Sermon:  "Taking the Bridge to God"
Date:   July 24, 2011
Minister:  The Rev. Charles Ensley

Lesson:  Romans 8:26-39

On the first morning we were in New York City two weeks ago, we took the three hour Circle Line cruise around Manhattan.  I learned a lot about the buildings we saw in the financial district at the southern tip of the island.  Do you remember that Manhattan is an island?  And the northern tip looks so much different from the southern tip.  The north end of the island is covered with trees, and we saw the bay where Henry Hudson moored his ship in 1609.  Around there, as we turned south on the Hudson River, you can see the bedrock of which the island is made.  In fact, the tour director told us the bedrock is what enables those skyscrapers at the southern end to be built so high.

But for me, one of the most fascinating parts of the boat ride was the number of bridges we passed under.  Going counterclockwise and north on the East River, we passed under the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge, the Queensboro Bridge, the Wards Island Footbridge, the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, the Triboro Bridge, the Henry Hudson Bridge at the north end of the island connecting it to Bronx and the mainland, and finally the George Washington Bridge on the Westside, crossing over from New Jersey.  That’s nine bridges that I can remember; I could have forgotten one.  I realized how vital those bridges—as well as the underwater tunnels—are for people to cross over to Manhattan Island.

Because people love to reach across water and establish a link, there will always be a human hunger to build immense bridges around the world.  The suspension bridge is a metaphor for the oldest question in human history:  How are we related, or linked, to God and what can we do to bridge the chasm between the human and the divine?

Embedded in human consciousness is a sense that our sin or wrong doing has estranged us from God.  Over thousands of years of recorded history, some have thought that by working hard at good deeds, praying to idols of wood and stone, by offering sacrifices—sometimes even human—burning incense, offering prayers, and so on—that these efforts may build a bridge from our humanity to an unreachable and holy God.

In an earlier chapter of his letter to the Romans, Paul uses an archery image, saying that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (3:23)  A bridge metaphor would have worked as well.  All bridges to God have collapsed, have failed he could have said.  Toppled by wind, crumpled by earthquake, incomplete because of the sheer magnitude of the task.  They’ve come short of their goal.

Then God acted.  Paul writes, “There is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2:5)  Across the raging waters of our failures, our mistakes, our weakness and wanderings and aimlessness came the One who bridges the human and the divine

We didn’t design this bridge.  We didn’t finance it.  We didn’t build it.  We may not even deserve it.

Paul’s first-century audience in Rome to whom he writes his letter understands this.  Do you remember how many times I’ve mentioned it was dangerous to life and limb to publicly acknowledge you were a Christian in the first century?  This congregation in ancient Rome, living at the very vortex of political storms, right where everything was going wrong in the empire at the time, these Christians had every reason to wonder if there was a bridge between fear and hope, whether there was a bridge between suffering and glory, whether there was a bridge between the evil done to them and the good that would ultimately triumph.

They understood Jesus Christ as our connection, our link, as “the way, the truth and the life.”  But it seems that a different kind of bridge is needed now, and the bridge that could be most helpful to people is the bridge of faith.  Faith in God.  Faith in Jesus Christ.  Faith in the Master-Bridge-Builder.

So Paul begins:  “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (8:28)

Faith is a bridge that works.  Most of us gathered there this morning could affirm that we love God; we’ve embraced God’s creative purpose for our lives.  We can be confident, in spite of evidence to the contrary, that all things—not just some things—will work together for good.  That is, in the big picture, the pieces will fall into place.

I met yesterday with a couple to plan their wedding ceremony.  What a journey they’ve had.  He was divorced 18 years ago.  They had their wedding planned for 10/10/10.  He went to get the marriage license, when he discovered his former wife, who is now nowhere to be found—had never filed the divorce papers he had signed—18 years earlier!  It took months to get that finalized.  They booked their wedding for this year only to have the wedding site go out of business this spring.  Driving by our church one day, he stopped in by chance.  He liked what he saw, how he was treated.  He brought back his fiancé.  And yesterday they told me of the long road they had gone through—all the unexpected twists and turns—to get to where they are in planning their wedding here.  They’re satisfied and seem very happy that “all things work together for good for those who love God…”

Faith is a bridge that stands strong in the storm.  Paul asks: “What then are we to say about these things?  If God is for us, who is against us?” (8:31)

The answer, of course, is a ton of stuff.  Paul even lists some of them: “hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword.” (8:35)  All of these things were very real possibilities for the Christians in Rome of the first century.  Self-identifying as a Christian often meant a loss of rights, the inability to conduct business in the marketplace, a loss of economic well-being, the possibility of being reduced to abject poverty, and even the possibility of losing one’s life, or watching loved ones lose theirs.

Think of the Golden Gate Bridge.  When this bridge was built in the 1930s, they said it was a bridge that couldn’t be built.  The bridge was to rise between San Francisco and Marin County across the bay, an area still known for its persistently foggy weather.  It would be subject to 60-mile-per-hour winds and strong ocean currents.

But it was constructed, at a cost of $35 million and 11 human lives.  The Golden Gate Bridge is still standing strong today, although it can sway 27 feet as it withstands wind blasts of up to 100 miles per hour.

What’s at stake for us when we identify ourselves as Christians?  We may gain the respect and admiration of others, but chances are we may be considered a bit odd, or off.  Non-religious persons seem always to think all Christians belong to fringe religious groups that we really don’t have any connection to.  It’s not always easily accepted or admired in our culture to proclaim our faith boldly.

But, even though “God be for us,” there are plenty of storms that come our way that serve to challenge, to weaken the bridge we’re crossing.  We’re buffeted by economic pressures during the current recession; we’re fearful of relationship problems; we’re concerned about health issues; we’re caught in battles of sobriety, sanity, depression and despair.  Thankfully our church hosts three twelve-step groups a week.  Last Friday’s bombing and shooting in Norway, leaving over 90 dead, causes us to worry about terrorism.  We worry about global warming, falling house prices from what they were valued at just five years ago, interest rates on earnings that hover at one percent, shootings right here in Long Beach, and road rage on our Southland freeways.  This is a bridge that is critical to our well-being—even our salvation.

The bridge of faith must be a bridge that can stand strong in the storm.  And it is.  Because God is for us.  Many things may be against us, but the bottom line is:  Nothing can prevail against us!

This is a bridge that is long enough!  Walk this bridge and we’ll make it to the other side.  “Nothing,” Paul writes, “will be able to separate us from the love of God …” (8:39)

I looked up in my clergy record to find I have officiated at 355 funeral and memorial services over the past 38 years.  The two most frequently requested or used scripture passages are the 23rd Psalm and John 14:  “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Believe in me.  In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.”  (14:1-2) 

But when I plan a service with a family, depending on what the deceased family member has been through in their lifetime and their final illness, I sometimes may suggest portions of today’s passage from Romans 8, where Paul writes:  “In all these things we are more than conquerors though him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, …nor things present, nor things to come, …nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (37-39) 

Thus, no circumstance we ever face and no one external to us can ultimately pry us apart from our ongoing relationship of love with God.  When I read these cherished, powerfully poetic verses at a memorial service, or remind someone when they feel persecuted, they offer hope to those who are in Christ.  Because of Jesus Christ, whose presence upon this earth bridged both humanity and divinity, nothing can ever ultimately come between God’s love for us and our love for God.

 

(The bridge sermon theme adapted from Hyper Nike,

 published in Homiletics, July-August 2005, pp. 32-34)