6 Pentecost, Year A

Proper 12 -- Genesis 29:15-28; Psalm 105:1-11; Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31–33,44-52

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois, on Sunday, July 24, 2011.

“RECIPROCAL, INSEPARABLE LOVE”
(Homily texts: Romans 8: 26 – 39 & Matthew 13: 31 – 33, 44 - 52)

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”

These words are some of the most powerful that St. Paul ever wrote. They are part of one of the most powerful set of verses that ever came from his mind.

As we look at our epistle reading from Romans chapter eight, this morning, we see that Paul goes on to name a whole series of absolutely awful possibilities that might try to separate us from the love of Christ. He names them thusly, saying, “Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” Shall these things separate from the love of Christ?

Then, he appends another list of things that might try to separate us from Christ’s love a few verses further down, adding these to the list: “For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, 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.”

Distilling Paul’s second list down a bit, we might say that nothing at all will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Nothing! Nothing at all!

With Paul’s convictions in mind, let’s consider the business of our relationship to God, through Christ Jesus. Specifically, let’s look at:

• What it means to be in a relationship with God the Father, through God the Son,

• How can we understand the hardships that come our way, in light of our relationship with God.

Let’s begin, then with the matter of our relationship with God, through Christ.

As a way of understanding that relationship, we can use – as an illustration – our human relationships.

When one person seeks to establish a deep and lasting relationship with another, usually some sort of love is offered (this could be any of the sorts of love that the Greek language provides for love: Eros: romantic love; Phileo: brotherly/sisterly love; Agape: self-giving love). The person to whom this love is offered can reject it entirely, or can accept it. Only when the person loved accepts the love offered is the relationship established.

So, we can deduce that, for a love relationship to be established, it must be offered, must be accepted, and must be returned.

(I think that I am generally right in my assessment of how a loving relationship works.)

Now, it is entirely possible for an individual to love another, but for the other person to refuse to accept or return the love offered. It is also possible for two persons to enter into a loving relationship, only to have one partner reject the love and the relationship later on. In such cases, the relationship either ceases to exist, or becomes impaired.

Now, let’s apply this understanding to our relationship to God, through Christ:

1. Love offered: God the Father loves us, and proves His love for us in the sending of His Son, Jesus Christ, to come among us as one of us (truly God and truly human). The supreme expression of God’s love is seen most clearly in Jesus’ death on the cross.

2. Love accepted: We come to accept God’s love in Christ through faith. It is this sort of faith that the Lord describes in today’s gospel reading. He says that, if we have faith as small as a mustard seed, then our relationship with God will blossom and grow into maturity (see Matthew 13: 31 – 33). Believing that what Jesus did for us through His death and resurrection, we accept God’s love, and become children of God in the process. Baptism is the portal through which we come to enter into a covenant relationship with God. The relationship of love offered and love accepted is established, and we are “marked as Christ’s own for ever.”

3. Love returned: As we go through life, from the day of our baptism forward, we return God’s love by coming to know more and more about the Lord, and by showing forth in our lives, by the things we do and the ways we live, that we are God’s people, inheritors of God’s promises made in Jesus Christ. Most clearly, we demonstrate this love when the hardships of life come along. Here, we look again at St. Paul’s “short list” of possible hardships – hardships that the early Christians of his day faced – that might come our way.

This relationship of love cannot be dissolved. We are “marked as Christ’s own for ever”, as our baptismal service says (see the Book of Common Prayer, page 308).

God’s people down through time have recognized that God is a covenant-making God. That is to say, God enters into binding agreements with His people. (Some of these covenants are unconditional, while others are conditional.)

An example from the Old Testament period would be the covenant that God made with the people at Mt. Sinai, as the Ten Commandments are given. God, in this case, enters into a covenant with the ancient Israelites, offering them His love, His blessings, and His abiding presence. In this covenant, God tells the people that they can choose to return His love and be faithful to Him, or they can reject His ways and His commandments. They are free to choose either path. (So the covenant which was established at Sinai is a conditional covenant.)

Alas, God’s people in those ancient times often chose to ignore Him. They chose to follow after the pagan deities of the Canaanites in the land where they had come to live. In choosing to disobey, they brought curses upon themselves, instead of blessings.

Eventually, those ancient Israelites came to understand that the hardships that came along with their disobedience amounted to nothing less than God’s testing of them, to see if they would be faithful or not.

The hardships that Paul enumerates for us today, are ours to endure, as well.

Yes, it is true that some items on the list that Paul provides for us are less likely to be the ones that we will face in the 21st century.

But an abiding truth is that life’s hardships often amount to a test, a test to see if we will be faithful to God, living life as faithful, covenantal Christians, in a pagan world which is often indifferent to the love of God, offered in Christ.

If hardships are a certainty, then how do we get the grain of faith that is as small as a mustard seed that Jesus talks about? I think one way we can get that sort of faith is by looking back over our shoulders into our own life’s history to see those times when God’s guiding and stead hand was present. We often see His working most clearly during times when hardships and challenges appear.

Can you see such times in your own life in the light of God’s continuing, abiding presence?

I surely can!

Knowing that God was present in those times makes it possible to face the future, yes even its hardships, with the knowledge that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Thanks be to God!

AMEN.