Gracious God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things that we can, and the wisdom to know the difference ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Of course, Scripture is like a rainbow – all the colors have to be there in order for it to be what it is. And if we’re talking about the most foundational revelations found in Scripture, we have to consider Romans 5:8, which we heard read this morning – “But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” There may not be a more concise or clear summary of the Gospel message than this.
This sermon will have three movements – first, we’ll dive into this verse and see what treasures it holds for us. Second, we’ll consider what it means for how we follow Jesus. And then I’ll conclude with a story about one instance of how this Gospel truth showed up in someone’s life.
Saint Paul frames this verse with a revelation of what God’s love is all about. The word we have in our translation is “prove.” Last weekend, I was helping Rowen with her science fair project – and so we were talking about hypotheses, variables, data, and conclusions. That’s not the sort of proof Saint Paul has in mind though.
“Proof” in this sense isn’t about intellectual certainly, it’s about a deep knowing and an experienced reality of God’s love. One translation puts it as “God puts his love on the line in this way.” It’s not that God is on trial and has something to prove, it’s that God will stop at nothing to make love known and clear to us. Yes, of course, the Cross is one such demonstration of this love. As Jesus tells his followers in John, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus does, exactly that, despite the fact that his friends sold him out, denied knowing him, and abandoned him in his greatest hour of need. Yet, Jesus loves to the very end, and even beyond the end.
We see this love of God manifest and tangible in so many other places as well. Though the Cross is the primary place where we see this love on display, we see it also in the superfluous beauty of this world. We see in the miracles of forgiveness and reconciliation. We experience it in those moments of joy breaking into our lives despite the brokenness that surrounds us. The love of Jesus that flows from the Cross is proven to us in many ways.
Speaking of love, what this verse makes clear is that God’s love is not the sort captured in a Hallmark channel movie. It’s not a sappy or easy love. No, the love of God, as demonstrated at the Cross, is a fierce and passionate sort of love. It’s a love that isn’t about sentimentality or emotions, but it’s a love rooted in action. St. Augustine remarked that “to love is to will the good of the other.” Love is about acting with the best interest of the other in mind, which is precisely what we see in the Cross: a sacrificial, self-emptying and self-giving love.
And where this love is tested and gets real and gritty is that it is given to not perfect people who have earned this love, but rather to sinners. The point is the incongruity between God’s perfect love and the recipients of this love. In a word, this is Grace. This love is a non-contingent, prodigal, and even reckless gift that is given to someone at their very worst.
If there’s one thing which the Church must stand for and proclaim with all of our might, it is Grace. Our belovedness is inherent to our being, not something we have to strive for. It’s not, nor has it ever been, about what we deserve or earn. The Methodist Bishop Will Willimon puts it this way, “You following Jesus was his idea long before it was yours.” When Jesus says, “Come to me all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens,” he really means it. Jesus is not interested in how much progress we can make on our own before he helps us across the finish line. No, Jesus is the sort of Savior who is there for the people who constantly stumble out of the starting blocks.
The term “sinner” does not mean that any of us are unlovable, irredeemable, or worthless. “Sinner” is rather a way of saying that we are limited, finite, and flawed. We rarely make the best decisions, we are nearly always duplicitous, and we could all use an infinite supply of do-overs. And yet, God loves us not because we’ve deserved it, earned it, or asked for it, but because God made us in, for, with, and by love; and our sins, our flaws, our mistakes aren’t going to change that.
We’re roughly at the mid-point of Lent. Maybe you’ve had a drink, or a piece of chocolate, or got on social media, or did whatever it is that you said that you weren’t going to do. God is not, in any way, disappointed about that. God’s love for you was never dependent on you cleaning up your act or improving yourself. Your dignity is not at all tied to your income, weight, or IQ. God’s love for us does not fluctuate based on how many curse words we use, how many good deeds we do, or how often we come to church.
What’s so amazing and wonderful about this Grace is that, because it is unearned and given to us without regard to any sense of deserving, it can’t be lost, no matter how far away we stray, no matter how badly we mess up, no matter how certain and vociferous our doubts. God love you, full stop.
The last bit of this verse is the Cross – the death of Jesus for us. Another sermon can dive deeper into what exactly the “for us” means. But, for the purposes of amplifying the message of Grace, it means that there is no limit to which God will not go to show us just how loved we are, even if that means death. This is the foundation upon which another significant passages of Scripture rests. Later in Romans, we read, “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.”
Nothing separates you from God’s love. And the Cross is demonstration of this. The things you should have done but did not do, nor the things that you did that you shouldn’t have done, none of these changes the fact that you are beloved and you belong. The Church is a place of belonging and belovedness for all. And this is true because of Grace, because these things are given to us as gifts to enjoy as opposed to rewards to deserve. Faith is not about what we accomplish, it is resting in what Jesus has accomplished for us.
As to the implications for this very Good News. It means that faith is not about what we produce, rather it’s about what we participate in. Put more simply, following Jesus isn’t about what we have to do, it’s about what we get to do. The fate of the universe is not up to us. It is not our job to fix ourselves, our parish, our city, our nation, or our world. Not that we actually have the ability to do any of that, but that doesn’t stop us from tirelessly trying and always ended up exhausted and deflated. As this week’s Collect prays, “We have no power in ourselves to help ourselves.”
If faith is about us proving our worth instead of trusting that Jesus has proven all that needs to be proved, then we very quickly end up in the realm of legalism with a performative and comparative Christianity, which is no Christianity at all. Instead, following Jesus is about the freedom, the relief, of getting to participate in a peace that passes all understanding, in the love that makes all things well. Grace is what enables us to struggle for justice, not as a means of virtue signaling or proving that we’re on the right side of history, but instead as being moved by the Spirit. And this liberates us from a fixation on outcomes that are beyond our control because it’s not about what we accomplish.
Grace allows us to live our lives aligned with the only thing that truly matters, the only that that endures, the only thing truly worth anything – the gracious love of Jesus that is demonstrated in his death for those who put him on the Cross. It’s a subtle shift between “have to” and “get to,” but it’s the difference between burden and relief.
And, lastly, a story about what this looks like. The NPR reporter Glynn Washington tells the story of moving from urban Detroit to rural Michigan in the 1980s. It was the first day of school and he was excited to get on the bus with his new shoes, new clothes, and new haircut. As the bus came to his stop, he could hear the jovial banter of all the kids on the bus. But the moment he got on the bus, it went dead quiet.
The Washingtons were the only black family for miles around. When he went to sit down in an open seat, the boy in the next spot over spit on the seat. The boy in the seat behind did the same, and the girl behind him as well. Washington says he kept walking towards the back of the bus. It was like that scene in Forrest Gump; everyone gave him some version of “Seat’s taken.” Eventually the bus driver yells, “We gotta go! Take a seat.”
Eventually he sees a seat with a girl’s backpack sitting on it. She slid the bag to the floor and he sat. They sat next to each other all semester, but never spoke, though he learned her name was Mary Jo. Halfway through the year, the school system changed the bus route and so instead of being one of the last kids picked up, Glynn was now the first. Out of habit, he continued sitting in that seat at the back of the bus.
Now, in rural Michigan, a lot of families didn’t have much money, and many couldn’t afford insulated pipes. This meant that during the winter, they didn’t have water to wash or shower. Washington says that these kids had two choices: they could either go to school stinking of the farm or they could try to mask the stench with cheap perfume. Mary Jo went the cheap perfume route. As soon as she got on the bus, he recounts that the smell was something that slapped you in the face – like rotting flowers on top of barn filth. No one wanted Mary Jo to sit next to them and they all blocked her from sitting next to them.
Eventually, she was standing next to Glynn, who had his backpack blocking the open seat next to him as he tried to avoid eye contact. But he knew what he had to do, so he moved his bag to the ground as all the kids started holding their noses and make fun of her, and him my association. Glynn said that, for the first time, he didn’t care. He says, “I didn’t care what they thought, if they punched me, or if they swore at me.” He turned to Mary Jo and said “Hey, my name is Glynn.” She said, “I know your name” and they began the first of many conversations they’d have on the way to school.
God doesn’t care how bad we stink; Jesus has saved us a seat next to him at the back of the bus.
