has passed on.
John Lewis has passed away from pancreatic cancer at age 80. John played a pivotal role in our nation’s journey towards racial justice. His legacy has left a lasting mark on who we are today as a nation.
John was born to Alabama sharecroppers. Church and Sunday School were a part of his weekly routine. John’s parents raised him not to challenge the Jim Crow systems in place in the South.
But as a teenager, John was inspired by the actions and words of Rosa Parks and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
John Lewis participated in sit-in’s at lunch counters reserved for Whites Only. He was one of the original freedom riders on segregated busses.
John’s deeds of non-violent protest were firmly grounded in his faith. His actions were anchored in his treasure. Reflecting on those times, he stated,
“The civil rights movement was based on faith. Many of us who were participants in this movement saw our involvement as an extension of our faith. We saw ourselves doing the work of the Almighty. Segregation and racial discrimination were not in keeping with our faith, so we had to do something.”
John was arrested many times. He spent many a night behind bars. He slept on cots or on the cold, cement floor of a jail cell.
In August 1963, at the young age of 23, John Lewis was one of the speakers at the March on Washington. He spoke alongside of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King to the more than 250,000 people gathered there.
In 1965 John was in the front row of those marching from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama for the freedom to vote. Their movements were always grounded in and strengthened by their faith. Reflecting on the actions of the civil rights movement, John said this:
“Without our faith, we wouldn't have been able to succeed. On many occasions, before we'd go out on a sit-in, before we went on the freedom ride, before we marched from Selma to Montgomery, we would sing a song or say a prayer. Without our faith, without the spirit and spiritual bearings and underpinning, we would not have been so successful.”
As the marchers made their way across the Edmund Pettis Bridge, they were met by a line of baton-wielding police officers. John was among those who were brutally beaten. He received a direct hit to his skull. Lying on the ground, John said, “I thought I saw death.” Reflecting on the experience, he said, “I believe it was the grace of God and praying witnesses that helped save me.”
What kept John Lewis so focused on his mission? How did he press on in spite of prison and beatings and being spit upon?
He had found his treasure. It was more precious than anything else. The force of his treasure so uplifted him, it gave him such a rock-solid grounding that he could not be moved! That treasure was the certainty that nothing in all of creation could separate him from the love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord!
This core of truth shaped the center of his being. He knew that his creator loved him and valued him. In the Sunday School class of his youth he came to understand that his essential worth was just as valid and significant as every other child of God. He was not the recipient of a lesser love. Jesus had come to redeem him as well as for the white man.
It sustained him through his weakness. That Spirit of the living God carried him through and interceded on his behalf. The treasure of this divine and unstoppable love shaped a faith that would not let him go.
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid. Then in his joy he goes and sells all he has and buys that field.”
Friends, this same treasure is yours and mine. The great treasure of God’s love through Christ Jesus our Lord is for you just as it was for St. Paul and John Lewis and every single child of God.
That love will never, never let you go! Even now, in these days as we struggle between pandemic and pandemonium, we are embraced and enfolded by the love of God. It will not let us go.
When your spirit is flagging, when you feel wrung out, know this: the Holy Spirit of God will not neglect you. Nothing can separate you from God! That Spirit does not abandon you; in your trials and weaknesses, it carries you through. It intercedes on your behalf.
Friends, this is our great treasure. Nothing in all of creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. May that knowledge increase within you. May it carry you though all things, both good and bad. May it shape your days and your destiny in the joy and peace of this sure and certain hope.
