Love Letters: Faithful
The First United Presbyterian
Church
“Love Letters: Faithful”
Rev. Amy Morgan
October 13, 2019
Luke 17:11-19
11 On the way to
Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.
12 As he entered a village, ten lepers
approached him. Keeping their distance,
13 they called out, saying, "Jesus,
Master, have mercy on us!"
14 When he saw them, he said to them, "Go
and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made
clean.
15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was
healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.
16 He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and
thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.
17 Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made
clean? But the other nine, where are they?
18 Was none of them found to return and give
praise to God except this foreigner?"
19 Then he said to him, "Get up and go on
your way; your faith has made you well."
Romans 8:35-39
35 Who will
separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 As it is written, "For your sake we
are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered."
37 No, in all these things we are more than
conquerors through him who loved us.
38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor
life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor
powers,
39 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.
One church was pure. And the other was defiled.
After centuries of persecution and martyrdoms, Christianity had finally become
a legal religious practice in the Roman Empire. The problem was, during the
times of persecution, some Christians had recanted their faith, turned over
holy scriptures for destruction, and even ratted out other Christians for
arrest. And some of these Christians were priests and bishops. And even though
they confessed and asked for forgiveness, some church leaders declared that
these traitors could not receive forgiveness and restoration. Furthermore, any
sacraments they had performed, including ordination of other priests and bishops,
were ineffectual. In other words, their treachery cut them off from the church,
the Body of Christ, and the love of God.
Augustine, bishop of Hippo, argued against these
church leaders, known as the Donatists. He saw how this hardline viewpoint was
fracturing the church and confusing believers. And, he took Paul’s message to
the Christians in Rome seriously. Nothing “can separate us from the love of God
in Jesus Christ.” Not persecution, and not betrayal. Augustine went so far as
to say that those who had been baptized by a traitorous priest were direct
recipients of Christ’s grace, rather than the grace conferred through a “pure”
priest. Therefore, he argued, it was perhaps of greater merit to have been
baptized by one of these recanting priests. For Augustine, the Church is still
the Church of sinners on earth, and in that tension between God’s perfection
and the Church’s folly, Christ fills the gap, ensuring that there are no
barriers to God’s love for us.
The church in Rome in the first century was facing
what they perceived to be barriers to God’s love. Historians believe there was
some kind of expulsion of the Jewish population of Rome, probably due to
conflicts between Jews and Jewish-Christians. In his letter to the Roman
church, Paul addresses divisions within the Christian community, about
adherence to the Law of God and Israel’s place in God’s plan for salvation.
Some Christians felt that trying to follow the law separated one from the love of
God. Others felt that not following the law caused separation. Some in the
community had been exiled and others had not. Some had been persecuted and
others had not. Who was deserving of God’s love and who was excluded from it?
Into these divisions, Paul speaks these magnificent
words of radical hope: 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.
Not persecution or betrayal, martyrdom or treason,
following the law or freedom from it, Hebrew lineage or Greek or Roman. Nothing
in all creation can come between us and God’s love. Whatever we suffer, and
whatever suffering we inflict, God’s love is greater, God’s love overcomes all.
The Great Reformation of the 16th
century created yet another crisis regarding separation from God’s love. Those
who broke with the Catholic Church because they felt misguided doctrine or
institutional malpractice were coming between believers and God’s love were
warned that their betrayal of the One, True Church would disqualify them from God’s
love.
John Calvin, one of the leaders of the Reformation,
turned often to Paul’s letter to the Romans to reassure his followers that,
whatever adversity they may face, their salvation is secure.
In these historic wranglings for institutional
power and authority, these excommunications of one group or another from the
loving embrace of God, we often miss the people whose lives are at stake. The
one worried that God will not love them if they aren’t part of God’s chosen
clan, or if they don’t follow all of God’s rules. The one stripped of their
ordination because the wrong person laid hands on them. The one on their
deathbed terrified that their salvation is in jeopardy.
A friend of mine once confessed to me that she was
afraid God hated her.
“Why?” I asked her. “Why would you think that?” She
had gone to church faithfully for years, participated in youth group, read the
Bible. What could she have done that would make her think God hated her?
“Because I’m gay,” she said.
In the South, the plain and simple fact that
homosexuality was a sin was as widely accepted as the fact that the earth was
round. While it wasn’t something my pastor preached about, I knew that’s what
people generally believed. I’d read my Bible. I knew what it said.
But I also knew that God loved my friend. I knew
she was a Christian. I knew she was good and loving. And I just couldn’t accept
that God hated her because of who she loved.
At that time, I couldn’t have given you a
scriptural or theological argument for why I felt that way. But Paul had one.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.
Last week, Comedian Ellen DeGeneres received
backlash for being spotted at a Dallas Cowboys’ football game with former
president George W. Bush. Her critics accused her of all kinds of betrayals for
befriending and fraternizing with someone whose policies were detrimental to people
in the LGBTQ community. DeGeneres responded by saying that “We're all
different. And I think that we've forgotten that that's OK that we're all
different.”
This may seem to trivialize the hurt felt by those
directly affected by Bush’s political legacy. But I don’t think DeGeneres
approached this matter with any sense of triviality.
It is easy to be friends with people who like us,
who support us, who do good things for us. It is easy to tell them God loves
them, too. It is a great deal harder to be friends with people who are
different. Not just people who hold different political views. But people whose
politics or actions or beliefs have hurt us or those we love. People who have
betrayed us. People who have criticized us. People who have excluded us.
This doesn’t mean we tolerate or accept abuse or
hatred. We aren’t complicit in injustice because we admit that God doesn’t hate
the people who hate us. Even our enmity toward one another, our inhumanity
toward one another, cannot separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.
John Calvin wrote that “faith does not certainly
promise itself either length of years or honor or riches in this life, since
the Lord willed that none of these things be appointed for us. But it is
content with this certainty: that, however many things fail us that have to do
with the maintenance of this life, God will never fail…In short, if all things
flow unto us according to our wish, but we are uncertain of God’s love or
hatred, our happiness will be accursed and therefore miserable. But if in
fatherly fashion God’s countenance beams upon us, even our miseries will be
blessed. For they will be turned into aids to salvation. So Paul heaps up all
adverse things, but glories that we are not separated from God’s love through
them.” (Institutes 3.2.28)
God’s love is not a promise of health, wealth, or
even happiness. But it does assure us that God is with us through all trials.
And it is only because of this love that we are able to acknowledge that love
flows to everyone, even those who are the cause of our troubles.
That gospel message is sorely lacking in our world
today. In our City Council meetings and in the RH Line, we can hear about all
the people who should be separated from God’s love. We accuse one another of
licentiousness and greed. We point out one another’s hypocrisy. We denounce
each other’s corruption. Dinner table conversations are consumed by anger with
our national political leaders. This ugliness is practically inescapable.
But there is one place in town where people can go
to live into a different reality. And that’s right here. In this building, we
talk about injustice and we address the sin and evil that infects our lives and
the world around us. It’s not an escapist reality we enter here. But it is a
reality that recognizes that the love of God in Jesus Christ is for everybody.
The people we agree with, and the people we passionately disagree with. The
people who love and support us, and the people who hurt and hate us.
We know it is not easy for us to love our enemies.
But we also know that we have all been the enemies of God, and God loves us
anyway. And so, no matter what we have done, or what has been done to us, God’s
love is greater, and God’s love is faithful.
In this place, we proclaim that nothing can
separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ. Not conservative or liberal
politics. Not logical reason or blind faith. Not homosexuality or homophobia.
Not self-righteousness or sin. Not elitism or simplicity. Not mental illness,
or trauma, or abuse. Not bigotry, or ignorance, or radicalization. Nothing, in
all of creation, is able to separate us, or anyone else, from the love of God
in Jesus Christ.
If that isn’t the most important thing our community
and our nation can hear right now, I don’t know what is.
And we are the ones who can share that message.
That is the radical hope that has been entrusted to us. That is what people
experience when they walk through those red doors.
That is the message that would be silenced if those
doors weren’t open every week.
When we give to the work of the church, of this church, we
may be giving to pay utility bills and ensure we’ve got a great staff to keep
things humming. But that’s not the reason most of us give. It’s certainly not
the reason my family gives to this church.
We give, all of us do, because we know that the
world must know the
depth and breadth of God’s love for all creation in Jesus Christ. Our gifts are
our love letters to God, our expression of gratitude and joy for that
inclusive, expansive, challenging and wondrous love.
That is the love that allowed Augustine to welcome
recanting Christians back into the church. That is the love that allowed the
Jewish and Gentile Christians in Rome to find unity and peace. That is the love
that gave John Calvin confidence that no adversity could endanger God’s love
for us. That is the love that allowed me to tell my roommate that God loved
her, just the way she was. That is the love that allowed Ellen DeGeneres to
befriend George W. Bush.
And that is the love that opens up onto the streets
of Loveland from this place. A love that will let nothing stand in its way. A
love that never gives up. A love that is faithful forever.
If that’s a love you can believe in, I hope it is a
love you will give to and support in the coming year. With all our gifts, we
will continue sharing God’s boundless love with our neighbors in the homeless
community and our neighbors in the business community. We will share that love
with youth in our church family and with young people who have no family and no
community to support them. We will share that love with children in our church
and children whose parents can’t afford diapers and clothing. We will share
that love with everyone who comes here looking for it.
The pure church is not the one undefiled by
failure, or sin, or betrayal. The pure church is the one that relies solely on
the love of God in Jesus Christ and proclaims God’s boundless love and grace.
Let us continue to be that church, and to be those people, who make sure the
world hears that radical gospel of hope: nothing can separate us from the love
of God in Jesus Christ. Nothing.
To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.
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