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When you ask preachers about Romans, most will tell you that they either love preaching and teaching from it or they don’t. It’s not because of the text itself not being meaningful - but the opposite, the text is so rich that it is hard to break down in our limited time together in worship.
So as I’ve been sitting with this weeks text, praying about how to make it connect to our hearts and lives today - all of a sudden it hit me, that Paul is speaking about God’s love letter to us. The love letter that was shared with you and with me, through the gift of Jesus Christ.
Paul was a Jewish scholar with a Jewish upbringing. He knew all about the law. He had it memorized, because the law was seen to be a sign of God’s covenantal love with his chosen people. Think back to the Hebrew Scriptures and the book of Exodus. How did Exodus start out? With God hearing the cry of his people and then ultimately sending Moses to declare that God’s people were to be set free. God showed his might to the people through the plagues, the last of which paved the way for the Children of Israel’s freedom - as they left Egypt and headed for the promised land. And along the way, what were they given? The Ten Commandments, which were to mark how they were to live differently as the people of God.
So the law was this precious signpost pointing to the love of God that brought the Israelites to freedom in the promised land. Only along the way, some folks started to forget the ‘why?’ Behind the law and focused solely on upholding the law itself. But in doing so they missed the point. They missed the heart behind what they were trying to follow and who it was to be pointing them towards.
Here in Romans, Paul is saying that folks aren’t justified by the law. They aren’t renewed or brought into right relationship with God by the law itself. No. They are justified by faith.
Faith not in the law. Trust not in the law. Confidence not in the law. But in the law giver. That is who they boast in. The one in whom their hope is rooted.
The problem is that the law is easier to understand than faith. You either follow the law or you don’t. It is clear. Or at least clear-er than faith which is based on what we cannot see or fully grasp, this side of eternity.
How do we know that? Because in this text Paul needs to talk to believers about suffering. Folks back in this day and time would have interpreted suffering as a sign of God’s displeasure - a punishment that they deserved.
So folks who knew that they were growing closer to God were left wondering why in the world they were suffering. What exactly were they being punished for? Paul’s reply? We need to set aside the old way of understanding suffering and see even it, going through the darkest of valleys, to be an opportunity to glorify God.
What does that look like? Well, may friends, it’s easier to say what it doesn’t look like. Paul isn’t talking about believers pretending that everything is fine in the midst of their suffering. Nor is he saying to plaster on a smiling face no matter how much it hurts. No. He is talking about going deeper. More true. More authentic. To a place where we see how our suffering is shaping us, even when we would rather be going through anything else.
While for us, and the Romans, it can be shocking to realize that faith does not protect us from experiencing suffering, we can still stand firm on the love of God, even in the midst of our suffering. For God does not abandon us, rather walks with us. Even when it is hard. And how do we know this? Because Christ loved us enough when we were still far from him to give his life for ours as an act of love.
When Paul is talking about being justified by faith, friends, this is what it rests upon. Relationships. Which is what the law can’t do. The law can’t force us into relationships. It can certainly put a thin veneer over our actions, but it cannot make us love God or love our neighbor from the deepest part of our being.
The law, when put into our fragile human heats and hands, asks us to be perfect. But God knows that you and I are incapable of perfection, dear ones. I don’t know if you’ve ever had someone tell you that - you cannot be perfect on your own. We are made perfect by the love of our Savior.
When we make it about trying to achieve perfection, well that’s all about us. What we can earn. How well we do. And it can leave us feeling isolated in our striving. That isn’t what Christ died to show us. While Christ was perfect, he died to show us what love looks like. Love that is self-giving. Love that is healing. Love that calls us to wholeness.
That is the nature of divine love.
Not the law.
Not perfection.
Not what we can achieve or earn.
When we make salvation about what it is not -we confuse people. First and foremost, we confuse ourselves. But the we carry that confusion to others. Hear me clearly, Church. You do not need to be perfect to be claimed and covered by divine love. You do not need to have it all together to be loved by God. Because our relationships with God is not about our efforts. It’s about God’s loving action for us.
Which spills out into our relationships with other people. Because all of our relationships are sustained by God’s grace. And our relationship with God effects how we show up in relationships with other people.
I am fully aware that today is a day where we celebrate relationships. And in so many ways this may not sound like your standard Mother’s Day sermon. And yet, it is. Because whatever this day holds for you - joy, tears, good memories or trying one - God is with you. God is the one calling your first and foremost to relationship with him, in a way that transforms your relationships with others. It’s not about striving for perfection - its about allowing ourselves to be loved by God so that we can love others.
I want to end today by asking you to close your eyes and come to God asking if you are allowing yourself to be covered in his love. That’s just between you and our Lord. Ask God for what you need to be set free from your striving in order to just be. To be loved by God. Amen.
