Fairhaven UMC

United Methodist Church

2415 Saw Mill Run Blvd.
Pittsburgh, PA 15234
Sunday 9:30am Worship

    • Fairhaven Sermon 8-9-2026

      Summary

      In this week’s service, Rev. Dylan Parson reflects on a family trip to the disappearing coastline of Buxton, North Carolina, using the uncontrollable power of the ocean as a metaphor for the chaos and fear we face in our lives. He connects this to the biblical story of Jesus walking on water, illustrating how Christ stands above the chaos and invites us to step out in faith rather than remaining paralyzed by our fears.

      Rev. Parson reminds us that just as Peter was able to walk on the stormy sea by keeping his focus on Jesus, we too can navigate the overwhelming challenges of life through our baptism and faith. By stepping out of our comfort zones and trusting in the “I Am,” we can find solid ground even when the waves of anxiety, loss, or injustice threaten to pull us under.

      When we went to the beach with my family a few weeks ago, which we do every summer, we go with my dad, we stayed in a different town than we usually do. My family has been going to Hatteras Island, North Carolina, virtually every year since the mid-60s, which I understand is when a bridge first connected the island to the mainland, they’ve been there a long time, every summer. But over time, we’ve slowly moved down the island, trying to outrun the crowds, the development that overflows, and it just keeps pushing down the island. And over the course of my life, a few successive villages have converted from being these sleepy patches of gray wood cottages into these densely packed communities of big, brightly colored mansions, souvenir shops. The kind of people on the beach who will plop their chair and their Bluetooth speaker a foot from your head. I can’t handle that.

      But for the last few, the last decade or so probably, whenever we go, we stay in the town of Buxton, which is two-thirds of the way down the island, right in the shadow of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, the most iconic lighthouse in America. But now, these past five years, a different threat has emerged, and one that’s even harder to deal with than annoying crowds on the beach. And that is that the Buxton coastline is disappearing. And so we’ve decided we had to stay somewhere else. Since September 2025, when this really started to pick up, 20 houses have fallen into the ocean. And these houses, people look at them whenever the video is on the news, like, why would they build a house there? These houses weren’t built in the surf. In many cases, they were built hundreds of feet back from the high tide line. But the Atlantic has moved in.

      And so the graveyard of the Atlantic, as the area is known, is living up to its name in a new way, not just eating ships in the sea, but eating houses. And the state of North Carolina, basically every other year now, blasts millions of tons of sand. They dredge it offshore. They have these big, enormous hoses and blast sand onto the beach, bring out some backhoes. They did that two years ago while we were there. They’re currently doing it again. It doesn’t last. They can build 100 feet of beach and it’s gone in two years. The sea level there has risen eight inches over my lifetime. And one of the most repeated realities about human settlement on the sea is that if the ocean decides it wants a chunk of land that we want to, it’s going to win. Because there is no power on Earth like the sea.

      And the way we tend to think about the ocean is a really modern thing. We’re talking like the last hundred years. Whenever we think of the beach, we think of a place where we go to, you know, play, to swim, to get a tan. We set up an umbrella, maybe have a corona and some lime on your chair. That is not what the ocean was for 99.9% of human history. The ocean has not long been a place of peaceful getaway. The ocean was seen as scary. It’s this uncontrollable mass of destructive energy. We see this all over the Bible whenever the sea is mentioned. In Genesis 1, the very beginning, we hear about the formless void, Tahom in Hebrew. And that’s this blank, rough, black sea. Before God began to create, that’s what there was, just this chaotic sea.

      And think about the book of Jonah. You know, Jonah’s whole saga is struggling against the power of the sea and then the whale, of course. In Psalms, in Job, we meet behemoth and Leviathan, great sea monsters. It was understood that there were monsters in the sea. And this is not just an Old Testament thing. This aversion to the ocean remains deeply ingrained in the culture of this region for thousands of years. We get to Revelation 21. We’ve seen the ocean at the beginning of the Bible, the end of the Bible. John prophesied that whenever God’s kingdom comes, the sea will be no more. He puts it in the same breath as weeping and grief and pain. Those things will be gone and so will the ocean. Because it’s a threat. It’s got to be vanquished by God.

      And so whenever a hurricane hits a city or the Atlantic starts to eat your favorite beach town, or if you’re swimming and you find the current has pulled you past or you can touch the sand with your feet, we start to feel that ancient perspective a little bit. It doesn’t take much to realize that we all have a degree of what’s called thalassophobia, and this is a profound fear of the deep. And it stems from the same word that Matthew here uses in Greek, thalassos, see. Nothing better reveals our powerlessness than being at the mercy of the ocean. And so all of this is important if we’re to make sense of the magnitude of this miracle here, of what it means to the apostles, of what it means to us.

      Jesus walking on water here isn’t just like, oh, that’s a cool trick that he did. There’s some real deep substantive meaning here because violent water is this embodiment of chaos and destruction. It is literally the thing that made up chaos of the unformed world before God spoke creation into existence. This is complete chaos, complete fear. This thing that can cause instant death to all those people who are sailing on the ocean. And this becomes the ground that Jesus is walking on. The scariest thing imaginable, the thing we can least control in the world, Jesus is nonchalantly moving towards the apostles on top of the sea.

      The Sea of Galilee is technically a lake. It’s a freshwater lake. But if you’re in a small wooden boat, in a sudden storm, some gale force winds that have come out of nowhere, it might as well be the Bermuda Triangle. It doesn’t really matter. There’s nothing but a thin layer of cedar between the disciples and lungs full of water. And Matthew tells us that this is happening in the dark. It’s early morning. A lot of translations will have it as the fourth watch of the night. That’s the last watch of the night. And it’s somewhere between 3 and 6 a.m. That is the spot when Jesus is walking on the lake. That’s the time. The sun hasn’t come up. The storm is surrounding them completely. It’s either pitch black or completely close. If it’s storming, it’s probably very, very dark. No stars, no moon.

      And so whenever Jesus starts moving across the water, whenever they spot him off in the distance, the disciples might feel like they’re watching something like an aquatic grim reaper coming at them. They see a ghost gliding on top of these waves. And Matthew tells us that they scream in terror. These are grown men, 12 of them, and they’re not particularly delicate individuals. Some of them are fishermen. Some are political rebels, right? These are not delicate guys, but they see this ghost coming across the sea and they scream. It’s a ghost, they say. And just then, as they think they finally come face to face with death, Jesus speaks to them. Doesn’t shout to them. speaks to them. And he says, be encouraged. It’s me. Don’t be afraid.

      So while they’re screaming in terror, Jesus’ words are calm. They’re measured. They’re authoritative. He just says it straight, and they carry loud and clear over the raging winds. Most translations, I’m including the one we heard, render Jesus’ words here, you know, it’s me, as it’s me or it is I. But in Greek, the phrase that’s used here is ego eimi. And that’s the exact Greek translation of the Hebrew name that God introduces himself to Moses with in the burning bush. So this can be translated as it’s me or I am. Jesus speaks from the water. I am the same way God did from the bush.

      And we find out and they find out that this is not a ghost. This is not just like some phantom, some apparition who can just slide across the lake because he has no physical body and the storm can’t touch him. He’s real. It’s the opposite of that. When Jesus calls out, I am, he’s announcing to them that he’s there in the flesh. And we see that for sure when he grabs Peter’s hand. And so the creator is standing on top of the void again, and it doesn’t threaten him at all. The sea listens to his voice. And the disciples are watching the book of Genesis reenacted in front of them. Think about this. I read this story. This really struck me this time. Just as the Spirit of God was over the waters in Genesis 1, now they’re seeing God over the chaotic waters again. And he demonstrates that he rules over the chaos now. He lives and he reigns and he’s speaking creation again. The same way God said, you know, let there be light. Jesus is speaking. Be encouraged. It’s me. Don’t be afraid. He’s making something new.

      And so Jesus demonstrates this incredible power over the sea, something that we have no power over. And then Peter demonstrates this incredible faith. Because Peter, it’s only Peter here. hears Jesus’ words and decides he believes him. Now, we tend, as we often do with Peter, to make him into this cautionary tale, this kind of dumb guy, this faithless guy. We see Jesus refer to him in a couple verses as, you of weak faith or you of little faith. And he sinks into the water because he doesn’t believe strongly enough. But look at what actually happens here. Peter doesn’t beg Jesus to stop the storm. He doesn’t beg Jesus to save him. He doesn’t beg Jesus to take their boat back to the shore. He sees Jesus. He hears his words on the sea, and he asks to participate in it. He asks to participate in what God’s doing, and he says, Lord, if it’s you, command me to come to you on the water.

      And he steps out over the railing. He stands on the top of the lake. He’s this human being standing alongside God where nobody’s ever been before, standing on the water, in that same place where the Spirit was in Genesis. And only Peter puts his bare feet on top of this roiling water and starts stepping towards Jesus. And so whenever Jesus, in a couple verses, has to rescue him, grabs him out of the water, puts him on the boat, and then the storm calms, He speaks of Peter’s little faith, his weak faith, and we hear that as kind of an insult. I don’t think it’s an insult because it’s an acknowledgment that he has faith. Jesus has a lot of respect for little faith. We heard about the mustard seed a few weeks ago, faith as small as a mustard seed. Little faith is not a bad thing. The other disciples don’t even really have little faith. They’re probably lying flat on the deck. They’re probably hanging on for dear life on the benches, on the railings. And we’re making a massive mistake if, like them, we’re so terrified of sinking that we never listen to Jesus and step off the boat. If we stay in the boat, we risk being people of no faith so we don’t have to be people of little faith.

      And Peter’s trouble only starts whenever he looks in a different direction. He gets spooked by the wind. He realizes that he’s standing in the middle of the water. He realizes that by every law of nature, he should be sinking. He should be drowning. He should be dying. And then the ocean reclaims its power, its terror, when he forgets who’s standing in front of him. He’s worried that he’s going to be dead by the laws of nature. But Jesus wrote the laws of nature, and Jesus says, Peter, you can be out here. And so how do we, when we’re 500 miles from the ocean, learn to walk across the sea with Jesus? And I think that we start by remembering baptism. Baptism isn’t supposed to just be some symbolic bath. You know, we use a teeny little bowl. We use a little bit of water. But baptism is supposed to be this immersion into death and coming out as a new creation. From the earliest days of the church, they used to baptize people in these pits that looked like graves. That was half the point. You stepped down into the grave and you walked out of the grave full of water.

      And so going under the water to be baptized represents dying with Jesus to the powers of sin. And you rise out of that water and you step onto solid ground with Jesus again. And baptism represents letting ourselves be consumed by the waves of sin and death. and we sink under it, but then we come back out again. We walk on the water afterwards. So if we’re living out our baptism, we’re supposed to be like Peter. We’re supposed to step out in confidence on the lake that rages. And we all have seas to walk across. I mean, we’re probably not going to be invited to walk across the Monongahela with Jesus, but we all have these stormy seas. And it’s anything, this deep, is anything in our lives and in our world that feels uncontrollable, that we feel powerless over, that seems like it could swallow us. The loss of a relationship, a devastating diagnosis, anxiety, depression, addiction. The overwhelming weight of looking around at a world full of war, of injustice, and think, we can’t do anything about that. We’re stuck.

      When we look at those realities, I think we feel that same philosophobia, that fear of the deep of this huge uncontrollable thing. That phobia that keeps the disciples glued to the little boat. We realize how quickly the water can pull us under. We go, oh, I don’t want to touch that. But we know somebody’s standing on top of the water. And it’s not a ghost. It’s Jesus who’s real, who’s alive, and he doesn’t promise here to teleport us out of the foaming waves. He doesn’t keep his disciples from facing storms. They’re in the storm. But we can still be sure that the one who spoke light into the darkness, into the stormy sea in Genesis 1, is still standing, holding out his hand and saying, I am. Don’t be afraid. Step out. The chaos, the abyss doesn’t disappear, but they become something we can walk across. We can walk through it.

      This morning, we’ve sung the good news that Peter knew in his heart. This is one of my favorite lines in our hymnal. The moment before he jumped overboard, the wind and waves still know the Christ who ruled them while he dwelt below. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

    • Fairhaven Announcements 8-9-2026

      Fairhaven Announcements 8-9-2026

      Outdoor Pantries:

      • Event: Food and item donations for our neighbors.
      • Location: Fairhaven UMC and Spencer UMC
      • Time: Anytime
      • Details: You are welcome to donate food or items at any time.

      Final Partnership Summer Picnic:

      • Event: Community picnic featuring live music and hot dogs.
      • Location: Spencer UMC
      • Time: Thursday, August 20th, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM
      • Details: Please bring a side dish; weather permitting, the event will be held in the parking lot. Friends and neighbors are welcome.

    • Fairhaven Sermon 8-2-2026

      Summary

      In this week’s service, [Pastor’s Name] explored how we can remain aware of God’s presence and power within our daily lives, from the simple beauty of a sunrise to profound moments of divine miracle. By reflecting on the feeding of the 5,000 and the provision for Elijah, the sermon highlighted that even in situations characterized by scarcity and human impossibility, God’s ability to provide is limitless for those who approach Him with faith.

      The message also addressed the human struggle with doubt and the spiritual danger of complacency. Using the book of Romans as a guide, [Pastor’s Name] encouraged the congregation to actively seek out the blessings of God and to remain sensitive to His ongoing work in the world, ensuring that times of ease or prosperity do not blind us to the miracles occurring all around us.

      How are we aware of God’s presence and work? Are we aware of God’s presence and power over our daily lives? Where do we see, hear, feel, and even smell, then taste the glory of God? In a beautiful sunrise over a lake? In a baby’s laugh? in the twinkle in the eye of an older friend, in a well-needed meal and blanket, in a group stalking the outside food pantry, in a hug during the passing of peace in a service? Do you feel the glory of God in a sudden moment of peace during a hectic time? Are these simply the nice sides of the world or blessings of our God? The words I read at the beginning are from Psalm 149, the response of reading for today.

      I want to look into the presence of God today, specifically during events called miracles. Let’s start with the Matthew 14 verses, the feeding of the 5,000. I want to set the scene. John the Baptist, cousin of Jesus, had just been murdered. Jesus goes away. He wants to have some solitude. He was unsuccessful. The crowds followed him. Massive crowd followed him. It says 5,000. Of ain’t, it says that those are only the men. Those, of course, women and children don’t get counted. Probably 10,000 or at least a huge number of people. Regardless of the actual count, there was a massive amount of people there. Jesus took compassion on the people and started to heal them. in some of the other Gospels and this story is told in all four Gospels but in some of the other Gospels he preached to them or he preached and healed them so it’s however you want to take it he was there and it was going on most of the day so he had this enormous crowd doing all this healing and teaching and gathering and meeting people and the sun was starting to fall they’ve been there quite a long time if they were dismissed they’d have a hard time going down to the village because they’re in a remote area they’d have to get to the village and see what kind of food might be available in the village that evening depending on which gospel you read either Jesus spoke to the disciples or they came to him worried about the food for those people in the remote area.

      Now, in preparing for this passage, I came to understand that the world of the first century Roman Empire was marked by significant inequalities regarding food access. A small group of the higher class, the ruling class, had a wonderful array of beautiful foods and all kinds, plenty there. But the large mass of people were subsistent living, or sub-subsistent living, barely getting by without the calorie intake, without the nutritional intake that they need. The line in the Lord’s Prayer, Give us this day our daily bread, is a response to these concerns of the people of their lives. Now the Bible is clear on God’s intent and God’s will to make hungry people fed. God provides manna in the wilderness. In Ezekiel 34, Ezekiel condemns Israel leaders or their shepherds for failing to feed the sheep, the people. The prophet Isaiah declares God’s will that people share your bread with the hungry. Hunger and feeding the hungry is a theme revisited throughout the Bible.

      Now as an aside in preparing this, I wondered how the disciples actually divided the bread and the fish. I mean, this is me. I’m sorry. This is the $way my mind works. Think of the scene itself. Five loaves, two fishes, 12 or more disciples. I don’t know why, but I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to imagine the event actually happening. Our Lord Jesus takes the available food, blesses it, and divides it among the disciples. Now, I’m an ex-engineer and a camp cook. How does one divide five loaves? I mean, yeah, okay, pieces and pieces. that each take a part of the loaf and a handful of fish or did some pass out the bread and some sorry that’s me when I was a child my grandfather would come to town from Uniontown and he would often bring a gift for the for his grandchildren his nor at least the most memorable gift is when he would bring a big block of chocolate I mean a big block of chocolate like one of these used for baking. First off, it wasn’t a full block. I guess he got it from bins or something and it was like broken blocks. So this block broke a block. Then as you parents know, you have to divide the block evenly between your children. And we had seven. Take an uneven block of chocolate, divide between seven kids. Sometimes dad got the odd end just to match things up. But that’s kind of rough. So how did they rip the bread and give it? Did they give evenly? Did you, know, all this, assuming that the fish was cooked or smoked, obviously. And how did it multiply? Perhaps they had their sacks. They all had traveling sacks. Perhaps they put the bread in the sacks and they passed the sacks around and then every time someone reached in, there was still bread in there. Now there’s precedence for that in the Bible, so that’s a possibility.

      In verse 20 it says, everyone ate until they were full, and they filled 12 baskets with the leftovers. Now there’s a question about baskets, and there was actually a commentator that was saying that they did have these travel sacks, So it could have been the sacks, not these big baskets you see in the Sunday school pictures where they come while waddling back with these huge baskets, but a traveling sack. But still, everyone was fed, everyone was full, and there was bread left over. Okay. I’ve heard some say that this might not be a supernatural thing, but rather the overflowing of the Holy Spirit, that people found generosity and they started contributing. You know, there’s presence for that. We see it happen during an emergency, during a tornado. I was at a church this past week, and they talked about a family down the street they didn’t know who had a fire that destroyed everything. And then by that night, the church had provided clothes and items and things they needed to help reconstruct their lives. So it’s a possibility. However, the explanation does not consider the power of Christ in God. Jesus, who calmed the seas, who healed many, who walked on water, who changed water into wine, could he not provide food for a crowd? God, who provided manna for the Israelites in the wilderness, could provide food for 5,000 and for the 4,000 in this story that follows the next chapter of Matthew.

      hey it’s a good deal for the Israelites they got a dinner and a magic show oh in first kings 17 the prophet Elijah was sent by God to a widowed woman for food when he came to the town gate of the widow was gathering was there gathering sticks he called to her and said would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink as she was going to get it he called, and bring me, please, a piece of bread. As surely as the Lord your God lives, she replied, I don’t have any bread, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I’m gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son that we may eat it and die. Elijah said to her, don’t be afraid, go home and do as you have said, but first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me. Then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord says. The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth. So she went away and she did as Elijah told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the women and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up, and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.

      Miracles. Mark 9.23 says, Everything is possible for one who believes. This shows that with faith God can do the impossible. In that Mark 9, a father brought his demon-possessed son to Jesus after the disciples were unable to heal him. Jesus told the father, If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes. And the father responded, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. This statement is odd but deeply human. The Father confesses belief, yet asks for help to overcome lingering doubt. It demonstrates that faith is not always perfect or complete, and it is acceptable to seek God’s help in strengthening it. Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. Expresses a heartfelt plea for God’s assistance in strengthening faith, even amid doubt.

      Now, another aspect of the feeding of the 5,000 and all the other miracles that keeps coming up is the actions taken by the disciples or those who believed. A person must step out in faith. In stories of healings, people took sometimes extraordinary efforts to even bring their loved ones to Christ and even argue with them on their faith in hopes of receiving healing. You know these stories from Sunday school. The lifting of the mat through the roof. The arguing with Jesus when he says that, oh, it falls to him. This is pearls are for, you know, not for the swine. Even the dogs take the crumbs. Persistence. As we step out in faith, we are trusting that God will walk with us and that we will receive his blessings along our way. Reverend Michael Johnson writes, I want you to pause and reflect on the significance of this miraculous feeding. Jesus shows us that with faith and trust in him, there is always an abundance, even in situations where human logic would dictate scarcity and lack. This event underscores the importance of having faith in God’s ability to provide for all our needs, no matter how impossible the situation may seem. So the next time you face a daunting challenge or feel the resources are limited, remember this verse and let it remind you of the limitless power and presence of our Lord.

      Now the Romans reading today is about Paul expressing his deep sorrow for the unbelief of the Israelites in Rome. He highlights the privileges and blessings they were given as God’s chosen people. Paul says they are Israelites. The adoption of God’s children, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises belong to them. Paul is so despondent that he offers himself as a sacrifice to their faith. He says, I wish I could be cursed, cut off from Christ, if it helps my brothers and sisters who are my flesh and blood relatives. They had forgotten the blessings they had received from God, just like the Israelites who complained to Moses soon after they escaped from slavery. Once life becomes better, it’s easy to forget the God who we cling to during our times of stress. my serendipity study bible posed some interesting challenges relating to the romans passage which also fit with the praise psalm where we began it asks what are five benefits in your my spiritual life that have come to me because of where i live how might these benefits blind me to the aspects of God’s saving grace and what will I do to ensure that this does not happen We can easily get the lulled into a sense of this is every day this is expected Have I become complacent? Do I not see the miracles that God provides every day? How can I remain amazed at the presence of Christ in my life and in the life of each person I meet?

      So I ask you the same questions that I started with. Where have you seen God this week? Where have you heard him? Feel his presence. Is he walking along with you? There are blessings, miracles all around us. We need to be sensitive to see them and to remember to praise God for them. Let us pray. Thank you, Lord, for all the blessings that we cannot see. Help us to open our eyes to your presence in our world. With a song of praise, we will bless your name. Amen.

    • Announcements 8-2-2026

      Announcements 8-2-2026

      Hot Meal Ministry:

      • Event: Free Lunch served
      • Location: Fairhaven UMC
      • Time: Thursday, August 6, 2026 at 1pm
      • Details: Lunch provided by Living Stones on the first Thursday of every month
      • Contact: Stormie

      Back-to-School Dollar Sale:

      • Event: Offering new and slightly used clothing and shoes for the neighborhood
      • Location: Hilltop UMC
      • Time: Saturday, August 8, 2026, at 9:00 AM
      • Details: Items are priced between one and two dollars to help local neighbors

      Outdoor Food Pantries:

      • Event: Food donation for neighbors in need
      • Location: Spencer UMC and Fairhaven UMC
      • Time: Ongoing
      • Details: Pantries are heavily used; donations are welcome at any time
    • Fairhaven Sermon 7-26-2026

      Fairhaven Sermon 7-26-2026

      Summary

      In this week’s service, [Pastor’s Name] addressed common misconceptions regarding the Apostle Paul and the nature of the Gospel. While many view Paul’s writings as harsh or exclusionary compared to the comforting image of Jesus, the sermon highlighted that both reveal a consistent truth. Focusing on his letter to the Romans, [Pastor’s Name] explained that Paul was not introducing new doctrine but was providing pastoral care to strengthen an existing faith, guiding believers through the ongoing process of sanctifying grace and spiritual transformation.

      The sermon then delved into the profound reassurances found in Romans 8, emphasizing that God is fundamentally “for us.” Even amidst real-world suffering, persecution, and moments of deep anguish where we feel abandoned, Paul reminds us that nothing—neither death nor life—can separate us from the love of Christ. By reflecting on how God transformed the injustice of the crucifixion into a victory for all humanity, [Pastor’s Name] concluded that while God does not cause our suffering, He is able to work through and despite it, ensuring a sweeping victory through the one who loves us.

      So, lots and lots of people. This is true of Christians. It’s of people who are non-Christians or people who used to be Christians. Lots of people have a big problem with the Apostle Paul. And it’s not uncommon for Paul to be seen as the root of basically all that’s wrong with the church across history and today. Anything bad, we can point to a letter in Paul and be like, what? You know, there’s accusations of that’s where the sexism comes from in the church, homophobia, collaboration with tyrants and empires, the toleration and support of slavery that the church has participated in throughout history.

      The same way that it’s popularly understood that there’s this violent and irrational God of the Old Testament compared with the loving God of the New Testament, which is officially a highly regarded heresy, by the way, and is not true the more familiar you get with the Bible. There’s often understood the same way to be Jesus’s gospel and Paul’s gospel. There’s one that Jesus’s gospel is nice and it’s comforting. It’s uplifting. It’s justice-oriented. And then you have Paul’s that’s mean and exclusive. This is not the case. This is just not the way it is.

      And first, I would point to our gospel reading from this morning, from Matthew. We have the good, familiar parables in there, the mustard seed, all that, the yeast. But the one that we don’t often hear preached about is this parable from Jesus where he describes the angels going out and separating the evil ones from the righteous ones at the end of the age, throwing the evil ones in a burning fire where they’ll weep and gnash their teeth. That’s Jesus. Jesus is not universally this cuddly figure that we have in Sunday school artwork and it’s wrong to equate the way that Jesus loves us with this kind of squishy niceness anyway. And on the flip side of that, nor is the Apostle Paul this unkind, neurotic, well, he might be neurotic, but exclusionary guy that he’s caricatured to be.

      And we’ll get to the text itself of Romans 8 shortly, but it’s worth understanding the background of what we’re hearing today. We’re jumping right into the middle of a letter here. And Romans, naturally, is a letter written by Paul to the Christian community of Rome, the capital of the greatest empire in the world. Rome is the center, the seat of the known world at this point. And the Roman church is a predominantly Gentile church. There’s not a lot of Jews present, at least anymore, in the church in Rome. And already, 25 or so years after Jesus has ascended, Christ followers in Rome and everywhere else exist in great tension with the world around them.

      And fascinatingly, Romans is the only letter that we have from Paul that was written to a church that he did not personally establish. Paul’s relationship with the Romans is mainly through letters. It’s through this letter, as far as we know so far. And so all that he’s writing here is pretty brave, because as he writes this letter to the Romans, he’s daring to claim this spiritual, this pastoral authority over them, despite having even never met them face to face. This is like the church at Fairhaven getting a letter from another pastor who’s writing, you know, this is what you need to understand about the gospel. That’s brave. It’s bold.

      And he opens the book of Romans by telling the Romans why he’s writing. In chapter 1, he says that his proclamation of the gospel, of good news, is intended to strengthen them. That’s why he’s writing. He wants to help them establish their belief. He wants to help them send down deep roots. And in the words of Romans 16:26, he says he wants to help them grow into the obedience of faith. And so all of this, this background, means that he’s not bringing them something new. He’s building up a faith that they already have. The seeds have have been planted and he’s offering his care, his wisdom, and nourishing them. He’s seeking to build up this church full of people he’s never met, that’s under immense pressure in a really key, important place.

      So why does all this matter? Well, this letter is pastoral care because Paul is, after all, best understood as a pastor, maybe a bishop. And this letter is theology for people who already know Jesus and are seeking to grow into him more fully. And so if that’s who this letter is for, that means it was good for the Romans and it’s good for us because we’re in that same situation. This letter isn’t for people who don’t know about Jesus. It’s to drill down for those who already do. And I think it’s helpful to think about it as evangelism for people who have already been evangelized. And that’s a really profound concept, I think, once you start thinking about it.

      It reminds us that we’re always in the process of converting to Christ, of being converted by Christ, of becoming more Christian, better disciples. In Methodist terms, this is called sanctifying grace, which means that salvation is not just this one-time transaction, gets us pardoned from hell, and then we move on. Salvation is this ongoing therapeutic process, this lifelong process of healing, of restoration. And we need, like the Romans, we need the good news articulated to anews throughout our lives, speaking to wherever we are and where we have been. And that’s part of what the church does for each other. That’s why we don’t just read the book at home alone. We’re living it out, understanding what the life of Jesus means to us in community, together. We speak it to each other. That’s what a sermon is for, is proclaiming the good news again and again to where we are in life.

      And chapter 8, where we end up this morning in Romans, offers one of the most poignant expressions of that good news in all of Scripture. And what Paul offers here to the Romans, what he offers to us, is this deep, eternal reassurance and comfort. And it’s not abstract. It’s emerging from really real struggle and pain that Paul has experienced and that the Romans have experienced. And so virtually all of the agonies, the threats that Paul has written about here in chapter 8 are things he’s already experienced on behalf of Jesus Christ and on the church.

      And so whenever Paul writes here, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will we be separated by trouble or distress or harassment or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” He’s not asking that as a rhetorical question. He’s asking that as somebody who can say with confidence that he knows the answer firsthand. Paul has not had it easy. He’s not speaking in abstraction, writing from some comfortable office about other people’s pain and what Jesus means in the midst of it. He’s not given an ivory tower sort of witness as to what Jesus can do. He can speak credibly as a witness to the power of the Spirit to carry God’s people through their lives. And by the time he writes this letter, he hasn’t faced the full brunt of the sword yet, but he will. Within 20 years after writing this letter, he’s martyred under Emperor Nero. He’s beheaded for his preaching, for his ministry, under one of the worst persecutions of Christians.

      And so Paul’s vision here is of this life of faith under fire. And he offers us a zoomed out view of what it means to be a Christian. He gives us a bigger picture to help us understand what’s happening in our lives when we feel isolated in our worst moments. He’s putting us all in the bigger picture. Whenever we feel like we don’t know what we’re doing, whenever we don’t feel like we know what God’s doing, that we’re alone, that everything we’re attempting is just this pointless pain and tribulation that’s irredeemable. Paul tells us to remember that the Holy Spirit is with us always in ways that we cannot begin to understand. Paul writes that the Spirit comes to help our weakness. Even when we don’t know what to pray, and that happens so often for me, more than I like to think about, whenever we don’t know what to pray, Paul says the Spirit prays for us.

      And the Spirit doesn’t try to put that into some clean, nicely packaged memo for the Father. God doesn’t need these articulate, careful, point-by-point prayers. No, Paul says the Spirit pleads our case with unexpressed groans. The Spirit, which is God, God groans in pain on our behalf when we are in pain. God feels it so deeply that God is groaning in pain. And there’s no situation where this isn’t the case, regardless of how it feels in the moment.

      Again, Paul pulls us out, and he offers words of profound reassurance here. We know, he says, that God works all things together for the good of the ones who love God, for those who are even called according to his purpose. And this often gets kind of misstated, I think, this word of reassurance, and it gets turned into kind of a cheap “everything happens for a reason” kind of saying. We’re tempted to say that sort of stuff to each other when someone else is hurting and we don’t really know what to say: “Everything happens for a reason.” Paul’s not really saying that. Paul does not say that suffering is good, that God is behind our suffering and is doing it for a reason. That is not anything that’s being said in this passage. But what Paul is saying here is that God is able to work within it, within the suffering, through it, despite it, in such a way that we can be made more like Jesus, conformed to the Son, he says.

      And this is one of our greatest Methodist foundations, too. John Wesley spoke often of the notion of Christian perfection. Perfection being a verb and not a noun. And it’s this idea that we can cooperate with the Spirit day by day until we’re turned to pure Christ-like love, not just in heaven, but here on earth, that we can cooperate with the Spirit so fully that we can live like Jesus in the world. And Jesus himself serves as the example here of the kinds of transformation that God works, of suffering and darkness into light and goodness. The crucifixion, I don’t think you can possibly read the Gospels and think, the crucifixion was a good thing. That’s not the point. But God was able to turn it into a good thing. He was able to turn the cross, this evil device of torture, of injustice, into a sign that death and hell are conquered and powerless. It’s not that the crucifixion became good, it’s that the outcome was transformed by God.

      And God does this kind of alchemy, almost. Whenever we hand to God the most painful, most meaningless, blackest things we face in our lives, God transforms it into gold. The timetable might not be the one we like. It might not be instant. We might not see it now. It might be eternal on that kind of timetable, but it’s transformed, and the cross becomes this sign of life. And here we get to the peak of Romans 8, when Paul asks another rhetorical question. He says, “So what are we to say about these things? So what? What does all this mean?” And he answers with another question: “If God is for us, who is against us? He didn’t spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. Won’t he freely give us all things with him?”

      And this is the primary point here, the single greatest takeaway in Romans 8 of this discussion of who God is and the meaning of our lives, of our faith, of our suffering, of our effort: God is for us. God is not some cold-hearted judge who’s carefully weighing out our actions to see if we have earned enough to be rewarded with heaven or, oops, condemned to hell. That’s not what God does. Instead, Paul says it’s God who acquits his people. Not only is God not prosecuting us, God’s not a prosecutor, but Jesus is our defender, pleading our case, Paul says, to the Father who’s already waiting to declare us innocent anyway. Again, God is for us, and we can know this because he gave up his Son so the cross of suffering could become this place that salvation comes from.

      And Paul moves through this chapter, and he moves towards that final rhetorical question here: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ Jesus our Lord?” And we know the answer before he even begins this list. He knows that he’s built up that we know the answer. But it’s worth pausing to hear it again and notice something. These few verses, particularly verses 35 through 39, they’re a common text at funerals. I use these all the time. “Who will separate us from Christ’s love? Will we be separated by trouble or distress or harassment or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: We are being put to death all day long for your sake. We are treated like sheep for slaughter. But in all these things, we win a sweeping victory through the one who loved us. I’m convinced that nothing could separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord. Not death, nor life, not angels, nor rulers, not present things, nor future things, not powers, nor height, nor depth, or any other thing that is created.”

      And whenever I read this text, particularly at funerals, I always get tripped up in the middle, where Paul seems to take this quick, hard left turn. And he says, “As it is written, we are being put to death all day long for your sake. We are treated like sheep for the slaughter.” That line, Paul quotes it from Psalm 44. It always feels to me like it’s interrupting the flow of the thing. We have this buildup of all this hope in Christ, and then we get, “we’re being sent like sheep to the slaughter.” And I’m almost tempted to skip it, especially in the context of a funeral. Everyone around in that room really needs to hear a word of hope, and here we have this little sharp line. This chapter consists of assurance after assurance of the faithfulness of God, of a fierce proclamation that God is for us, and then comes that really dark little line.

      And what are we supposed to make of that? The biblical scholar Susan Eastman, who I learned pastored down the river in Aliquippa for a time, which I think is interesting, she suggests that what we see here in that line is an acknowledgement of bitterness, that the good news doesn’t always go down easily, that it doesn’t always feel all that good in the moment. Paul, again, is writing to very persecuted Christians, and he’s writing to all of those who struggle then and who struggle now following Jesus in a world where that’s not easy. They know they’re facing pain for your sake, talking to Jesus, and they are feeling that pain. They know it is because they are following Jesus. They’re choosing this hard life of faith, and they’re suffering because of it.

      And Susan Eastman says that when this tone clashes with the surrounding assurance of the goodness of God through it all, she says, it’s as if the cry of the oppressed suddenly interrupts a beautiful liturgy, which is exactly what it feels like at a funeral. She continues that to hear this tension is to begin to know that divine love does not silence the pain of those who suffer unjustly, but allows it to be expressed in its raw anguish. We can know that God is good while also not feeling it all the time. We can be aware that God will turn our suffering to gold while rightly hating that we’re in a position to suffer at all. And there is room for that. Just as there was room on the cross when Jesus quoted a psalm and Jesus cried out to God, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” God’s love can hold that. It’s big enough to hold our anger, our bitterness, even Jesus’ certainty on the cross that he has been abandoned; God can accept that twinge of bitterness in the midst of faithfulness.

      But Paul doesn’t leave us there. He keeps going. Even in the bitterness, even in the pain, he moves forward after that line and he says, “I’m convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s…” And these hostile powers, these rulers, they transcend space and time. Paul was talking to a certain group of threats, of rulers and struggles, but they’re different wherever we find ourselves. We see in our current day authoritarian regimes. We see policies that target vulnerable people, airstrikes in war zones, domestic violence in the home, gun violence on the streets. Paul didn’t really experience most of those things, but the promise is universal. Worldly powers can destroy buildings, they can kill people, but they still can’t cut the love that connects us to God in Christ.

      And something important about the way that Paul speaks here is to notice the way he speaks really expansively and without condemnation here. The way that he is writing is not as a critique of individual human beings as units and sources of evil. Paul could have named names. It was very clear who was doing the prosecuting, the persecuting, who was making Christians’ lives miserable, and who was standing against the kingdom of God. But he doesn’t. His proclamation here is against powers and rulers of death and of the forces of darkness. And that means that Paul understands here that in the big picture, Emperor Nero is not the enemy. This guy that’s going to kill Paul, that persecutes the church, that feeds Christians to lions, that burns down his capital city—Nero’s not really the problem. The sin that binds Nero is the problem.

      God is for us, Paul says, and that means that God is just as much for the persecutor as the persecuted as long as they’re willing to lay down their hostility towards the kingdom of God, to love him and to hear the call to God’s purpose. Paul would know that better than anybody else. It’s not about the individual. It’s about the sin that holds them back.

      And so the gospel from the apostle Paul to the church in Rome and to us is good news beyond what we could imagine or hope for. It comes from one who knows suffering, speaking about a God who knows suffering to a church full of people who have lived lives of pain and, in many cases, persecution because of their faith in Christ. But in all these things, Paul says, we win a sweeping victory through the one who loves us. Our world, our souls continue to groan too deeply for words. Rulers and powers rage. We feel that we’re at great heights and depths that keep us from seeing God. But God is for us. In life, in death, we are confident that we are held by love that won’t let us go.

      In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen.