"Questions and Answers"
Sermon Presented July 24, 2005
Romans 8:26-39
We all have questions that we ask over and over again, never seeming to find adequate answers! Here are a few of the most common:
- What do we do when we can't pray?
- How do Christians handle tragedies that we can't control?
- How do we deal with our feelings of alienation from God?
One or more of these questions may be haunting you today, and if so, I offer you some suggestions from Paul's letter to the Church at Rome. I could preach a separate sermon on many of the individual verses, but I will try to pull it together into one message.
When Paul writes this letter, the plight of Christians in Rome is horrendous. The Church is dealing with persecution from the Roman government, and Christians are being burned alive, torn apart by animals in the coliseum, and crucified upside down. Prayers are raised to God with no apparent answers forthcoming. Christians are leaving the faith! Good people are dying and the bad guys are in control. Why do these awful things happen? How can the Church pray more effectively? Where is God?
With these haunting questions plaguing the Church, Paul writes this letter. The primary theme of the letter is God's righteousness and our text speaks of God's love. Romans 8:26-39 (Read Text)
Those who believe they are loved unconditionally behave differently than those who question the love of another. When we sense we are loved, we can sit silently with our loved one and not feel the need to say something witty or profound. We can often sense the other's needs without an audible prompt. A sigh, a downward glance, a pause, a tear in the corner of an eye can be read and interpreted. The yearnings of our hearts exceed the capacity of language, and we frequently "hear" the yearnings of loved ones when no words are spoken. The same holds true to a much greater degree in our relationship with God. Paul says that God hears our cries even when we have no words.
If you're like me, sometimes you don't really know what you want or need, you just know you need something or someone to notice and respond to an inner feeling. The same holds true when we consider the needs of our loved ones. We don't always know what's best for them or for us. Sometimes we don't know how to pray because even though we know there is a need, we don't understand the solution to that need.
Although I have scores of books on prayer, they don't help much when the weight of pain or grief or guilt or the consequences of a poor choice make it impossible to articulate what I need or what another needs from God. Paul says that when we have no words to express the depth of our feelings, the Holy Spirit prays in us and through us. We are connected to God by something greater than the hole-filled net of language. We are connected by the sighs of the Holy Spirit. Paul says that the Spirit of God intercedes according to God's will.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't try to understand our needs and the content of our prayers, but it does mean that when we can only cry out to God, God hears and understands. The Holy Spirit fills in the blanks.
Paul's understanding articulated at the conclusion of our text adds weight to this assertion. It is Christ's love - the love of God in Christ Jesus - that makes this kind of prayer possible - that makes the connection to God possible. But like any relationship based on love, we need to nourish our relationship with God so that it's strong when there is a crisis.
One key to maintaining our responsibility in that "love" relationship is to spend time with God and to be comfortable with silence. Because of God's great love for us, we can feel secure. As we go deeper into our relationship with God we receive greater peace. God hears us when we pray - whether we are silent or verbose.
Another question Paul deals with in this text is how to tragedies over which we have no control - things that are unjust - things that are painful - things that aren't right. We all suffer, but some suffer more than others. There are several cancer survivors here this morning who suffered great grief at the time of your diagnosis and subsequent treatment. Some have lost a spouse to death or divorce. Some have lost children or grandchildren. Suffering is a mystery and Paul doesn't claim we should seek it! He doesn't embrace masochism here. Suffering is a sign of the times in which we live. However, the value of suffering has often been preached by the comfortable to the uncomfortable, the elderly to the youth going to war, masters to slaves, and men to women.
When we suffer, Paul says that we are to remember that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to God's purposes. He doesn't say that all things that happen to those who love God are good but he says that they work together for good! When we trust God, God will work through bad situations to bring about good, even though it may take a long time to see it.
Those who have been abused, discriminated against, ignored, abandoned, lied to or about, stolen from, or impoverished can be crushed by their circumstances - or they can grow through them. Nothing about these circumstances is good! But God can work through the situations to bring good. Marcia, who had a lung transplant and Bill who had a heart transplant, are alive today because two people died tragically. Huge sums of money are raised through Relay for Life for cancer research because survivors or loved ones desire to conquer the disease and by raising money. Charles Colson began an active prison ministry after he was incarcerated for his crimes in the Watergate Scandal. People find new life and opportunities following a divorce that weren't possible before. How we approach the tragedies of live is important. Trusting God to bring good from the tragedy can change our attitudes and our lives.
The last question addressed here concerns our feelings of alienation from God. Paul says: "Will hardship or distress or persecution or violence separate us from the love of God?" His emphatic answer is "No!" We are more than conquerors through Christ. In times of distress - when we question God's love for us - we are bound to God through God's love, whether we sense it or not. We cannot control life or death or the spiritual realm. Christ's love will accompany us through our trials, but we must choose to accept that transforming love.
A favorite story of transforming love comes from Cervantes' 17th century novel Don Quixote and its musical adaptation Man of La Mancha. The hero, Don Quixote, is dubbed stupid, mentally unbalanced and terribly naïve by those who meet him. He desires to be a knight, even though knights disappeared from the historical scene hundreds of years before.
Quixote meets a kitchen maid, Aldonza, who is a prostitute. When she introduces herself as Aldonza, Quixote informs her she is mistaken and that her name is Dulcinea, meaning sweet lady. This causes uproarious laughter from all who hear it.
Quixote treats Aldonza with the respect due a noble lady and continues to call her Dulcinea. Even though Aldonza can't understand what is happening, she senses she is being transformed and begins to accept her new identity and act differently. When she refuses to sell sexual favors as before, she is beaten and raped.
As Quixote prepares to fight her attackers, Aldonza sings this song:
I was spawned in a ditch by a mother who left me there
Naked and cold and too hungry to cry;
I never blamed her, I'm sure she left hoping
That I'd have the good sense to die!Then of course, there's my father - I'm told that young ladies
Can point to their fathers with maidenly pride;
Mine was some regiment here for an hour,
I can't even tell you which side!So of course I became, as befitted my delicate birth,
The most casual bride of the murdering scum of the earth!
Don Quixote replies: "but thou still art my lady" to which Aldonza says: "How should I be a lady?"
For a lady has modest and maidenly airs
And a virtue I somehow suspect that I lack;
It's hard to remember those maidenly airs
In a stable laid flat on your back.Won't you look at me, look at me, God, won't you look at me,
Look at this kitchen slut reeking of sweat!
Born on a dung heap to die on a dung heap,
A strumpet, men use and forget.
She then tells him to take the clouds from his eyes and see her as she is.
You have shown me the sky, but what good is the sky
To a creature who'll never do better than crawl?
Of all the cruel bastards who've badgered and battered me,
You are the cruelest of all.Can't you see what your gentle insanities do to me?
Rob me of anger and give me despair!
Blows and abuse I can take and give back again,
Tenderness I cannot bear.So please torture me now with your "Sweet Dulcineas" no more!
I am no one! I'm nothing! I'm only Aldonza the whore!
(Man of La Mancha by Dale Wasserman, Joe Darion, Mitch Leigh, pp. 66-67)
Quixote's love and belief in the goodness of Aldonza changes her and she becomes Dulcinea. God's love and belief in our goodness changes us and binds us to God as we live life with God. God loves us and is there for us - even when we don't deserve it.
Justice isn't the last word about God; love is! This is no passing impression, feeling or imagination for Paul. He has thought it through and reached an unshakable conclusion. He says that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. "Nothing" means that even death, life, rulers, the present, the future, divorce, poverty, injustice, sin, disease, evil - none of these can separate us from the love of God.
I invite you to claim your place as God's Dulcinea and allow God's love to transform you and to carry you through the trials of life. Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
