Nothing [Proper 12A - Romans 8:26-39]

The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Romans 8:26-39

 

Nothing

Transfiguration, Blue Mountain Lake

 

This is a sermon about “nothing.”  Perhaps you are thinking to yourself, I have heard many sermons about nothing.  Well, that may be the case.  But this sermon is about a very specific “nothing.”  You see, for all the words spilled about the Christian faith over the centuries, “nothing” matters.  In a world populated by billions of diverse and different, beautiful and broken people, “nothing” matters.  Amidst the unfathomable vastness of creation, “nothing” matters.  When you leave this place today, I hope you leave with “nothing.”

 

Because this “nothing” I have in mind means everything.  We Church people have a long history of complicating and obfuscating the Gospel.  But it is really quite simple.  We tend to qualify and nullify the power of the Christian message, as if our human ingenuity could somehow enhance perfection.  But the power is unqualified and unconditional.  The potency of the Good News is all wrapped up in “nothing” – a single word that leaves no wiggle room.

 

Nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Nothing.  Not even this.  Not even that.     

 

The man who so forcefully and boldly articulated the encompassing embrace of God’s love knew a little something about the thises and thats of life.  The man did some things; he saw some stuff; he lived through a lot.

 

Centuries ago, we added sainthood to Paul’s resume, but he didn’t start at saint.  The first mention of Paul in the Bible is at a murder scene – and he is one of the bad guys on the scene.  Paul was an accomplice to the murder of the first martyr, Stephen.  Not a promising start. 

 

But it was a start: the start of an evil career.  The blood of the martyr inspired a blood-thirst in the young man.  After Stephen’s stoning, Paul decided to hunt people like Stephen.  He ravaged the fledgling Church.  He rounded up young and old, male and female – anyone who followed Jesus.  His brutality and relentlessness made him infamous in the little Christian communities that were spread throughout the Empire.  He was bad, and so was his reputation.

 

Until he wasn’t.  Until he was blinded by the light of Christ.  The love of God is relentless, and it held even the baddest of the bad.  After love changed Paul’s life, Jesus sent him on a new mission.  The old past didn’t go away, but in the light of love it was transformed and became the soil of a new thing. 

 

The new mission was in many ways successful, but it also led to a lot of new obstacles.  Paul detailed his afflictions in his second letter to the church in Corinth: ^“Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked. And, besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches.”  Throw in a few first century prison terms and an attempted kidnapping or two, and it is clear that Paul had plenty of reasons to question or even doubt God’s love.

 

And yet neither his disastrous, disqualifying past, nor his tumultuous present, nor his uncertain future could in any way dim his unfailing confidence in a love that simply would not let him go.  Despite all of it, Paul writes, in the passage from Romans we heard today, “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.”  He did some things and he saw some things and he experienced some things.  And he emerged bruised and battered, and yet convinced – convinced that nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Will be able to separate us from the love of God.

 

No qualifications.  No waivers. No exceptions.  God loves you.  And there is nothing you can do about that.  There is nothing you have done about that; there is nothing you will do about that.  No ifs.  No ands.  No buts.  Nothing.

 

This is the Good News.  And if you dare to believe it, it will change your life.  It will change the way you see your past.  It will change the way you view your future.  It will change the way you look at other people.  It will change the way you see the person who looks back at you from the mirror.

 

The sad reality is that every person spends their life collecting reasons they believe they are unlovable, unlikeable, undesirable.  The happy reality is that God doesn’t believe any of your reasons.  God just loves you.  And nothing can separate you from that love.  Nothing. 

 

I know it sounds too good to be true.  But I am convinced there is nothing truer. 

 

I know it sounds too good to be true.  And that is why we need to shout it from the rooftops.  This unbelieving world needs to be convinced of the unbelievable.     

 

When you leave this place today, I hope you leave with “nothing.”  Because “nothing” matters more than anything.  Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  It is the greatest Good News you will ever hear.  And I am convinced of that.