The Love of Christ
“What will separate us from the love of Christ? Trouble? Hardship? Distress? Calamity? Persecution? Famine? Hunger? Nakedness? Peril? Danger? The sword? Violence?” — Romans 8:35 [ILV]
The Rev. Dr. Glenn Miller, my Church History professor in seminary, is a Southern gentleman and very laid back. Nothing ruffles him. I have proof.
I was standing next to Glenn when a student approached and asked what I’d have to rate, in all Christian charity, as one of the silliest questions I’ve ever heard. “Dr. Miller— you’re offering a survey class in Church History this semester.” Glenn nodded. “What does that cover?”
Needless to say a survey course, by definition, covers the entire subject. Dr. Miller remained calm. He said, “Well, it’s a survey course... in Church History.”
“Yes,” the student insisted on pursuing this strange line of inquiry. “What does that survey cover?”
Glenn smiled. There was a twinkle in his eye. I could tell mischief was afoot. [The pastor mimics the motions in the following description.] Glenn reached out his left hand as far to the left as he could. “Jesus,” he said, “died somewhere over here— about the year 30 of the Common Era.”
Then he reached out his right hand as far to the right as he could. “Jesus will come back somewhere over here... we don’t yet know when.”
Glenn then looked back and forth across an imaginary line created by the distance between the two hands and made a pronouncement. “A survey course in Church History covers everything in between.” (Slight pause.)
I think I’ve actually told that story here before. But I was reminded of it because of a recent article in the magazine The Christian Century. The piece reported that American students don’t know much about the history of our nation.
When tested, most fourth graders can’t explain why Abraham Lincoln is important. Only 2 percent of high school seniors could name the social problem the Supreme Court addressed in Brown versus the Board of Education.
Lendol Calder, of Augustana College in Illinois, the article said, had been exploring this problem. At the start of a survey course in American History this professor asks students to write a short paper on the history of the United States. They are to write it without using any resources.
The students think they are being tested on factual knowledge. But the deeper purpose is to find out what they think the American story says.
Over the 15 years Calder has used that exercise the number of students who think of the American past as a story about gaining freedom has consistently and constantly dropped. It is now less than 20 percent. And that’s not even the real problem.
The real problem is this story has not been replaced by another story. Over 80 percent see the American past as just one thing after another— a jumble of disconnected events. Calder wonders if the American narrative cannot be seen as any kind of unfolding story, not even one about freedom, then does it seem meaningless?
Indeed, if there is no narrative framework, is it possible students cannot and are not able to see themselves in that story, to see themselves as inheritors of freedom. Last, if people have no narrative sense of the American story and its movement toward freedom, are they likely to be susceptible to ideologues who weave their own versions of the past in order to manipulate emotions? (Slight pause.)
My Church History professor, Dr. Miller, insisted history is not about dates and facts. History is about narrative, about story, about movement over the course of centuries, like the American movement toward freedom.
History is, therefore and paradoxically, personal. It is personal because we are a part of the story. But history cannot be personal unless we can see ourselves as a continuation of a story.
So, what is this narrative of American freedom? Freedom did not happen overnight but over the course of centuries. The two instances I mentioned earlier— Lincoln was president from 1861 to 1865. But the Era of Lincoln was from around 1840 to 1870, when slavery was contested.
The decision known as Brown versus the Board of Education happened in 1954. It insisted civil rights were for all people and that separate is not equal. But we need to see the American struggle for equal rights as starting when the first slave of African descent landed on these shores.
And we need to see this movement as one which continues even today. And we need to see us— here, now— as a continuing part of that story about freedom.
Unless we come to grips with narrative and how it effects us, personally, unless we see ourselves within the framework of history, we are left thrashing around wondering who we are, as we try to figure out what’s happening around us. Unless we see history as part of our own story, there are only disconnected events. Indeed, unless we see ourselves in the context of the story we lose a part of ourselves. (Slight pause.)
And these words are from the work known as Romans: “What will separate us from the love of Christ? Trouble? Hardship? Distress? Calamity? Persecution? Famine? Hunger? Nakedness? Peril? Danger? The sword? Violence?” (Slight pause.)
Can we, do we see ourselves as a part of the story about the relationship between God and humanity? (Slight pause.) [The pastor holds up a hand and points to the thumb finger and pinky finger as a beginning and an end.] When I do Bible study I start with a premise. I ask what does the Bible mean from beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation— the whole arc?
The Bible means God loves us and wants to covenant with us. That’s what the narrative is about. That’s the whole story.
Hence, to ask what this verse says over here in Leviticus or to ask this verse here in Romans says is inadequate— always inadequate. [Again the pastor points to fingers on the hand.] We need to ask how what is said in Leviticus and what is said in Romans— how these verses fit into the basic story— the basic story— the one that says God loves us and wants to covenant with us.
Indeed, if we look at one of those verses and decide it says God does not love someone or that someone is outcast, we’ve not just misread the narrative. Either we do not really know the narrative or we’ve twisted the story beyond recognition.
Further, this needs to be personal. We need to see ourselves in that narrative, a story which says God loves us and wants to covenant with us. All of which is to say, that the basic narrative, the basic story of the Bible is really, really simple: God loves each of us. God loves all of us. (Slight pause.)
So, “What will separate us from the love of Christ?” If we do not see ourselves and everyone else as a part of the narrative of the love of God, all these aforementioned things— trouble, hardship, distress, calamity, persecution, famine, hunger, nakedness, peril, danger, the sword, violence— will separate us from the love of God. They will separate us from what God has done for us in Christ. (Slight pause.)
I need to be clear about something. What this does not say— what this does not say— is that trouble, hardship, distress, calamity, persecution, famine, hunger, nakedness, peril, danger, the sword or violence will cease to exist because of the love God offers. You see, as Christians, we believe the peace of God is with us.
But the peace of God is not the absence of trouble, hardship, et cetera. The peace of God is, rather, the presence of God.
And, as Christians, we believe Christ lives. We believe the presence of Christ is with us, the presence of God is with us— here, now. (Slight pause.)
A relationship with God, you see, just like any other relationship, is personal. And once we realize that nothing can separate us from Christ, once we see ourselves as children of God, that relationship becomes very, very personal.
Why? Because we see ourselves as loved by God in Christ, Jesus, and we see ourselves as a part of the story— part of the story called The Love of God. The Love of God— I could be wrong but is that not the greatest story ever told? Amen.
07/24/2011
United Church of Christ, First Congregational, Norwich, New York
ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Choral Response and Benediction. This is an précis of what was said: “Another seminary student, not the one from the earlier story, once said to me that the reason the professors wanted us to write so many papers is they wanted us re-write the Bible. ‘No,’ I said. ‘They want to empower us to know the story of the Bible so well that we can relate what Bible says using our own words.’ I think that illustrates the relationship we need to Scripture because it is about relationship. It is personal.”
BENEDICTION
Let us recognize that the transforming power of the love God offers is forever among us. And may we love God so much, that we love nothing else too much. May we be so in awe of God that we are in awe of no one else and nothing else. Amen.
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