In Memory of Rev. Dr. Autura Eason-Williams

 “I am so proud of you.” 

I was standing in the checkout line at Sprouts yesterday when suddenly I knew you were there. I had gathered in my hands a liter bottle of water and my favorite essential oil, ordinary comforts, the balms I hoped would soothe my grief-sick soul for my journey through the valley of the shadow of death in the coming hours. As I stood in line, I glanced over at the greeting card display, and that’s when I saw you. Your wink from heaven. Your unmistakable voice of love echoing in my ear. Emblazoned on one of the cards were the words I will always remember hearing you say to me, “I am so proud of you.” 

Autura, I don’t think you ever missed an opportunity to tell me how proud you were of me when we saw each other, when we talked on the phone. I must admit I wasn’t always sure I deserved those words. Yet, above the feelings of inadequacy, above the ways I had disappointed myself, above the doubts and fears, your voice always rang clear and true and strong…“I am so proud of you.”

You never missed an opportunity to tell me. You never let the moment pass by without setting the record straight that I was known and seen and loved by you. In the last seventeen days, I asked myself one time, ten times, a thousand times, “Did I ever tell you how proud I was of you?” I’m sure I must have. I know the love and admiration we shared with each hug and smile and conversation over the past two decades. But, in case my words failed to communicate clearly, it’s time for me to set the record straight.

Autura, I am so proud of you. 

Over the past two weeks, I’ve discovered I wasn’t the only person that you told often how proud you were of them. I already knew that, and, somehow, it makes my memories of those words all the more sweet. I suppose pride, like love, only multiplies when it's shared. Still, the great cloud of witnesses who have been assembled together by this unimaginable tragedy, who have whispered through tears, “She would always tell me that she was proud of me,” Autura, their sheer number takes my breath away. How did you have time to pour wisdom and encouragement into so many of us, without ever making one of us feel like you were rushing to the next appointment, the next task, the next person? How did your heart expand so wide to love so many, so well? How did you add hours to the day so that, even in your tireless ministry, you didn’t neglect your family but nurtured and supported them from a deep well of faith, hope, and love? 

Autura, I am so proud of you. 

What does one do when a Twitter notification announces the murder of a friend? I wasn’t prepared for those moments when the words that flashed across my screen would break my heart. I didn’t sign up for this pain, for this nightmare. Yet, the photographs the media used in their breaking news updates reminded me what I did sign up for. When you asked me to journey with you as you humbly offered yourself as an episcopal candidate in the UMC, there was no other answer for me but, “Yes!”  because I believed in you, and I believed in the power of the Holy Spirit living within you. Who knew that the portraits we commissioned then to share the story of the ministry and vision God had planted in your heart would instead be the photographs forever connected to your death? Early in working on your campaign together, I wrote you a letter sharing I believed God had called you forth to be a leader of His people, like Esther, for such a time as this. In a season of divisiveness and fear, of anxiety and hopelessness, you spoke with a calm, clear voice that called us to keep moving forward into God’s future unafraid. You reminded us to attend to the hard work but the gospel work of dismantling racism, combating poverty, and honoring our LGBTQ+ siblings in the body of Christ by fully including them in the life of the church. And, in this work, you led by example. Your authenticity and integrity and willingness to question unjust systems were values God’s people deeply craved for in their leaders, their shepherds for such a time as this. And I’m so angry that I have to live in such a time as this without your mentorship and guidance now. I deeply grieve that the United Methodist Church will not be blessed with an opportunity to elect you Bishop Rev. Dr. Autura Eason-Williams. Yet, what will not come to be cannot undo what was always true. You, my dear friend, were a mighty vessel for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and Her power. You held the treasure of God’s glory in your clay jar, always pointing others, not to yourself, but to the light of Jesus Christ, as you let the grace revealed in his life, death, and resurrection shine through your life. 

Autura, I am so proud of you. 

So many times at your funeral yesterday, we reminded one another that your legacy of love and faith in Jesus lives on, through each of us who shared in your life, but most strongly and so clearly in your children. I hear your beautiful laugh and see your bright smile in Gwendolyn, the words of her prayer yesterday embodying the deep faith you both share. I discover your passion for uncovering the superhero in each of us who can make the world a better place when TJ embraces all things nerdy in the memory of his Wonder Woman of a mother. I receive your gentle spirit in John’s quiet strength. I am convicted and inspired by Ayanna’s advocacy for justice, education, and reform in our city. In her cries for merciful, restorative justice even in the midst of her grief, I hear her mommy’s voice. 

Autura, I am so proud of you. In case I didn’t say it enough on this side of heaven, I needed to set the record straight. Thank you for sharing your love and your life with me. I’ll try my best to keep making you proud.

A Litany of Lament for the Rev. Dr. Autura Eason-Williams

God of comfort and refuge, we look to you in times of trouble.
Someone has been lost whom we hold dear.
Lord, we feel emptiness and sadness at the death of the Rev. Dr. Autura Eason-Williams,
and we pray for you to comfort us with your faithful presence.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Creator God, you formed us in your own image, an image of love and grace.
You have called us to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with you.
Surround us with your divine presence as we mourn and weep
 in the face of yet another death by gun violence.

Lord, in your mercy, make us instruments of your justice and peace.

For the family and loved ones of Dr. Eason-Williams,
for her husband Darrell,
for her children Ayanna, John, TJ, and Gwendolyn,
and for all whose hearts are heavy with the shock
and grief of this horrible tragedy, we pray.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

O Lord, in her life, Autura was deeply committed to her faith in you.
Answering the call you placed on her heart with passion and conviction,
she ministered to the world as her parish with an abiding love
for Christ and for those whom Christ loves.
For the great void her sudden loss leaves in our shared ministry,
for the people called United Methodist in the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference,
and for the churches of the Metro District, we pray.

Lord, in your mercy, make us instruments of your justice and peace.

Jesus, Dr. Eason-Williams was known to us as our

District Superintendent, a spiritual and pastoral leader in our midst, and her death is difficult for us.

Yet, over 100 people are shot and killed in our nation every day. We cry out, “My God, My God, why?”

Still, we pray, and we yearn for change. For every one of your beloved children whose life has been taken, for all whose lives have been changed forever by the lasting trauma of gun violence, for those whose names and lives and stories we do not know, but who are known and loved by you, Jesus, we pray.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

God of Mercy, we pray this day even for the persons responsible for this violence,
confessing that this is not easy or comfortable for us to do.
Lord, you know the deep pain and hardship that have twisted
these young people’s lives away from your love and towards such senseless violence and evil.
We pray for their families, who are also experiencing grief and pain and anger,
struggling as they wonder how things could have been different.
For all your children who are hurting this day, send help.

Lord, in your mercy, make us instruments of your justice and peace.

Jesus who once burned with righteous anger,
Jesus who wept at his friend’s death,
Jesus who cried out to his Father when he felt abandoned,
be with all of us this day.
Help us to know that it is okay to feel angry,
to feel numb, to feel far from you,
to feel grief in any of its many forms.
Be with us, Lord. Hear our prayers and the sighs of our spirits too deep for words.
Be near to us.
Remind us, as Autura so often did, that we are held in the grip of God’s grace.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Make us instruments of your justice and peace,
And give to us the grace to labor for the things for which we pray.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

A heart of grateful thanks is expressed to Rev. Angela Wells, whose "Litany to Pray in the Wake of Gun Violence," helped give form to this lament. 

Back to Basics: Truth

 At first blush, truth may not be one of the things we think about as a basic building block of our life in Christ. Faith sure. Love, we get that. Forgiveness for our sins—all day long. Being merciful, no-brainer.

But truth? Sure, it’s important, but does it really deserve its own sermon in our “Back to Basics” worship series?

Truth may not make it in our top ten list, but it sure makes it into God’s. In Exodus 20, God gives Moses and the Israelites the Ten Commandments, and at least one commandment is directly related to truth: “Do not testify falsely against your neighbor.”

In Proverbs 6, the Biblical writer lists seven things that are detestable to the Lord. Among that list, three are related to honesty and integrity. The Lord finds detestable “a lying tongue,” “a false witness who breathes lies,” and “one who stirs up conflict in the community.”

In John 8, as he is teaching his followers, Jesus says, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teaching. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Truth matters to Jesus, and he says it should matter to us! Jesus says our freedom—freedom from sin, freedom from evil, freedom for a life marked by salvation—all of these are bound up in the truth. Truth, and its companion virtue integrity, should be something Christians care very deeply about, a basic building block of our faith that we think about and attend to regularly.

As he stands before Pilate on trial in the Scripture we read together today, Jesus proclaims, “I was born and came into the world for this reason: to testify to the truth.”

What is the truth that Jesus testifies to?

Back in the first chapter of John’s Gospel, the writer tells us this about Jesus and his mission: “From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace; as the Law was given through Moses, so grace and truth came into being through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side has made God known.”

God’s love and grace is the truth Jesus came to share. God’s love and grace is the truth Jesus wants his followers to live by, the truth that will set them free. God’s love and grace is the truth Jesus commissioned and commanded his disciples to be witnesses to.

But, as Jesus’ disciples today, we live in a world where people ask like Pilate did, “What is truth?” In a world of the 24 hour news cycle and sensationalist stories, in a world of fake news and conspiracy theories, in a world or viral videos and TikTok challenges, it can be difficult to discern what is fact and what is fiction. Especially in the last few months, as we collectively have faced a worldwide pandemic and an upcoming national election.

A lot in the world is difficult and confusing. I’ve had more than one conversation with church members, with other pastors, with leaders like educators, elected officials, even district superintendents…it’s hard to know who to trust and who is telling the truth right now.

God created us as intelligent beings with minds that look for patterns in the world, because God created the world with patterns to discover and delight in. Yet, in times like these, we haven’t discovered the pattern yet. In March, we knew little about the coronavirus and how it spread from one person to another. Was it safe to be together if we just didn’t hug or shake hands? Was it not safe to get take out or fast food? Could we touch a surface and pick up the virus? Could you be around other people as long as they didn’t feel sick? As time went on, scientists discovered that the main source of spread was from respiratory droplets and that many people who contracted the virus may never experience symptoms, which meant that wearing a mask could protect us from spreading the virus to others if we had it and didn’t know. And medical researchers are still hard at work to figure out the patterns of the virus to develop treatments and vaccines.

Yet, in the meantime, when patterns are difficult to discover, our brains are searching for meaning, anything that will help us understand the frightening events around us.

Perhaps you too have been disappointed in the number of Christian friends you saw sharing false information on social media about the coronavirus—gargle salt water and it will kill the virus, don’t believe the hype it’s all a government plot to control us, ignore the advice of the vast majority of medical professionals because these two discredited doctors made a video on Youtube proving that masks don’t work.

Beloved…we are smarter than that. God created us with the ability to be critical thinkers. We shouldn’t fall for viral videos like Plandemic. We know that legitimate doctors and professional researchers do not post their findings on Youtube or Facebook with captions like “Watch this before it gets deleted!” or “Share this because the mainstream media won’t!” Come on, y’all!

But, if we are smarter than that, then why do we or our Christian brothers and sisters sometimes fall so easily for conspiracy theories? Well first, let’s be honest…everyone loves a good conspiracy theory. It’s usually exciting and it feels like we have information that others don’t. Conspiracy theories cater to our ego to make us feel like we are “in the know,” and they make us feel special. Second, conspiracy theories help us make sense of a chaotic and complicated world. When something new, like a novel coronavirus, comes along…we don’t have ways to explain it or understand it yet. Conspiracy theories give us a way to understand hard-to-predict, rare events that rock our world. Third, conspiracy theories give us an out. Most often, these far-fetched tales give us a reason to say “This is not my problem” or “I don’t have to put in the work and sacrifice.” Christian writer D.L. Mayfield wrote, “People believe conspiracy theories because it is psychologically easier to believe a singular and unlikely narrative rather than engage in a hard and complicated reality where your own long-term participation is needed.” When God tells us that we are our brother’s keeper and Jesus asks us to love our neighbors, conspiracy theories says, “This isn’t real…so you don’t have to do the hard things for the sake of others! Don’t worry about it!” Conspiracy theories seduce us into sinful and selfish behavior that makes our own comfort and convenience more important than others’ safety and health.

As people who claim Jesus as our savior, we are called to care about the truth because Jesus did. Jesus said he came to testify to the truth of God’s love and grace, a love and grace that teaches us to care for others. When we spread misinformation online or in personal conversation without first checking it out to see if it’s true, we are doing harm to other people. It may be hard to see, but our participation in falsehood has a real impact.

Consider one of the recent conspiracy theories that got some traction among Christians. After the Sandy Hook school shooting, some Christians shared the idea that perhaps this was an undercover operation staged by the government in a plot to take away people’s guns. While some who first shared that idea may admit today that it wasn’t true, that doesn’t mean it’s harmless now. To this day, some die-hard believers still harass the families of the first-grade children who died in the Sandy Hook shooting, children that should be figuring out how to be middle schoolers in the middle of a pandemic right now. What a tragedy that families who lost a child have to deal with such disrespectful behavior!

 

So, when our minds are created to make sense out of the world but things happen in life that just don’t make sense, how do we as Christians, the ones who claim the truth will set us free, make sure we don’t fall for falsehoods and spread misinformation?

While it’s always possible we might get fooled a few times, I’ve found this simple acronym helps me.

THINK before you post. Ask yourself:

·       Is it true?

·       Is it helpful?

·       Is it inspiring?

·       Is it necessary?

·       Is it kind?

Before I elaborate a little more on these, don’t think these rules only apply to social media. I know not everyone listening does facebook or Instagram or even gets on the internet on a regular basis! But don’t tune out of the sermon just yet! These questions are helpful for personal conversations, whether at the kitchen table, on the phone, or through text message! These questions are helpful to filter all of the things we put out into the world…whether it’s something we text or say to one friend or something we tweet for thousands to read.

So, first…is it true?

Jesus asked Pilate if he thought Jesus was the king of the Jews or if Pilate had just heard other people say it. Basically, Jesus asked, “Pilate, where did you get your information from? Did you do your own research?”

Friends, do not blindly accept the testimony of others unexamined. God gave you a brain. Use it! Ask questions. Decide if your news source is trustworthy. Is the person presenting you information mentioning other researchers or thinkers who have drawn the same conclusion or are they the only ones with the “real truth?” If someone is trying to convince you that they are the holders of truth and everyone else is a sheep, friends, they are trying to sell you something or profit off you in some way.

Real quick…here’s a pro-tip. There is a website dedicated to fact-checking social media claims about medical facts or political statements called Snopes.com. The next time you are tempted to share a coronavirus meme or story about a politician you don’t agree with…go to Snopes.com to see if they can help you figure out if what you want to share is fact or fiction. More than once the good people of Snopes.com have assured me that Morgan Freeman is in fact alive and well despite the #RIPmorgan’s floating around the internet that day.

After you ask if it is true, ask “Is it helpful?”

Believe it or not…not everything that is true is always helpful. This question is definitely open to subjective interpretation, so here are some others ways I ask myself if something is helpful:

·       Does it help elevate or add to the public conversation?

·       Does it help others know my heart or communicate who I am at my core?

·       Does it help share God’s love and grace?

If I can answer yes to those questions, then I think it’s helpful.

Next…is it inspiring?

Not everything we post on social media or share with each other right now has to be informative about what is happening in the world. We should be careful to share true things that we have independently researched and verified. But sometimes we just want to share a little bit of sunshine on a cloudy day, like a funny story or an encouraging thought or a photo of our children, grandchildren, or pets, just something to brighten someone’s day.

And I’m here for it! I want to see ALL the pictures of your babies and pets! I want to hear about the things that bring you joy right now! The world needs to hear about the places you have experienced God and love and grace! What a powerful tool social media and personal conversations can be for sharing God’s light and our faith witness!

After these questions, ask yourself, “Is it necessary?”

Some of the best advice I ever got was from my professor and mentor Dr. Meeks who said, “You don’t have to tell someone everything you know.”

Man, I really wish I could go back in time and tell teenage Amanda that she doesn’t have to correct every friend’s grammatical errors because, in fact, that will not make her look smart…it will just make her annoying to other people.

Sometimes the knowledge we have, while true, may not be necessary to share with others. Now, I’ll agree…it may be hard to know when is the right time or the wrong time to share something. We all might think differently about what is necessary. So, I ask myself this question in a way that mimics John Wesley’s 3 rules:

·       Will sharing this do harm? Or will the negative impact of sharing this fact, thought, or opinion outweigh the potential good impact?

·       Will sharing this do good?

·       Will sharing this communicate the love of God?

·       If I can’t answer yes to at least one of those questions, and most of the times if I can’t answer to all three, then I probably won’t post or say something, because for me…it’s not necessary.

Lastly, before you click share or hit post or say it out loud, ask yourself this last question…“Is it kind?”

Now, let’s distinguish the difference between kind and nice.

Kind is not nice.

Nice tells half-truths and white lies to make ourselves and other people feel better. Kind tells the truth even when it’s hard.

Nice will says “It’s fine” to your face and talk about you behind your back. Kind is clear and honest and upfront.

Nice will say “I’m so sorry” or “You’re in my thoughts and prayers” while holding your pain at a distance and never trying to understand the world from another person’s point of view.

Kind is compassionate, the kind of compassion that reflects the root meaning of the word, to suffer with another.

Kind is what Jesus did…get down with you in the ditch, into the messy but beautiful parts of your life, weep with you when you are weeping, celebrate with you in moments of joy like a wedding.

Jesus’ brand of kind seeks to see the world through another person’s eyes to understand their hurt, their pain, their hopes, their dreams!

I think these questions are important because the way we communicate with others and about others is a direct reflection of our own character, our integrity, our commitment to the truth of God’s love and grace.

As people of God who testify to the truth of Jesus Christ…what we post on social media and say to each other MATTERS! Our words, whether spoken out loud or written in a facebook post, are a witness to the Gospel if we call ourselves Christians.

This week take inventory. Are your posts reflective of your faith in Jesus…or your faith in a politician, a lifestyle, a beauty product?

Am I asking you that every post you make be about Jesus and faith? No…I still want to see your cute puppy pics and read your funny stories and celebrate with you your milestone achievements!

But what I am saying is that what you post on social media reflects your faith. It reflects on our church. It reflects on Jesus. When our posts are filled with hate or judgment or misinformation, we are harming our witness to God’s kingdom. Pilate, the man who asked “What is truth?” is the same man who condemned Jesus to die on the cross even though Pilate admitted he couldn’t find a crime that Jesus was guilty of. Truth matters. The Bible told us so.

Let’s be people who share the truth of God’s love and grace with everything we do…even what we post on social media.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

More than Conquerors

A Sermon Inspired by Romans 8:26-39

Sermon 3 in “Nothing Shall Separate Us” Sermon Series

Today we conclude our sermon series from Romans, and we arrive at the promise that entitled this month’s series – “Nothing Shall Separate Us.” We’ve spent the past two weeks contemplating our sinful nature as human beings, our tendency to do the wrong thing even when we want to do the right thing, and our utter helplessness to resist sin without the saving power of Jesus’ grace.

So when we get to the end of Paul’s 8^th chapter in Romans, it’s like taking a fresh breath of air to read the words that open today’s passage, “the Spirit comes to help our weakness.”

Can I get an “Amen”?

Thanks be to God that even though we are a mess, Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would come to help us. The Spirit helps us when we aren’t able to choose the good on our own. The Spirit helps us live as God’s adopted children and heirs with Christ and all the responsibility that comes with that. And then, today, we learn that the Spirit intercedes on our behalf and prays for us when we don’t know how to pray.

And, whether we would like to admit it or not, this last promise brings us a whole lot of comfort because prayer is something many of find difficult or elusive at times. It seems embarrassing to admit out loud, and though I know many faithful prayer warriors in our congregation, prayer is tough for a lot of Christians. When congregations are polled, prayer continues to top the list of their top struggles in their faith journey. Even Jesus’ first followers asked him to teach them how to pray!

Sometimes, prayer just escapes us! We don’t know which words to use, and we get tripped up trying to piece together beautiful sentences that we think will be worthy of God’s ear. Or we worry that if we get distracted or we open our eyes, that we’ve lost the posture of prayer and we have to start over. Or, sometimes, we just plain don’t know what to pray for, where to start. Sometimes what we are experiencing in life is so painful, so confusing, so hard that the words just don’t come…or we aren’t sure what the right thing to pray for even is. This is when Paul reminds us of Jesus’ promise that the Spirit is our helper and advocate who will step in and carry the prayers of our heart that sound like sighs too deep for words to the throne of God on our behalf.

The Spirit intercedes, not because our words don’t matter. Of course, they matter! They are important to God. But, the Spirit stands in for us to teach us that words don’t lead us to prayer. The heart leads us to prayer. The Spirit leads us to prayer. Then words follow.

And when the Holy Spirit leads, she leads with love. Paul asks, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”

“Nothing!” the Spirit answers.

When you were a child, were you ever separated from your parents in a crowded place or store? How did you feel? Scared? Worried? Abandoned?

I remember this one time I was worried that I had been left behind. My family had gone to Blockbuster to rent some movies for the weekend. After I picked out my favorite movie to rent, a Shirley Temple variety show, I told my mom I needed to use the bathroom and that I’d be right back. The bathroom was in a separate part of the store, behind a door that led to a water fountain, restrooms, and a private office for employees only. After I finished washing my hands, I walked out of the bathroom and tried to open the door to the main store. LOCKED! I tried to pull harder. Still locked! My mind started to race. What had happened? Did the store close? Was there a fire and the store had been evacuated and all the doors locked behind? My mom wouldn’t have forgotten about me, would she? I turned and turned the door handle until I thought it might twist off completely. Still no luck. It wouldn’t budge. I was practically in tears as I looked up to heaven for help and read the words “Employees Only” written on the door. I turned around and saw another door, the real door leading back to the main store. I grabbed the handle and flung it open to reveal the shelves of VHS tapes and popcorn and candy and my family in the checkout line waving to me to hurry up. I’m sure it was less than 30 seconds in reality, but, to me, the moments when I thought I was separated from everyone else, alone and terrified, felt like an eternity.

When we feel alone and far away from God, Paul’s promise calls out to us “Nothing shall separate us from God’s love, for in all things we are more than conquerors.”

Exactly which things does Paul think we are conquering over? 

Because if I’m being completely honest and transparent, I don’t exactly feel like we are winning at life right now, that we are conquerors over the tough situations we are facing as a world, as a nation, as a community, as a church, as individuals. There is so much that is hard right now, especially in this season of pandemic and the ways it has changed our lives and world and the places where we have realized that we don’t really have control. I don’t feel like I’m conquering right now. Do you?

I haven’t been able to stop people I love from getting sick. I haven’t been able to imagine a creative way to make online worship feel like you are actually together with your friends and family. I haven’t been able to figure out how to perfectly support the police officers I love and trust while at the same time calling for more accountability to protect our black citizens from the harm being done to them. I haven’t been able to design a perfectly safe plan for our kids and teachers to go back to school this fall. And I haven’t found the exact right argument that will get everyone to see that this pandemic and the things we can do to help fight it, like wearing masks, are not a political fight! I sure don’t feel like a conqueror, right now! I feel more like a failure. Who’s with me?

By saying that we are conquerors over hardship, distress, persecution, peril, and sword, Paul is not saying that our power wins against these powers. Remember, when it comes to sin power versus our will power, sin wins! Paul knows the kind of powers of sin, death, and evil that we are up against, and just how powerful they are! What Paul is reminding us is that these are the very powers Jesus battled against in his life, ministry, and death. On the cross, God through Jesus looked sin and evil and death straight in the face and declared that these things would no longer separate God’s people from God’s love. 

Through the power of resurrection, Jesus won our victory over death, over evil, over sin once and for all. By the cross, we have become conquerors. Nothing will ever separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus!

Not the sword of the tongue, the thoughtless speech of gossip that hurts like a swift stab to our hearts.

Not the peril of sexism, when women are physically assaulted or verbally abused, called nasty names by loved ones, colleagues, strangers.

Not the persecution of racism or bigotry.

Not the distress of being separated from one another as we wait for deliverance from the coronavirus.

Not even the hardship of facing our worst enemy—our self—and the lies that we tell ourselves that convince us that we are not worthy of love and that we’ll never truly experience or know God’s love.

No, it’s over these things and more that Paul says “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Through the love of Christ, we will never be separated from God, despite the way we feel or how the world might try to convince us otherwise. If God is for us, who can be against us?

Prayer is one of the faith practices that helps us feel this inseparable connection to God. It’s like a carabiner. Many times, you will see carabiners on rope course or zip lines or rock climbing, keeping people hooked into safety. Or campers and hikers will use carabiners to keep up with something they don’t want to lose, like a water bottle. The carabiner keeps the important item from being separated, from being lost.

Prayer is the carabiner that keeps us plugged in to God’s unending love. Too often, we separate ourselves from prayer because we aren’t sure we are doing it right or we feel self-conscious when we try. But a life of prayer, a life plugged into God’s love for us, is so much more than of grace you say before you eat a meal. Prayer is so much more than bowing your head and closing your eyes and folding your hands. Prayer is so much more than giving God 15 minutes of your time each day spent in quiet. Even though all of these things are important to prayer, they in and of themselves are not what it takes to live a life of prayer.

A life of prayer is just that…it’s life. All of life! To be praying constantly as the Scriptures teach us doesn’t mean we are mumbling prayer words under our breath all the time. It looks more like offering the jumble of feelings, worries, and doubts of our inner thoughts to God throughout the day and blessing them with an “Amen.”

A life of prayer is living in constant awareness of the presence of God in all things, the presence of God seeking to work all things in our lives together for good. To live life as a prayer is to invite the presence of God into your everyday moments, to clip it like a carabiner to your heart. A life of prayer trusts the presence of God will find us through the Spirit even when we forget to kneel and pray. Because nothing,

not death, not life,

not angels, not rulers,

not present things, not future things,

not powers, not height, not depth,

not coronavirus,

not the stories we tell ourselves about our unworthiness,

not our worries, not our doubts,

not our prayer lives or lack thereof,

not a single thing will be able to separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Thanks be to God! Amen.

Creation Waits: The Obligation of Freedom

A Sermon Inspired by Romans 8:12-25

Sermon 2 in “Nothing Shall Separate Us” Sermon Series

About a year ago, the new album “Own It” by Christian singer Francesca Battistelli starting making it into my regularly repeated music playlists while I would drive to different meetings or drive to visit church members at their homes or in the hospital. I would sing about breaking up with fear and choosing courage in faith. I would sing that God’s love is as good as it gets in life, so I would choose to trust Him even in the storms of life. But, there was this one song that even as I sang along made me wonder really about the nature of our life as children of God. The song is called “Royalty,” and, as I prayed over this morning’s Scripture and my sermon, this song came to mind once again. 

Read these lyrics:

“No longer orphans, now sons and daughters

Worthy and wanted, we belong

We are, we are, we are 

Crowned in dignity

We are, we are, we are 

Heirs to majesty

We’re made for victory

We’re given authority

To reign like kings and queens

We’re royalty”

Even though I love the intention behind Francesca’s words, there was just something that didn’t quite sit right with me about the royalty language. I mean, history is full of examples of kings and queens who misused their power and abused the responsibility entrusted to them for their own pleasure or personal gain. When told that her French subjects had no bread to eat, Queen Marie Antoinette responded callously, “Let them eat cake,” and the French revolution and uprising against the monarchy was sparked. King Henry VIII of England changed the religion of his whole country so that he could divorce his first wife to marry another woman. Even King Herod of Israel, in a desperate attempt to hold onto his power, ordered that thousands of Jewish infants and toddlers be slaughtered so that he might kill the baby who had been born to grow up and be the King of the Jews. Certainly, we aren’t made to be kings and queens of God who live like that. Our adoption as God’s children and our freedom in Christ must be for something different!

Paul writes that we are God’s heirs, along with Christ, so that we will suffer and be glorified just as Christ suffered and was glorified. I think we get into trouble when we want to skip past the suffer part and get straight to the glory part, straight to being kings and queens in God’s kingdom without learning how to be suffering servants like Christ. But, of course, it’s natural to want to skip past suffering. But that’s just not the life of discipleship. That’s not life in the Spirit of God. 

As we read about our new found freedom in Christ and our promised inheritance as the children of God, we would do good to remember the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of the one in whose suffering and glory we share.

Jesus was born to an unwed teenage mother. I imagine, as he grew up in Nazareth, there where whispers all around as he walked in the marketplace, “You see Jesus…he’s Mary son. No one know who his real father is, but it sure isn’t Joseph.”

Because of King Herod’s murderous plot, Jesus’ family was forced to flee and seek refuge in Egypt for several years until it was safe to come back to their homeland.

At his baptism, Jesus was proclaimed to be God’s son, yet he was immediately driven by the Spirit of God into the desert to fast and pray for forty days and be tempted by Satan.

The same Jesus who was marked as God’s son by the Spirit at baptism cried out “Abba, Father” in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying for deliverance from the pain and death he was about to experience.

As he died on the cross, a centurion, the Roman solider carrying out the state-sanctioned execution, looked at the suffering Christ and remarked, “Surely, this man was God’s son!”

And, proving his faithfulness endures forever, God raised Jesus from the dead through the power of a father’s love for his son.

As the adopted children of God, we are called to see Jesus whenever and wherever there are suffering people in this world.

We see Jesus in the face of teenage mothers.

We see Jesus in the weary eyes of refugees fleeing their war-torn homes to seek safety in our country only to be separated from their children and locked in cages.

We see Jesus in the bone-tiredness of those living in wilderness moments of life, when all they need is a little food and water and help.

We see Jesus in those who feel like there is no hope left in life and who wonder if the only way out of their suffering is to end it all.

We see Jesus in our brothers and sisters in prison, especially those who the state has condemned to die, including the three men executed by the federal government in the past seven days.

In Daniel, who maintained his innocence and wrongful conviction even up to the last moment before his execution by lethal injection and whose family was not allowed to be present with him as he died.

In Wesley, who was 68-years old, severely brain-damaged and mentally ill, suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

In Dustin, who converted to Christianity during his time in prison, who recognized and repented for the crimes he committed, who was seeking to live a redeemed life through Christ in prison caring with kindness for guards and fellow inmates.

We so often want to skip past the ugliness of suffering and get straight to the resurrection and glory parts of our inheritance as God’s children. But, if we follow a Savior who overcame sin and pain and death, we can’t look past the sin and pain and death happening in the world around us. We can’t look past even the sin and pain and death we find in us.

Last week, we talked about the power of sin in our lives. That sometimes, even when we want to do the right thing, we just can’t seem to do it. We discovered that the antidote for our sin-soaked lives is the rain of God’s grace, the floodwaters of baptism that drown out the power of sin. By the Spirit at work in our lives and the grace of Jesus Christ, we can actually be set free from sin to live as disciples of Jesus. Paul calls this our glorious freedom as the children of God.

Freedom is a concept I think we struggle understanding as Christians, especially as Christians living in America. We claim freedom for all sorts of things. The Bill of Rights names freedoms that should be protected for citizens of the US—the freedom to speak our minds, the freedom to practice the religious of our choice, the freedom to bear arms, the freedom to own property, the freedom to vote. These can all be good freedoms, and I believe they are rightly protected as essential freedoms in our nation.

But these are not the sorts of freedoms Paul has in mind when he writes about the glorious freedom of the children of God. Let’s go back to where we started reading this morning, at verse 12: “So then, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation.” Obligation is not the word that comes to my mind when I imagine freedom, at least not in the ways we talk about freedom as Americans.

So often, when we talk about freedom in the US, it’s usually a freedom based on our own personal desire – “I’m free to do as I please.” Or it’s an excuse for our decisions and actions – “Hey! It’s a free country, right?”

But, when it comes to freedom in Christ, Paul is making a different argument. Through the forgiveness we have received by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, we are free to choose to live lives shaped by obedience to the Spirit of God, just as Jesus did. In fact, we are free to choose suffering, to give up our American concept of freedom as self-determination, and for the glory of God to make choices that benefit our neighbor, rather than to fulfill our selfish desires.

Friends, if the posts I have seen on social media in the past three months truly reflect the hearts and minds of Tennesseans, then we are in trouble! I’ve read all sorts of posts that talk about personal freedom during this pandemic…the freedom to NOT wear a mask, the freedom to gather for worship even if it isn’t safe, the freedom to do as you please because “Hey, it’s a free country!”

That may be true, but you, child of God, you have been adopted by the Spirit into a different type of freedom.

You have been adopted into a freedom that puts on a mask whenever you step into public places and remembers these words of Scripture: “But in humility, consider others as more important than yourselves.” (Philippians 2:3)

You have been adopted into a freedom that honors another person’s worry or fear that causes them to not come to in-person worship and treats them with love rather than contempt because you remember these words from Scripture: “Watch out or else this freedom of yours might be a problem for those who are weak.” (1^st Corinthians 8:9)

You have been adopted into a freedom that chooses to stay home and to follow whatever other measures public health officials and medical experts recommend to slow the spread of this novel coronavirus as you remember these words of Scripture: “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5:14).

Y’all, when we refuse to make these sacrifices to help end this pandemic, our human sin and selfishness is on display for the world to see. The CDC director Robert Redfield said just this past week that if everyone in the US wore a mask, the coronavirus pandemic could be under control within four to eight weeks. 

Church, if we want to show the world our love for God and our love for neighbor, THE TIME IS NOW! We need to embrace these sacrifices and lead by example. I’m already proud to share that members of our return task team have set us up for success in returning to church under the safest circumstances possible. And members of our church have shared with me that our neighbors are noticing, and some plan to visit our worship service when they feel comfortable because of how seriously and thoughtfully we are handling the pandemic. Wow! This is how we love our neighbors.

I’m proud that we, as a church, are taking on a huge endeavor to support our teachers and our students by donating cleaning supplies and school supplies, to save teachers a little of what they would spend out of their own pockets to buy what the school and some families can’t afford to provide. What a witness to show our commitment to 

build the kingdom of God in our community!

By the Spirit of Christ living in us, we are free to choose to live cross-shaped lives.

A cross-shaped life chooses good for the sake of the other rather than for the sake of the self.

A cross-shaped life lay down its own freedom in order to offer freely the good news of the Gospel.

A cross-shaped life remembers that the coming glory of God’s kingdom will outshine the present suffering of our lives and creation so we can endure with hope and we can wait with patience.

Even creation is waiting for us, children of God, to usher in God’s kingdom through our cross-shaped living.

This is the hope of our inheritance, friends: the God who was faithful to raise Christ to life again after he was obedient to death by the cross, that same God will be faithful to us and will glorify us.

So may we use our freedom in Christ to submit ourselves to obedience in the Spirit and choose to live a cross-shaped life full of the love for God and for neighbor.

May it be so, and may it be soon.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 

Amen.