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“Nothing Can Separate Us,” Rev. Melissa St. Clair, 7/27/14

“Nothing Can Separate Us”

A sermon preached at

Heart of the Rockies Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Fort Collins, CO

by the Rev. Melissa St. Clair

Romans 8:26-39

July 27, 2014

Last Sunday, we drove past the city limits into the land of organic farms, stunning mountain views, sprawling fields, and dirt roads.  Then we drove a little further.  We arrived at the place where Carson would be baptized.  This was a decision that he had come to months earlier during the Tour of Life, and he professed publicly his faith on Palm Sunday back in April.  As we talked about new life in Christ throughout the Tour of Life, I formed a hunch.  My hunch was this wasn’t a new decision for Carson, but one that he had been living for some time.  In fact, he already knew where he wanted to mark this occasion of being immersed in liquid grace – on the ranch.

And so we did what we do when we baptize – we gathered as community and we affirmed and we celebrated and, in true Disciples fashion, we ate.  And, in this case, we also got a little muddy.  Because that’s what we do, for our part.

And God did what God does – God showed up, God blessed, God called by name.  We think of this last part more often when we witness a baby being baptized.  Although that’s not our tradition as Disciples, many of us, myself included come from faith traditions where parents carry their child forward to have the watery sign of a cross marked on their child’s forehead, making promises to love and nurture their child in the faith and trust the congregation to share that journey with them and God.  “What is the name of this child?” the pastor will ask.  There’s naming and claiming for the family in this moment.

And as that water splashes, we are reminded that the greatest claim on this child’s life is not by his or her parents.  It’s by God.  And that’s so no matter what age we are when we enter those baptismal waters.  We belong to God.

At our baptism, we claim for our life a love that God – through Jesus Christ – has had for us from the start because that’s who God is:  One who loves.  One who redeems.  One from whom we can never be separated.  The apostle Paul says it this way:

READ ROMANS 8:26-39

If ever there were a time for mic drop, it would be now.  This is one of those texts that just sort of preaches itself.  Far be it for this preacher to get in the way.  Before you start thinking about where you’re going to get lunch so early just yet, let’s dabble just a little bit here.

Despite appearing first among the epistles in the canon of scripture we know as the New Testament, Romans was actually the last letter that Paul wrote to the churches.  He penned it many, many years after his conversion on the road to Damascus, and with those years have come a wealth of experience, maturity, and wisdom.  In his letter to the church at Rome, we discover the core – and the summation – of Paul’s theology.  Romans, on the whole, is less about history and more about ideas.  There’s little Jesus talk, in terms of recounting his life and teachings.  And Paul doesn’t say much about his own life and story either.  The focus is on his ideas about the God of Jesus Christ.[1] As one scholar puts it, Romans is more helpfully understood not good advice, but as Good News.[2]  (Alyce McKenzie)

It can be hard to see the forest for the trees, though.  Each verse individually from this part of Paul’s letter either puts forth some complex theological tenet – predestination, justification, sanctification – or reminds us of some of the less-than-comforting aspects of discipleship. Paul borrows from the Psalmist this painful reminder: “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”  And, as if that weren’t enough, we’re reminded right off the bat of our weakness and our inability to pray.

And yet at the end of the day, these are some of my favorite verses of scripture, because by the time we get to the end the complexity and uncertainty of this life and our faith have faded into this promise:

For I am convinced 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.

Or as Eugene Peterson has interpreted in The Message:

I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

Have you heard of the theologian Karl Barth, the author of feel-food favorites such as Church Dogmatics – broken down into four volumes with twelve easy-to-digest 500 page parts each?[3]  He was rumored to have been asked at the ripe, wise age of 76 – a point in his life and ministry comparable to Paul’s when he wrote this letter; Barth was asked if he could summarize his whole life’s work in theology in one sentence.  (Keep in mind, that it obviously took the less prolific Paul a multi-part letter.)  Barth is said to have replied, “Yes, I can. In the words of a song I learned at my mother’s knee: ‘Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.’”[4]

Can it really be as simple as this song?  As straightforward as this promise: that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ?

Well, yes. And no.

I haven’t read the book yet, but I have a colleague who has highly recommended Mutiny! Why We Love Pirates, And How They Can Save Us.  Toward the end of the book, the author talks about the significance of the temple curtain being torn in two as Jesus takes his last breath on the cross (Matthew 27:50-51; Mark 15:37-38).  From her perspective, that wasn’t a sign of the separation between us and God being destroyed – which is an understanding that would make sense given the way the temple was structured to prevent people from entering the holiest of holies, where it was believed that God resided.  Instead, she proposed that the tearing of the temple curtain refuted the lie that we were ever separated from God in the first place.

We believe these kinds of lies all the time, don’t we?  These lies about separation and division.  Maybe we don’t say these beliefs out loud, and certainly not in polite company, but they shape the way we live our lives.  Consciously or not, we live lives divided from one another by race, by gender, by class, by geopolitical borders.[5]

How amazing it is to have nothing separating us from God!

How do we live as though there is nothing separating us from one another?

The avenue and the answer to both statements rests in one thing: the love of God.

God searches our hearts.  God knows the Spirit that intercedes for us and the spirit that lives within us.  God calls us according to God’s purposes and works for the good.  God is for us.  All of us.  And God does not condemn us.  God loves us.

And if we believe, truly believe, that God is doing this within each and every one of God’s beloved – each one created in God’s image, that is to say, each member of humanity – then how can we be separate?  There’s nothing to separate us.