Sermon: “You’re Still Here”
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.
Is there something treasured, someone treasured, that you’re separated from? We all know how it feels to be separated. They call it “heartbreak.” That’s a good word. A heart pulled apart from itself. You may not understand why you feel like you do, you may not have words for it, but you feel it. You’re separated – broken-hearted – inside as well as outside.
How does scripture tell us to handle separation?
And this might be separation from a person. But it could also be separation from your purpose, your life, your health. Retirement. A move. Starting college. Even if it’s good, it’s change. Transition from one form to another. How do you bear the separation? How do you repair the separation? Whether person, place, or thing – How do you mend a broken heart, an injured heart, a missing love?
How do you go on when: you’re still here?
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This passage from Romans is one of those scriptures that pastors tend to know by heart because it’s part of our internal playlist. Our Funeral playlist. We read Romans 8:26-39 at almost every funeral. In a funeral service, Romans 8 comes right after Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd,” and right before John 14, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” You know how when you’re listening to a favorite album (vinyl), or a playlist, or a familiar queue over and over. You don’t have to think what song’s coming next. The notes are so familiar. Same with this scripture for us pastors.
in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
I know the New Revised Standard says “more than victorious.” And that’s probably a better translation. But my brain is too set in its grooves to change the lyrics now. I’d love to be more than a conqueror, even though I’m not sure what that would be. I’m not sure what comes after conqueror. But I like the idea. Victorious. A conqueror, but more.
What we hear today is Paul’s great, conquering testimony of faith. Romans 8 is the hope we have for our loved ones as they make their way to heaven. They’ve gone on, so we read it FOR them, at a service of memorial. We read it for them, but we also read it for ourselves. It’s our hope for their souls, but assurance for ours. It’s the assurance, the strength, the prayer that we can go on. It’s the confidence that even though we might be separated from those who have died, we go on. We go on living. Because we’re still here. You’re still here.
You’re still here.
That’s what I tell people going through cancer treatments, or painful divorces, or funerals, or grief.
Your life may feel awful, but “You’re still here.”
“You’re still here” is the simplest, strongest, most defiant statement of life I can come up with. We may be separated from the ones we love, but we’re still here. They may be absent, but we’re still here. The chemo may have taken away our health, our hair, our purpose, but we’re still here.
I think in Romans 8, Paul’s saying: “By God – By GOD – I’m still here.” He’s saying, By God’s grace. By God’s love. You and I are here. We’re all still here. And so is God and God’s love. And nothing, nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing, nothing can separate us from the love that lives on in our hearts. Nothing can separate us from the love we share with God – the love God shares with us. Especially the love of God we share with each other, and through each other. Because we’re still here.
Some of you remember the TV show, “WandaVision.” In a time of separation, a character asks the most profound question. He says, “What is grief, but love persevering?” Did not expect that in a kids’ show. The character asking was an allegedly immortal superhero, named, ironically, Vision. Vision saw clearly. Vision saw that grief is the defiant love that perseveres. A truly super power nothing can stop.
So, like Paul. We’re still here. Our love perseveres. And nothing can separate us from this love. Nothing can separate us from God’s love. This is the gift of being more than victorious, more than conquerors. That’s the heart of the scripture, and it is not broken.
We’re still here. And so is God.
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Last Sunday, we had a baptism. Baptisms are the best. Since we’re Presbyterians, people of moderation, decency, and order, we don’t dunk. Especially not babies. That could get really messy. Maybe lead to prosecution. No dunking in this house.
Baptism by dunking might be more true to early practices, Jewish AND Christian – but to me it feels, well, dangerous. Precarious.
As sweet and precious as the baptism of babies is – and it is so sweet, and so precious – Baptism is, at its heart, the reenactment of a dangerous act. Symbolically, the person is – metaphorically – drowning. Drowns beneath the waters of chaos from Genesis 1. Drowns beneath the waters of Noah’s flood. And then, by God’s grace, they’re lifted up, out of death to life. New life. Rebirth. Proving again that nothing, neither death nor life nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So, while Romans 8 is a funeral text, it’s also a baptismal text, a birth text. A rebirth text.
A life text.
As it says in Psalm 118:17, I shall not die, but I shall live, and declare the works of the Lord.
Or as Paul says in Romans 14:8, If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
At birth we say, “I’m here.”
Later in life, when our knees stop working, when we choke on even soup, we pull ourselves up, and say, “I’m still here.”
“My heart may someday be broken, my spirit split apart, and death, you may get me.
But – you – won’t – keep – me.”
I’m still here.
And so is God.
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But what about the time in between birth and death? What happens when we feel – not like conquerors – but conquered?
Those times when we want to be anywhere, but here? Because, as the wise person once said, “Life’s hard.”
Paul doesn’t start Romans 8 with bold confidence. He starts with a gentle hope. He knows defiant victory over life and death is rare. Most of the time, we’re not superhero high, or super-loser low. Between birth and death, we spend a lot of time just trying to figure out what the heck’s going on.
Verse 26 starts right there, in the trenches, with us.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words.
What are groanings too deep for words?
I know a lot of people who’ve given up on prayer. They think, I’m just in my own head, talking to myself, hoping God can read my mind. They think prayer is just all talk. We talk, God listens, and God never tires of hearing us.
I can’t speak for God’s infinite patience. But I know I get tired of hearing myself. I get tired of hearing my thoughts echoing off my skull. Thoughts that bounce around, keeping me up nights, and getting me nowhere.
This is one of the reasons I’m so glad Jean leads the group for Centering Prayer. If you’ve never been, it’s really different. There are a few spoken words at the beginning and at the end. But most of the time, it’s a group of people sitting still, enjoying – what is it they call it – oh yeah, silence.
I don’t know what was going through Paul’s mind when he spoke of groanings too deep for words. I do know that in Exodus, when God was speaking to the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, the Bible says it sounded like thunder, or a long, low, loud trumpet. I’m pretty sure those are approximations, because God’s voice probably defies comparison to anything earthly.
Some Bibles say, “sighs too deep for words.” What’s the sound of God sighing? The version we have says, “groanings too deep for words.” God groans. But more, God groans for us.
Many times, like when I’m say, coming out of a committee meeting, where everyone’s been talking – in lovely voices – for an hour – or two – I’ll catch myself walking down the hall, sighing deeply. Is it frustration? Exhaustion? Or do I just want to hear my own breath, without providing narration or opinion?
They say humming a happy tune, is a reprise of our mothers singing lullabies to us. Humming is a deeply remembered echo of the heartbeat of a hug.
And what is a sigh, but a reminder that despite whatever life throws at us, we’re still breathing. It’s hope. It’s reassurance. Maybe it’s what Paul called, the Spirit, interceding for us. After all, as you may remember from our Sailboat Church study, the Bible’s word for Spirit literally means, “wind.” The Spirit’s wind is deeper than our frail words. It’s the sound of God. It’s God’s lullaby, God’s breath across our faces, reminding us: I’m still here.
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Paul asks,
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?
No, he says.
No, he says, in defiance. In defiance of all the junk that takes our breath away from our baptism to our funeral.
No, he says.
No, in all these things we are more than victorious – more than conquerors – through him who loved us.
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I’ll close today with a poem by Wendell Berry called, The Peace of Wild Things.
The Peace of Wild Things, by Wendell Berry.
When despair for the world grows in me
And I wake in the night at the least sound
In fear of what my life and my children’s life may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
Rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
Who do not tax their lives with forethought
Of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
Waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
May the peace that passes understanding remind us of the beauty of this and every day. And may we shout – or may the sighs of the Holy Spirit shout for us, shout to the world:
I’m still here!
