“We know that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.”
Today’s suggested reading from the eighth chapter of Romans contains one of the most comforting claims in all of Scripture – the claim that regardless of what happens to us in our mortal existence, even the most distressing and difficult experiences, everything is still subject to the sovereignty of a God who loves us and is able to draw all things together for good.
This is a comforting thought.
After all, every one of us have had times in our lives when we have doubted that things will turn around, that they will work out for the best, that there is any reason for hope left. In our times of grief, our times of uncertainty, our times of pain, our times of anxiety, our times of stress – we look at the circumstances in which we find ourselves, and question whether there is any reason to look toward the future with anything but dread. And then we hear this claim, this promise from the eighth chapter of Romans, assuring us that our lives are held in the hands of a God who has the power to transform and redeem even the most difficult experiences of life into opportunities to remind us that there is nothing that can happen to us that will ever have the power to separate us from God’s love. There is great comfort in these words.
And yet, what is important to realize is that these words also – simultaneously – contain one of the Bible’s most challenging, difficult and daring claims.
And it is daring, and challenging, and difficult precisely because we need to be careful when we cling to this promise, or how we embrace it. To casually and blithely mouth the words of this promise, in the midst of difficult times, can be a tremendously insensitive and careless thing to do.
A friend comes to us in the midst of some incredibly challenging situation, and we think it helpful – or perhaps even faithful – to try to allay their concerns by quoting this verse at them.
“You’re having a difficult time? Well, don’t worry, all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to God’s purposes.”
“You’re lost in a haze of loss and grief? Well, hang in there…all things work together for good.”
“You feel overwhelmed, brutalized, afraid, exhausted, worried? Shrug it off…all things work together for good.”
Such casual dismissals of the real and often soul-crushing challenges that people actually experience, by resorting to easy platitudes, can undermine the very comfort and encouragement that we intend to offer.
Which means that there is a tremendous challenge that rests at the heart of this comforting vision. Yes, we are invited to trust and to believe that all things work together for good; but it is a claim that needs to be treated carefully, they are words that need to be spoken with great sensitivity, and they cannot be words that are used to excuse us from the more difficult task of walking – with courage, with strength, with sensitivity – alongside those who are going through the trials of life.
Because the trials of life are precisely what this section of Paul’s letter to the Romans is all about. Over the past few weeks, the lectionary has invited us to read consecutive portions from Paul’s letter to the Romans – and particularly passages from Romans chapters 7 and 8.
A few weeks ago, we read of Paul’s wrestling with the nature of his own human frailties and weaknesses, in which he acknowledged that he fully realized that the good that he intended to do was often not done; that the wrong that he sought to avoid was often embraced, and that there seemed to be no real power, within himself, to consistently do the right, avoid the wrong, and live with anything approaching moral integrity.
We then read of Paul’s acknowledgement that the suffering of life was real – even for those who lived in the Spirit and had embraced their new identity as children of God. The suffering was so real, in fact, that he compared life to the act of childbirth, in which all of creation groaned in labour pains. But even in spite of those groanings and sufferings, he called his readers to endure, to persevere in hope.
And in the latter part of today’s reading, he cited some of life’s great difficulties. Hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, danger.
And those difficulties were not just going to be experienced by bad, or deserving people. Paul’s words attest to his awareness – much of it from his own lived experience – that even the most faithful life will be marked by times of great adversity.
“As it is written,
‘For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’ “
But the confidence that Paul had gained, through his awareness of his own human weaknesses, through his awareness of the suffering of life, and through his acknowledgement of the significant challenges that needed to be endured, was rooted in the vision that God’s grace and God’s love were more powerful than any of those adversities and difficulties of this life.
“…in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 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.:”
They were bold, courageous words. It was a daring claim.
But what, really, was the reason for that confidence, that vision?
Before we ponder those reasons, there is a small detail that is worth noting in verse 28. Although I have, like many of you, read the words of Romans 8: 28 many times before, I found it intriguing to notice – perhaps for the first time – that one of the interesting dimensions of the comforting yet daring claim that Paul makes is that Paul used the language of knowledge, rather than belief or hope. Specifically, the opening word, in Greek, that Paul uses in Romans 8: 28 is the word “oidamen” – which means “we know”. We know that all things work together for good.
That is not how most of us would have written this statement. Most of us might possibly write that “I hope that all things work together for good” or perhaps “I believe that all things work together for good” or perhaps more honestly, “I want to believe that all things work together for good.”
But that is not how Paul wrote this passage. Rather, his use of the verb “oidamen” connoted that he knew rather than simply hoped, or believed, or wanted to believe in this hopeful, visionary conviction.
Which leads us to this question – how could Paul make such a statement? How could he make such a bold and daring claim – that he had come to know that all things work together for good; and that he had come to know that there was nothing that had the power to separate the faithful from God’s love?
For Paul, the answer to that question was clear. And it was not about him. It was not about his life, or his experience. Rather, the source of that knowledge was his vision of the risen Christ, and the fact that Paul had found his life by being baptized into the death of Christ, and then living into the resurrection of Christ.
For Paul, therefore, this claim that “we know that all things work together for good” was not some Pollyanna-ish, panacea to assure his readers that everything will always go their way, that life will always be easy, that faith offers a “get out of trouble free” card, that they should casually shrug off any and all of the concerns of life since everything was inevitably going to be fine. His claim that “we know” was not rooted in his own experience of a care-free, luxurious, stress-free existence.
To the contrary, his knowledge that all things would work together for good was based – entirely – on his vision of the life, death and resurrection of Christ, and in his realization that Christ was the template for the way that reality actually works. Like Christ, Paul and his readers were alive; like Christ, Paul and his readers experienced struggle and adversity in life; like Christ, there were sufferings and groanings and trials and temptations to be endured; and, like Christ, those sufferings and groanings and trials and temptations could lead to tremendous pain.
But, because of the example of Christ’s experiences in life, in death and in resurrection, Paul had come to believe – and to know – that the pain, the suffering, the trials, the temptations, the moments of anguish and difficulty would not prevail. The same God who never abandoned Jesus, even in his moment of greatest pain (and even when Jesus, himself, felt forsaken), would not abandon Paul in his time of need, nor any who had been claimed by Christ as his own.
Which just might be good news for you and I.
After all, life can be beautiful – filled with moments of joy and peace, of laughter and celebration, of success and accomplishment, of fulfillment and satisfaction. Jesus himself had known all of those joys in life.
But life can also be difficult – filled with moments of dread and despair, and all of the difficulties that Jesus had experienced, and that Paul articulated.
What the Gospel invites us to believe, and to trust, and to hope — and perhaps even to know – is that we need not lose hope when the difficulties arise, because the experience of Jesus is meant to be the template for our understanding of reality itself – and the experience of Jesus revealed that there is nothing that can ever separate us from the love of God. Which means that – even in the worst times – even when the shadow of the cross rises before our eyes — God’s sovereign love is still at work, and shall ultimately prevail, bringing to completion what God intends for our lives, and for this world.
There is a new kingdom coming – a time when love will reign supreme, when justice will be known throughout the earth, when peace and goodness shall be known and experienced by all, when illness and disease shall be no more, when heartache and pain will be past, when all that robs life of its joy and fullness will be wiped away. So until that day comes, we strive toward it – we seek that kingdom with all that is within us – and we do so in the courageous hope, and in the daring knowledge, that even in the most difficult times, “all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”
May we embrace this knowledge with our very lives, until it becomes a reality for every one of God’s beloved children.
Amen.
