“Faith Hanging on a Word”
Romans 8: 37 – 39
August Sermon series using the children’s book: “Mommy’s Little Star” by Janet Bingham
August 6, 2017
Rev. Dalene Vasbinder
A few years ago, the Rev. Rebecca Zelensky, pastor of my parent’s church in Terre Haute, Indiana, used children’s books by Dr. Seuss as springboards for a summer sermon series, weaving the stories with scripture and message. When I heard about it, I thought, ‘What a great idea!’ and so put together a similar series the next summer. If you go to Woodland’s website, you can find that series if you click on ‘sermon archives’ and scroll down to 2012. Fast forward 3 years to the summer of 2015 and for that series, I invited members of the congregation to choose the children’s books for me to use again as a springboard for sermons and as I mentioned in the Children’s moment, today we’re beginning another series with that same idea.
Over the course of these sermon series with Children’s books, it’s sometimes been a challenge to find not only a theme but a scripture that parallels that theme and the book. This time, however, with the book that Ciara Siesel picked out, the challenge for me wasn’t finding a scripture that matched but trying to decide between one of many, many, many scriptures. Because her story? Well, that last page…isn’t it the word that our faith hangs on? That word? Love.
‘How high is the sky?’ asks little Fox.
Moma Fox replies, ‘The sky is just like love. It never ends.’ Or…Love is just like the sky, it never ends!
I believe that the greatest gift given to me by my parents is growing up with the assurance that their love will never end. That is the greatest gift any parent can give to their child, that nothing can take away their love. There may be days of tremendous dislike, but their love? Always there. Likewise, the greatest gift that the church can give to our children and to the world is that nothing can take away God’s love, that that love will never end.
That word we hang our faith on is love.
Now some people looking in the windows of churches today, eavesdropping on what’s going on or what’s not going on may not go away with that message, that the Christian faith hangs on the word ‘love’. Some interpretations of the Bible may not seem to support that. Instead, what many outside the church think is that the Christian faith hangs on the word ‘judgment’ or ‘sin’ or ‘salvation’ or ‘Jesus’. Don’t get me wrong, Jesus is a cornerstone of our faith, but his messages were and are that of love. Remember the children’s song we just sang? ‘Jesus loves me still today, walking with me on my way, wanting as a friend to give, light and love to all who live.” It’s the very core, center of the Biblical message. The Rev. Dr. Amy Butler, pastor of Riverside Church in New York City, wrote that “Anytime the Bible is quoted to defend behavior that is not motivated by the law of love, something is wrong.”
If we were to take a pair of scissors and take our Bible and cut out all of the passages that deal with love, it would indeed be a very holey (H-O-L-E-Y) book.
‘Jesus, what is the greatest commandment? ‘You shall love the Lord your God, with all of your heart, soul and mind and you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.’
‘And I say unto you, love your enemies.’
‘For God so loved the world…’
‘And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.’
‘Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God…for God is love.’ I John 4: 7-8
And these are just a small part of the list of scriptures about that word ‘love’.
With all of the many possibilities, it may seem odd that I chose a scripture that is so often associated with funerals or burials. I do use Paul’s words to the church in Rome at funerals, they are, after all, words of deep comfort, that nothing, not even death, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. But to limit this passage’s meaning to just the end of life, oh we do ourselves a great disservice!
Paul, in his letter to the faithful in Rome, is not writing from some kind of Pollyanna coating or Bob Marley ‘be happy, good feeling’ or Hallmark card sentiment. He names the pain and suffering of the community. In the verses that precede today’s, we read Paul’s words about creation groaning in labor pains, groaning inwardly while we wait, in Paul’s words for the redemption of our bodies, perhaps another interpretation would be that groaning, that inner and outer struggle in our day to day life as we wait for God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
This text admits the truth that we sometimes want to run from, that life is often hard. We deal with day to day happenings that are beyond our control and oh how we want to be in control. All throughout our life we experience transitions and with any transition, negative or positive, comes a certain amount of grief, of letting go. And if we have any empathy or compassion for those around us, as a people of faith do (you know, that ‘love your neighbor’ part), we can easily be weighted down, almost paralyzed by so much of what is around us; a heroin epidemic, continued health care crisis, our climate changing drastically, wars and more wars creating refugees and more refugees. How do we find a solution for any of this, we who are called to love our neighbors, called to be compassionate, how do we reach out in love to all of the pain and suffering we see? We groan, as we wait for the birth of the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, as we wait for that new day when there will no longer be pain or suffering, tears no more, as we wait for ‘justice to roll down like mighty waters’, as we wait for ‘children to be judged by their character not the color of their skin’, as we wait for that day when ‘all means all’, when borders don’t exist, when swords are beaten into plowshares and war and poverty and greed is no more. Life is hard.
But it is not hopeless.
Because, in the midst of the hard stuff, Paul writes about persecution and pain, in the midst of the hard stuff of life, there IS the constant of God’s love, of a force stronger than anything the world can throw at us; a love that is just like the sky; without limit, never ending.
There is a part two or addendum to this word we hang our faith on. And that is, our waiting is not passive but active. If we profess to be Jesus followers, we don’t just sit back and bask in the love of God. In the words of Pope Francis, ‘to use religion or spirituality to just find inner peace is narcissistic.’ We are called to live our days trying to be instruments of that love in the world. Love not as a sentiment but as a verb, an action word, calling us to stand up and stand for the lost and the least, to not be self centered but other centered. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. Isn’t it the power of love that weighs the arc in that direction?
Some might think that religion today is irrelevant. We’re in a time of sorting out what is and is not relevant. But this message of love, not only is that relevant but I daresay it is the only thing that will save us today: the message that Jesus gave to us, of God’s unending love, that no matter what the world throws at us, we are still loved, we are created and defined by love, and empowered and emboldened by love.
Yes, life is so often hard. For many of us these past few months have been so very hard. We as a society seemed to have taken a step backwards in inclusivity, in civil rights, in respect and civility, some of those things that define love in action. So, I thank Ciara for bringing us this seemingly simple children’s book with the hope filled, empowering message that love has no end. That message that reminds us of the apostle Paul’s words, that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Help me out here? Who can separate us from the love of God? (no one!)
Can persecution? Can sword? Can illness? Can ugly words? Can addictions? Can joblessness? Can homelessness? Can borders? Can prejudices or homophobia or racism or sexism? No, not even death can separate us from the Love of God that never ends!
Our faith hangs on to that word, love. And we can hang on to that as our anchor. ‘No storm can shake our inmost calm, while to that rock we’re clinging. Since LOVE is Lord of heaven and earth, how can we keep from singing?
Amen