Romans 8:12-25
July 17, 2011
In my experience, this is a faithful group of people – this congregation. You all ask yourselves regularly in your daily life what the faithful thing to do is. Should I drive someone to the hospital, should I take food to a family in grief, should I organize or help with a rummage sale to benefit mission, should I give of my resources to support the ministries of the church. And you all do this not just as it relates to the church. Should I be compassionate to this person most have rejected, should I seek to simplify my life, should I lessen my environmental footprint, should I love someone even when it’s hard, should I care for someone in my family as they age. I have the privilege of watching you all make faithful choices all the time.
But we probably have to admit that there are always ways we could do better. Being faithful means continuing to be changed by God throughout our lives, working to conform more and more what we do to what we believe. Faith is, in part, about change. I’m sure each of us could name at least one example of something we want to change because we believe it is the faithful thing to do. Personally, I can name many.
So, for the past few weeks, we’ve been talking about change. Specifically, we’ve been talking about how hard it can be to change things about our life – even when we have decided we need to.
What we’ve been finding is that the path to change often lies in the opposite direction of how we usually go about things. It’s counter-intuitive. To start with, we usually begin the process of changing by beating up on ourselves for not changing. “Kirsten, why have you not changed when you know it would be better…when you want to do it…why don’t you just do it? You are lazy; you are weak; you are pathetic.” At least that’s the conversation that sometimes goes on inside my head. It’s as if I believe that if I get mad enough at myself for something, that will motivate me to change.
Paul suggests that is a particularly unhelpful place to start. It does not free us up to change, it binds us even more to what we do that we don’t like. Guilt and shame are the anti-motivators. The only place to start, Paul says, is with God’s grace.
How do we experience this grace, though? By realizing what keeps us from changing. Our biology is such that change is in fact hard – physiologically hard. Habits are habits for a reason – and not because we are lazy or pathetic. Our brains form pathways – roads down which we travel – when we act a certain way. And what happens is those roads eventually become the only road our brain will take. It’s as if there’s a giant magnet at the other end that pulls us down the same path even when we try to switch course.
This is how the brain works. And it does this all without us knowing it, consciously. Thinking about changing – wanting it – telling ourselves to do it – that all happens in the conscious part of the brain and, frustratingly, has relatively little effect on the subconscious. Grace comes when we let ourselves off the hook. When we realize that in a certain way we are powerless over these things. We’re not lazy or weak or pathetic. We’re human.
So even though we often try to start the process of change with a heavy dose of self loathing, both science and Paul tell us to start with self acceptance – with Grace. In the same way, we often begin the process of trying to change with ourselves … yet again the path to change lies in the opposite direction. We think it is completely up to us – we are responsible for our own actions – pull yourselves up by the bootstraps. Yet again science and Paul tell us the way to change is to look outside ourselves. The path lies in looking to others – specifically in being in loving, healthy relationships. Love, scientists find, does have the ability to change our neural pathways even when we can’t. Our culture values self reliance, but our brain prefers dependence on others if it is going to make new roads for us to travel down.
And so it all sounds so nice, so simple. The formula for change: Love one another. Sermon series over, right?
The passage this morning is Paul’s way of saying, “well…it’s not so simple.” We all know that sometimes we can love someone as much as we want, and they can still suffer. Sometimes people can love us, and yet we still don’t change. We see this all the time in families where the child gets tons of love and nurturing, but still grows up and suffers from all manner of things. Like I said last week, we are a mix of nurture and nature – a very mysterious mix.
I can relate to this personally, as I’m sure many of you can as well. The love of our parents when we are children is not enough to ward off all suffering as adults. It does not inoculate us from engaging in unhealthy behaviors that we can’t seem to change. I have good, loving parents, and my life has not been all picnics and roses. And I’m sure, no matter how much I love Lydia, she will suffer in some way as an adult. This is really for two reasons. First, none of us loves perfectly. I’m doing things probably every day that aren’t perfectly loving in a healthy way. I love Lydia deeply, but I make mistakes and sometimes those mistakes have consequences.
But even good, healthy love seems to have its limitations. Some things are truly outside our control. We can be born with a brain already wired a certain way, and it can be impervious to love. Some people are born with a predilection to addiction, depression, or aggression. Even if that person is surrounded by love, the brain chemistry just won’t change. Other interventions – like medication – are required. Yet that’s no silver bullet. There is not a perfect medication for every affliction.
Paul calls this reality suffering. And he realizes it’s suffering on two levels. First, obviously, is the suffering we feel when we, ourselves, are stuck in destructive patterns and no amount of outside intervention is helping. “The whole creation is groaning in labor pains,” writes Paul. We groan in pain. We are addicted to something, and we just can’t kick the habit. We keep hurting those we love, even when we desire the opposite. We behave in ways that are self-destructive and defeating. We are controlled by a mental illness that we can’t change on our own. If this has ever been true for you – you know that groaning. You know that pain and suffering. You know the darkness that comes from this.
But there is a second kind of suffering as well – a suffering I encounter often. We suffer when we love someone who is stuck groaning in pain. Paul says, “And not only creation but we ourselves [suffer], while we wait.” People are groaning – and we can feel their pain. Maybe it is our child, maybe it is our spouse or partner, maybe it is a parent or beloved friend. To not be able to help when a loved one is suffering is to experience suffering as well. Paul says we suffer “while we wait.” While we wait for things to change, while we watch someone on a downward spiral, while violence persists, while someone stays in an abusive relationship, while we wait. No matter what we do, no matter what others do, sometimes change is out of reach. Love just isn’t enough. Many of you have experienced such things, I know. And it is excruciating.
And it’s hard not to ask yourself the question at some point: If love has limitations, are some situations hopeless?
Definitely not, according to Paul. Paul’s hope is in the community of people who come together to create a space that offers new life – new life to those who come together and new life that can draw people in. As I said last week, Paul believed the church, when gathered in love, when engaged in spiritual disciplines, when practicing what they preach, can become a new reality right in the midst of the old one. It becomes a place driven by the divine imprint we all have in us. God’s love is alive, accessible, transforming. It changes us and any who walk through our doors. This is the community Paul yearned for.
Now, we have to be clear: He didn’t mean we withdraw and create our own little world apart from the rest. The new reality a community can create is not only for the sake of the members – it is for the sake of the world. If we are a part of a community that brings new life to us, we can take that to others. If we create a space and a place that is an alternative to the destructive patterns of the world, we have something to offer those who are most hurting because of those patterns. And sometimes, we simply become a haven for those who can’t change, who continue to hurt themselves and others, but who we love nonetheless.
I know many people who suffer because they have family members or close friends, who they love deeply, that are “groaning in pain.” They are forced to watch while their loved one hurts themselves and others through destructive behaviors. And no matter how hard they try, they can’t fix the situation. What Paul knows is that both are in need of a community that is a new reality. The person who suffers “while they wait” for their loved one to change is just as in need of transformation and new life as the one who can’t change.
You don’t stop trying to help someone you love – as many of you know, you can’t help but try. But you can’t lose your life in the process. If you suffer with them without finding your own support, without letting people in to walk the journey with you, the price is much too high. Your soul suffers, your spirit withers, your heart begins to deaden. While you wait, while you suffer, find people who will share your suffering and bring you new life in the midst of the old. Maybe this is people with similar experiences. Maybe it’s a trusted friend. Maybe it’s a therapist. Find someone to love you as you seek to love others. This benefits not just you, but your loved one as well. If you have been dragged down, if you are not sustained in love, it’s harder to hold out the possibility of new life for someone else.
No one is beyond hope. Even in a world of suffering, we can build loving communities that bring some transformation. And those communities – that new reality – never close their doors. They are always inviting.
We know, much to our dismay, there are people who don’t ever change. We know people die from addiction or suicide, for example. But the hope means we never give up. No one is beyond hope. We might have to wait, and it may never happen, but we hold out hope anyway because it is that kind of hope that keeps the new reality going. It’s that hope that ensures we, as a community, are here, ready, inviting, waiting when someone walks into our lives who is in need of a new life. It’s that kind of hope that is contagious. And it is that kind of hope that sustains us when we are suffering because we can’t always make things better.
Love is powerful – our love for others is powerful, but we have to look beyond our own, individual capacities to love for our hope when things seem beyond our reach. Paul knew he could have hope because God’s love has no limits. We need each other, we need to come together as a community to help one another tap into that divine love. We need to create a space, a place, that reveals as best we can divine love to others. It won’t completely change the world – it won’t fix every problem – but it will be a haven of hope for us and for anyone touched by God’s love. Amen.
