SCRIPTURE: Romans 5:1-11
TEXT: 11But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. THEME: How we are able to navigate through suffering can help others with compassion and understanding. INTRODUCTION During the Pandemic, we had to figure out what it meant to be the church without contact. We modified our service with the essentials of worship online. We visited with each other through texted, emailed and Zoom. We put our prayers in text messages that trespassed the boundaries of isolation, hospital rules, quarantine and reached out to the shut ins. We were denied the usual and found time to do other things. Now that the pandemic is being managed, some of these new habits, that we have formed are hard to give up. Even though it has been only two years, we are finding that it is impossible go back to live exactly as we did before the pandemic. In the same way, we think about the essentials of the church. The church is a source of comfort for our faith. The church is it a community that helps us to live our relationship with God faithfully within our families and in the community. The church nurtures our faith, that so that we can take our relationship with God into their world and the future. Being the church has an edge to it that moves us beyond what we want, and towards what others need. Sometimes suffering is a part of what it means to the church and to live by God’s ways. SCRIPTURE There are two parts to this passage in Romans. The first part is about Christ and how peace with God opens up glorious possibilities in how we choose to live. While the second part describes the boundless dynamics of God’s love through Jesus. Our words are inadequate to describe God’s love for us. We want to add value to what God does with the forgiveness of our hurtful behavior but we use financial words like, price, justification, reconciliation, righteousness, and sacrifice to describe the work of God. These are all code, for God’s love, that forgives us and heals our relationship with God. Previously the Apostle Paul used the story of Adam and Eve to highlight God’s grace and forgiveness. He also recalled the story of Abraham and Sara to highlight how faith begins our relationship with God and holds us through our times of belief, doubt and promise. Today we see Jesus the Christ and how love holds us in relationship with God and others. There are times of love and hate, suffering and compassion that develop character in our living. APPLICATION How does what we learn during our sufferings, enable us to be compassionate with others? The Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh, revered Zen master, teacher, and poet, died on January 22, 2022, in his native Vietnam. Thich Nhat Hanh said, “If you continue with concentration and insight, you’ll be able to transform the suffering inside and help transform the suffering around you. And that is a miracle, because you understand the nature of the suffering, you know that role of suffering that suffering plays in life, and you are not trying to run away from suffering anymore, and you know how to make use of suffering in order to build peace and happiness.” This is what Paul was describing, as suffering produces endurance, and endurance character, and character hope and hope reveals God’s love that has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” Thich Nhat Hanh continues by saying, “Without suffering, we have no ways in order to learn how to be understanding and compassionate.” Krista Tippets’ On Being interview with Zen master Thich That Hang revealed this view, of the Kingdom of God. “The Kingdom of God is not a place where suffering is not; where there is no suffering…because in such a place there is no way to learn how to be understanding and compassionate. And the Kingdom of God is a place where there is understanding and compassion; and therefore, suffering should exist.” Regent College has podcasts on their webpage for Life Long Learners. On a Podcast about the influence of Christianity in the 21st Century, they also talked about its influence in the ancient world. When people were fleeing the cities to escape the plague, some Christians made an impact, by staying behind to care for the people left behind. They showed generosity and love towards all. Even to those beyond their own. God helps us when we suffer, so we can be compassionate and understanding with others who are suffering and bring the help of God to them. This shows love and brings peace. We have learned that God listens to us and answers our prayers. We have learned that when we help others, there are others who come to our aide. We have learned that things don’t always go according to our timing and we can be productive during those times of waiting. We have learned to doing some other things instead of worrying. We have learned that when we try to understand what is going on, that sometimes it makes it easier for us to be forgiving. We have learned that we can get by with far less that what we think we need, and have the ability to be more generous with what we have, when we decide to be stewards of God’s good gifts. We have learned about how God forgives us because of love, so we can forgive others, even when they hurt us, just because we love them. How God has helped us through our suffering, gives us the ability to be understanding and compassionate, as agents of happiness and peace. CONCLUSION The last line of this passage can be paraphrased, “It is God, through Jesus that we can receive a loving relationship with God”. This does not lock us in to living only one way, but opens up the possibilities, of many expressions, from all kind of people, who make up the People of God, living in loving ways with God and with each other. Our faith is real by the character of how we live our relationship with God and our relationships with our neighbors. The suffering we have gone through during the worst of the pandemic, has helped us to reset towards what is important and essential. It gave us permission to change from the usual and into somethings that were different. We will use this to build upon as we move forward as a church and a people of God.
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