The Rev. Canon Jan Naylor Cope: Embodying the Love of God That Surpasses All Understanding
In the name of the living God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
For I am convinced that 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. Those words of Paul are among the most familiar and favorite in all of scripture, and why not? Essentially, the message is that nothing, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. I don’t know about you, but in these days, looking across the landscape of our country and around the globe, that’s great Good News to my ears. We often hear this scripture at funerals, which is also understandable. We want to be reassured that in our dying and at death that God is with us. Part of what I’d like to reflect on with you this morning is that this message is not just great Good News in our dying, but great Good News and empowerment in our living.
When Paul wrote his letter to the Romans, he did so to a church he had never visited. The people didn’t know him, and he didn’t know them. It’s his longest letter and an introduction. He’s introducing himself. He is lifting up for them some of the lessons learned over twenty-plus years of ministry where he had been planting churches and teaching and preaching and coaching and cajoling and guiding and directing. So, he offers his understandings to this community that he hopes to visit. Essentially, he’s saying to them that nothing can separate us. No power can separate us from Christ or defeat God’s purpose for us. You see, in the first century, people believed that the world was dominated by cosmic forces and powers and Paul is saying, no, nothing is greater than God’s love. Period.
Do you believe this? Have you experienced this love in your own lives? I think part of the message for us is not just believing it but embodying it, because that’s where transformation happens—when it becomes not just something we’ve studied and believe, but something that we embody and take action on. Robert Jewett puts it this way, “Paul’s conviction is that the grace of God holds persons in adversity firmly in the hollow of God’s hand. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. The gospel of Christ reveals that God’s love stands behind us even in the worst of circumstances.”
Sometimes we experience embodiment of that reality on a very personal level, one-on-one, if you will. Speaking from my own experience, twenty-plus years ago, I was receiving treatment for breast cancer. It was my practice when I was receiving radiation to alternate my prayers between the Lord’s Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm. I think it was during the first week or so, as I was praying, miraculously that peace of God that surpasses all understanding enveloped me. I was being held in the hollow of God’s hands. I experienced for myself while I prayed, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” I was in that valley, and I knew without a doubt that God was with me. That peace that overcame me and that reality changed my life, in that moment. I knew that no matter what happened to me, whether I lived or not, that God was with me, and it would be okay. Further, I knew that God would be with my family and my friends who loved me, and they too would be okay. I moved from belief to embodiment, and I’m convinced that had that not happened, I wouldn’t be a priest today. It changed everything for me.
Sometimes we have the opportunity as a community of faith to embody that love that changes things for another group of people. David Bartlett explains it this way: “the Christian life for Paul is not the life of conquest, but of loving compassion. Those who are more than conquerors are those who refuse to conquer. Those who refuse to seek victory are victorious. Those who do not glory in their own accomplishments can boast in the glory of the Lord, which will finally include the faithful, too.” Again, some twenty-plus years ago, this cathedral community reached out in a way that embodied such love and compassion. We founded a program that we are going to celebrate today: the Cathedral Scholars, a program whereby exceptional students are recruited and selected to participate throughout their high school years. It’s essentially a college prep and a leadership training program.
These students, many of whom are with us this morning, right in the front, give up their summer vacations to come and to learn and to study and to grow so they can realize their dreams as we help to mold the next generation of leaders. Shortly after this sermon, we are going to commission some of the scholars who will leave in about a week to go on a mission trip to Puerto Rico. Throughout the program’s history, these students have achieved a record of one hundred percent matriculation—graduating from high school and being accepted into post-secondary schools. You guys are awesome and we’re so proud of you, so proud of you!
Sometimes as a community of faith, we embody love and compassion, for one person at a time, for someone in our community or within our context, who needs to know about that love of Christ that surpasses all understanding. In his book, Face-to-Face: Meeting Christ in Friend and Stranger, Sam Wells tells the story of one such person from the very first church where he was appointed. There was a young boy, eleven years old, who started to come to the church at the recommendation of a middle school teacher. God bless the teachers. This young boy was troubled to say the least. He didn’t mix or fit in very well. He ate all the cookies after worship. He was difficult to get along with. He had a troubled home life. Nevertheless, he stuck with it. So did the community of faith.
After about three months, the church was going to have their annual parish weekend away, and scholarship funds came together to ensure that the eleven-year-old boy could go too. Well, his not getting along and mixing just got worse on that weekend. He was rude. He was bullying the younger kids. He was grabbing food, and it was enough of a problem that the leaders of the weekend had to have a powwow and decide what to do about this boy who was so disruptive. The teacher explained that he was being raised solely by a young and temperamental father. His home life was chaos, in other words. The teacher explained he was just looking for some security, a place that’s safe. So, patience prevailed; accommodations were made; and he started to get his footing. Nine months later, the young boy was baptized. His family didn’t come—not his father, not his mother and brother who lived across town—but his church family did. Forty members strong were there, and after his baptism, each was asked to say something about their community of faith that meant the most to them. When his turn came, he said, “You didn’t throw me out after that weekend.” Baptism. Sam Wells, in that moment, realized: “It said everything about baptism: new community, new story, new beginning; abiding, patient, enduring, long-suffering love.”
Fast forward 23 years, and Sam writes about receiving an email out of the blue—a long email. It began with “I’m that boy from that weekend.” He knew immediately who it was from. In the email he read about what had happened to this eleven-year-old in the ensuing years. His life had had its ups and downs. His father kicked him out of the house a few times. His father had died prematurely from alcoholism. He’d had some jobs that went so-so sometimes. But he had forgiven where he needed to forgive and reconciled where he needed to reconcile. Now, he was happy to report to Sam that he had a partner, and he was helping to raise her two children. Furthermore, he had a job in a bank where he was helping people trying to get a loan and grappling with debt reduction, something that he knew only too well.
Sam realized that not too far in the future, he was going to be traveling very near where this now young adult man lived. So, they made a date to get together. When they met, the young man had a backpack, and Sam asked him why he had brought it along. He replied, I have something I want to show you. Then he carefully and lovingly took a scrapbook out of the backpack. It was clear to Sam—by the writing and the way it was put together—that it was from his childhood. Sam started to focus on a baby picture and the family tree, but the young man quickly moved to the middle of the book and pointed. To Sam’s amazement, he saw a letter in his wife’s own handwriting. He looked at the letter, and then remembered that 23 years earlier, he and his wife had been out to dinner, and members of the Liverpool soccer team came in. They knew that this young boy loved that Liverpool soccer team. So, they got some autographs, and his wife had written him a letter saying, we just thought you would enjoy having these.
Sam was blown away. He writes, “Out of the ruins and rubble of his neglected and deprived childhood, here he held this precious document like an epistle of hope from the caverns of exile.” This young man had experienced firsthand the embodiment of that love that surpasses all understanding from that community of faith who had touched and transformed him. Sam writes that he wished he had had the wherewithal and the composure at the time to say the following: “I gave you some autographs. But you—you showed me forgiveness and resurrection, in short, the gospel. How can I ever thank you?”
Brothers and sisters, Paul’s message is clear: nothing—nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. And that makes all the difference. No power can separate us from Christ or defeat God’s purpose for us. So, on this day, I invite you once again to move from believing, to embodying, and to go out from this place to a hurting and suffering world, to touch and transform lives. Just as you and I have been touched and transformed. Let it be so for you and for me. Amen.