nothing can separate us…

from the love of our God’

July 30, 2023

Scriptures: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-46, Romans 8:26-39

I have come to believe, over many, many years of seeking after our Lord, that Paul was right in his assessment of the love of God, as written in our reading today from the 8th chapter of the book of Romans. I say I have come to believe, but it is even stronger than that…for that assessment has become a bedrock foundation of my faith and a principle upon which I literally live, move, and have my being.

For you see, I am human to the core. I don’t always admit it, but each one of us is both very human as well as blessed by the presence of the divine spark within us whom we know as the Spirit of our loving God. I know it…but not everyone feels the same…at least about me. So often I hear people tell me, ‘You are more holy’…or, ‘you have a special relationship with God’…or, ‘would you perhaps put in a  good word with you know who for me?’ And truth be told, I do not believe I am any more ‘holy’ than anyone else…rather, I am just so sure of God’s amazing and unending love for me…and that sustains me…even in difficult circumstances. Indeed, God’s love has guided me now for close to seventy years…persistently seeking after me, calling to me, and finding me…even when that was the last thing I wanted…even in times when I was surely not centered in what I believe my Lord’s hopes for me were…which were more frequent than I would like to admit.

And yet…I know that God still loves me. And I also know that God has never wavered in his desire to draw me ever nearer to a full understanding of just how amazing, just how all-encompassing, how genuine, and how complete his love is for me. And all of that…happened to me…just one more flawed but still beloved bearer of the divine image in which each one of us was created. And, I know that I know, that this same amazing love is extended towards each one of us here…just as complete, just as unwavering…just as forgiving and just as merciful.

No matter what we do or say, no matter how many times we turn away from God or refuse to listen to the Spirit’s guidance…no matter how often we think that life is about what we want, or what we deserve, or what belongs to us, or what rights we absolutely have…nothing can succeed in diminishing God’s unconditional and unceasing love for each and every one of us.

There is a word I heard repeated many times in Seminary regarding God’s love for each one of his children. And that word was ‘loving-kindness’. The Hebrew word that is usually if not always used to express this attitude of God towards humanity, is chesed…translated by my professors as loving-kindness. And I remember the reverence with which this word was spoken of by several ot them…for it seems that perhaps they too knew just how powerful a promise this was, and how deeply descriptive and revealing it was of the nature of our God.

In the book of Micah and in chapter 7 and verses 18-20 we hear the prophet speak of this attitude of love, mercy, and grace with which God looks upon those whom I believe were created with the express purpose of sharing a loving relationship with the divine. I paraphrase the prophet as he writes, ‘Just who is this God whom we worship…whom we follow after and trust to lead us forward? Who is this one who forgives our sin and passes over our transgressions? He is one who does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in extending loving-kindness towards each one of us…truly his compassion has no end, in fact, he takes all our moments of weakness and failure, and casts them into the deepest parts of the ocean…there to be remembered no more…

for his love truly has no end’...I know…for I have witnessed it personally…let me explain…

I am sure that it is true for many of us, but there have been a number of these times throughout my life when I sorely needed the touch of the Lord upon my soul…times when all seemed to be in complete disarray, moments when everything that had formerly made sense, now seemed either inadequate or completely false and misleading.  Times when what I had leaned upon as strong pillars of my life understanding, were seemingly kicked out from beneath me, leaving me floundering and falling without a sense of direction, or of what it might be that I could possibly hold on to.

And in some of those times I was indeed blessed by a comforting word or touch from our Lord…a sense that I knew, that I knew, that God was as close as my very breath…times when I needed my Lord the most…and times when he absolutely did not fail me.  Most often those particular moments have been in times of personal loss of a loved one, or perhaps when the greatest of hopes and promises I had believed and trusted in just seemed to dissolve into nothingness, causing me to wonder if the hope was ever really real to begin with. But in each of these cases, when the Lord reached out and touched my heart, I knew a peace that just can’t be explained…I knew…resurrection…the birth of new life and newfound hope within me even if it yet required more time and perhaps even more tears to work its way fully into the depths of my heart and my understanding.

But there is one time I remember that will forever stay with me…one instance where I was absolutely at my lowest point…a moment of personal death within my soul…the death of all that I had believed in, all I had hoped for and trusted in…of all I thought mattered in following after this Lord I had sought after all of my life.

I had spent a season in a Christian Community House as a daily bread baker soon after I graduated from college. I lived and worked along with others in a local home and together we sought out the Lord’s guidance upon our lives…seeking to dwell in the very center of God’s will, and seeking to imitate our Lord Jesus in all of our ways each day.

Over time however the union we all shared and cherished began to fray and the situation began to fall apart.  I am not sure exactly why it fell apart, but I know that at least some of the blame fell upon my own shoulders. I was not at a point in my life where I was ready to commit as fully as were some of the others, and I think I ran away to avoid making that commitment. Over the next few months I stayed in touch, until in the act of helping a dear friend I was accused of something altogether different and brought back to face the community, where it felt like I was put on trial amongst a gathering of some who were formerly my dearest sisters and brothers in the faith. 

And at the end of all their harsh questioning and unjustified accusations, I was dismissed and blinded by tears made my way towards the door to leave. One of them, a dear friend, asked if I wanted a ride somewhere to which I replied, ‘I guess so’.  And so we got into his car and began to drive…back and forth over the familiar roads of my childhood, riding together in silence until at one point, seeing a deserted road coming up on the left, I said to him, ‘Here, let me out here’.  ‘Are you sure?’, he asked me.  ‘Yes, here is fine’, I said.  And so he pulled over and let me out, and as he pulled away I began to walk slowly down that dusty deserted road which led to places I knew not at all.

And as I walked I began to yell and to scream out inwardly against my God. I felt I had been so wronged, and so unfairly misunderstood and harshly judged. I truly felt as though I had no more room in my heart for a God who could let this happen to me.  I wanted nothing at all to do anymore with the God I thought I was now seeing clearly for the first time. Determined to find a way to go it alone…and at the absolute lowest point ever in my young adult life, I walked on, the dust of the road rising up and mixing with the tears flowing so bitterly from my broken heart.

And as I walked further into the quiet of that afternoon, and into places I had never been before, I grew more and more despondent, almost wishing for death that I might be freed from my deepest of sorrows…

…and then…then he appeared…standing there before me just a dozen or so steps ahead, and seeming to stay at the same distance even as I walked on. Out there in front of me, just out of reach, the vision of Jesus was as real as anything I had ever seen.  Still so broken and still not at all interested in following after this God who I now felt had totally and irretrievably let me down, I resisted and told the vision to go away…to leave me alone in my brokenness and sorrow. More than once I resisted and tried to turn from the vision there before me…but the vision steadfastly remained, made even more striking as he raised his arms towards me and beckoned me to come to him…to return unto him.

Fighting the urge within to give in and to surrender, I resisted for a moment more…still fighting back the anger and bitterness of the recent painful accusations. But Jesus did not relent…he just stood there, silent and beckoning. I stood still for a moment…and then it all broke within me…all of the bitterness washed away, all of the sadness and feelings of rejection seemed to melt like scales falling off of my inner soul, as I turned back towards my Lord in complete surrender. And then, looking up through my tears once again I saw that the vision had gone away…and I was left all alone again there on that dusty path to nowhere…but the burning sense that I had been so deeply blessed remains with me to this day. I had experienced my own ‘chesed moment’ and I shall never forget it.  My tears and sorrow, my soul at the very point of wishing for death…had by grace given birth to new life and new hope within me…I too, had been found by my Lord and God.

So, along with the Apostle Paul, and from my personal experience, I can say with complete conviction, that nothing can ever separate any one of us from the freely offered love, mercy, compassion, forgiveness, and loving-kindness of our Lord…

…not death, or life…not angels, or rulers…not things in the present, nor things to come in the future…not powers, or height, or depth, or anything else in all of Creation…

…nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord…not ever

…amen