The Promise(s) of God: A Sermon for Proper 12

Last week, I talked a bit about the significance of St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans and noted that we spend one-third of year A of the lectionary cycle – 4 months(!) in this letter. New Testament scholar J.D.G. Dunn asserts that Paul’s epistle to the Romans is “the first well-developed theological statement by a Christian theologian which has come down to us, which has incalculable influence on the framing of Christian theology ever since – arguably the single most important work of Christian theology ever written.”[1]

N.T. Wright notes that the epistle to the Romans is “by common consent Paul’s masterpiece. It dwarfs most of his other writings.” In terms of theologians whose lives and work have been grounded in Paul’s epistle to the Romans, the list goes on, from St. Augustine to Martin Luther to Karl Barth, to my current favorite preacher, Fleming Rutledge. It was her book of sermons on Paul’s epistle to the Romans – entitled Not Ashamed of the Gospel - that sparked my newfound love for this letter.

The advice that Rutledge gives to preachers who seek her counsel – me being one of them – is to find the promise of God in the text. And once you have identified that promise…share it with your listeners! Never let your congregation go home without hearing the Good News - the promise of God. That might seem obvious – even simplistic. But as preachers, we oftentimes miss the mark.

A recent trend in the mainline Church tradition, however, has been to err on the side of preaching what has been called Lettuce sermons. Rather than making the primary focus on the promise of God in the text, Lettuce sermons instead focus on what we should do once the worship service is over:

“Let us go and share God’s love with others.”

“Let us go and feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless.”

“Let us go and fight for justice and speak truth to power.”

The Rev’d Taylor Mertins notes that “This temptation runs deep in the heart and soul of preachers because we too fall prey to the expectation that people come to church in order to ‘get something out of it.’ And there is a fear that without providing some sort of assignment or expectation, people will receive nothing and are free to leave without any responsibility at all.”

Now please don’t get Fleming Rutledge - or me – wrong. Sharing God’s love with others, feeding the hungry, and fighting for justice are critically important vocations for Christians. After all, they are all things that Jesus himself did, and calls us to do. Indeed, there are times when the text calls for a Lettuce sermon. And keep in mind that whether or not we get a Lettuce sermon, we get a Lettuce dismissal most every week –

“Let us go forth into the world, rejoicing in the power of the Spirt.”

“Let us go forth in the name of Christ.”

“Let us bless the Lord.”

So, Lettuce sermon or not, we are always sent forth to bear the Good News of Christ to the world.

The problem with Lettuce sermons comes when we get them every week. And that problem lies with the assumption that we Christians understand what needs to be fixed in the world and how it should be fixed, and therefore we should go out and do something about it this week. Or even more simply, as Christians, we should always be going forth and doing something. We should always be bust with the assignment that our preacher gave us in the Sunday sermon. Let us do this and let us do that. If you hear a sermon like that 52-weeks out of the year, might you get to the point where you are overwhelmed, exhausted, or simply ridden with guilt and shame because you haven’t done something that your preacher said the Bible is telling you to do? Or maybe – just maybe - you are the one who is poor, hungry, or a victim of injustice. Is it possible that there are some of us of here who, week after week, come to church wanting and needing to be reminded of the Good News -  promise of God in the text? Or are we just called to share it with those other people who are less fortunate than we are?

The Rev’d Anthony Robinson writes, “I remember a young woman who thanked me for a sermon. She was a schoolteacher and mother of small children, up to her eyeballs in work and demands. She said, “Thank you. I don’t need to be reminded every Sunday of my responsibilities. They are staring me in the face. What I do need to be reminded of every Sunday is the grace of God.”

Fleming Rutledge asserts that the decline of the mainline Church in large part is because we are preaching too many Lettuce sermons and not enough Promise sermons. Dare I say that even more than going out and doing good things, folks like you and I simply need to be reminded of the Good News - of who God is and what God has done and is still doing in the world about us - and the profound, life-saving, life-giving, live-changing implications for you, for me, and for the whole world.

And Romans 8 is a tremendous source for God’s promises. Over the past three weeks, this chapter alone has included seven promises:

There is... now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (v 1)

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies (v. 11)

…all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. (v. 14)

…if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ (v. 17)

…the Spirit helps us in our weakness (v. 26)

…the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words (v. 26)

… all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (v. 28)

And of course, the most well-known and powerful one of them all:

…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. (v. 38-39)

Now that is a promise that we all can leave with today. This passage is one of the most often-chosen selections to be read at funerals, and for good reason. And perhaps that is why I love the funeral service so much. We don’t come to a funeral to be told what we should go out and do afterwards. And we aren’t even coming simply to “pay our respects” to the deceased and the family. We come to the funeral service wanting and needing to hear God’s promise for us - a message of hope that this life here isn’t all that there is. That the Christian proclamation is that suffering and death don’t get the last word. That ultimately, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, a tragic accident, a gunshot wound, or grief, depression, loneliness, or despair, …nothing… “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That is what we want and need to hear at a funeral, and that is what we want and need to hear more often than not on any given Sunday.

Yesterday morning, I received a request to come administer Last Rites to Marlene Weller – one of our few remaining parishioners, who dates back to our “St. Doublewide” days. As her family and I gathered together to read scripture, pray, anoint Marlene’s head with oil, and share with Marlene her last communion on this side of the Kingdom, our grief was bolstered by the promise of God, not an assignment. We all needed, more than anything to be comforted by God’s promise that death will not get the last word with Marlene. When she dies, her life will be changed, but not ended. And for those of us who remain on this side of God’s kingdom, grief will not get the last word with us either. Not because of who we are or what we do, but because of who God is and what God is doing.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul asserts that as Christians, we will not be immune to suffering. As a matter of fact, for him – as well as the 1st-century Christians to whom he was writing – being a Christian brought actually about more suffering. To that point, last week we heard Paul say, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us… in hope…the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God For in hope we were saved.”

Paul is reminding us that our suffering is never in vain, as it is always bolstered by Christian hope – by God’s promise that “nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Thanks be to God.

[1] These quotes come from Bonnie Thurston’s Pondering, Praying, Preaching; Romans 8, p. 1. SLG Press.