What Is Left
Romans 8:31-39
What then are we to say about these things? If God is
for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up
for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will
bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to
condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right
hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.*
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,
‘For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be
slaughtered.’
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through
him who loved us. 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.
Unfortunately, I did not have the privilege of getting to
know Mae the way many of the people here remember her. When I met her four years ago,
her illness had already begun to affect her memory. Even though I am not entirely sure that Mae ever knew
exactly who I was when I came to visit her, over the years, I think I got a
pretty good sense of the essential “Mae.”
She had lost many things, but what remained was lovely.
The most striking thing about Mae, of course, was her
beautiful smile, which could only have emerged from an incredibly gentle and
loving spirit. When Mae smiled,
she glowed. Even toward the end of
her life, when conversation became more and more difficult, the glow did not
diminish, at least in my eyes.
When everything else had become so hard for Mae, the loving glow
remained.
And I see that same glow today in the faces of those Mae
loved so dearly. In Jim, her dear
husband of more than 50 years. In
her devoted son and daughter-in-law, Bruce and Aline. And most particularly, her granddaughters, all of whom seem
to have inherited her smile.
Mae has died, but the love she embodied has been beautifully planted in
all of you. Even now in this sad
space it blooms.
Which brings to mind the Romans text we just read. “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.”
It’s hard for us to believe that promise sometimes when we
see the people we love being separated from us – especially bit by bit, as it
did for Mae. For many, Mae’s
failing memory may have caused some of you to feel you lost Mae long ago. That
you had been separated from the Mae you had known for so long – the warm and
kind woman playing the piano before Sunday school for 20 years. The engaging grandma baking endless dozens of cookies in her
kitchen. Upon her passing from life into death – that separation that felt so
painful and gradual seems now to be complete.
But Paul reminds us – this is not the case. While many
things in this world seek to separate us from God and one another – nothing can
separate us from the love of God. Nothing – not even death itself.
We are reminded in this letter to the Romans that God’s love
is the only thing we can count upon in life and in death. That the cross is the
strong evidence of how much we are loved. It is in this love that we find our
identity. It is in God’s love that we find what we thought was lost, what we
thought was being taken from us forever.
When everything else is gone, what remains is God’s love.
Mae knew she was embraced by the God who made heaven and
earth. Mae was held in love that reaches into the depths of
human despair, embraces those who live in the shadow of death, that challenges
the rulers of the world and shows them up as a sham. A love that looks at the present with stubborn faith, and at
the future with sure and certain hope. A love that is not dependent on memory or words, but rubs off
from one person onto another like wet paint from a bucket that never runs
dry. A love that claims us in our
baptism and completes us in our death.
A love that overpowers all powers that might get in the way, and
declares to the world that through God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ, love has
won the victory – the victory over all powers in the world – including death
itself.
Paul points out to us and asks many questions: “Who is to
condemn? Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or
distress, or persecution or famine, or nakedness or peril, or sword?” Paul’s
answer is always the same – NOTHING.
NOTHING has more power than God’s love for us. God’s love is perfectly
expressed in Jesus Christ who came to take everything that is broken in us or
by us, and put it back together.
The healing power of God’s love still happens in every moment of our
lives through the creative breath and healing power of the Holy Spirit.
So while it may have felt as though Mae was slowly being
taken away, that we were being robbed of her gifts and her presence – Paul
assures us of the exact opposite. That while horrible things like Alzheimer’s
happen, God is still at work making things new. None of these things – not even death itself – can separate
us from God’s love and from the power of the resurrection.
When everything else has gone from us – youth, memory,
beauty, health, even our very lives – one thing endures. This constant love of God, which is the
earth’s heart beat. The love of
God that seeps into our lives and moves from human heart to human heart, not
requiring words, but the shared experience of our lives. And when our lives on earth are over, that pure
and gorgeous love takes us, redeems us, and plants us in the very heart of God.
The loving smile of Mae has returned to the heart where
love begins. The heart of God who
created her. The heart of God who
loved her through each moment of her life, the joyful stuff and the scary stuff. Nothing will separate her from that
heart. And it is God’s heart,
God’s everlasting love, which will keep us connected to Mae. Forever.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
