I wouldn’t call myself a “dissectologist”—that is, a person
who has a passion for solving puzzles—although I do like
puzzles. But a trip to Michigan in our family is just not
complete without a card table brimming with 1,000 tiny,
brightly colored puzzle pieces.
It’s always a daunting project to put together a puzzle,
but the reward is so sweet—the transformation of chaos
and confusion into a beautiful picture, every piece fitting
into its place. It’s highly satisfying for a summer-vacation-
dissectologist like me.
Puzzles are a family affair at our lake cottage, or most of the
family at least, providing activity for a rainy day or a diversion
from the beach. Everyone has their own technique. Some
prefer the edges. Others sort by colors. One granddaughter
has an eye for shape. For some in our family, it even
becomes an obsession. As the puzzle begins to take shape,
it gets more and more difficult to get up and walk away,
to resist an opportunity to just finish a corner, or complete
a section. “I’ll be out to the beach in just a minute (or an
hour!).” Or, “Just a few more pieces and I’ll be up to bed.”
In case you didn’t know, puzzles pieces have names such as
“whimsies,” which are pieces cut into recognizable shapes
like a cat or a car, “tabs” for pieces with parts that stick
out, and “blanks,” pieces for the tabs to fit into. Knobs and
sockets, outies and innies—self-explanatory.
A puzzle speaks to our desire for wholeness and completion,
to see all the pieces fit neatly together to form a picture, to
bring meaning to all those individual shapes when the last
piece snaps into place. Now we see the big picture and it all
makes sense.
God too must desire that sense of completion. He is a God
of order after all. The Master Dissectologist is, and has been,
working on a master puzzle throughout time, arranging all
the pieces that, together, will reflect his picture of a restored
and glorious kingdom.
It is quite comforting to know that each of God’s puzzle
pieces (that’s us), has a place in time, with a job to do
that fulfills a purpose—that there is meaning to the even
sometimes chaos and suffering that are part of our lives.
Paul has a lot he wants to convey to the Roman Church in
his letter and in this passage. In just a few sentences, we
learn about prayer, trust in God, the Spirit, God’s plans for
us and for his creation, and the difficult subject of Christian
suffering and how that fits into God’s plans. Too much for
one sermon. But toward the end of it lies my favorite and
oft-quoted line: “We know that all things work together for
good for those who love God, who are called according to
his purpose.”
When Chris invited us to select a passage that has been
meaningful to us for a sermon this summer, I knew
immediately which one I would choose: Romans 8:28. This
line of Scripture has provided comfort and encouragement
when things aren’t going as planned in my life, and I
have quoted it to others to do the same. I thought it said
something along the line of “our lives are puzzles that
God will arrange into a pretty picture, making sense and
providing meaning out of the bad things that happen to us.”
But an important Bible lesson to remember is always to be
wary of taking a sentence or line from Scripture without fully
considering its context. It is so easy to make a sentence or
phrase fit our own purpose. So what is the context here?
Paul is addressing the issue of suffering to the young
Christian church in Rome, which is experiencing hardship,
and asking questions that we still ask today. What has
suffering got to do with faith? And why, if Jesus-followers are
God’s beloved, do we suffer?
The Roman church was comprised mostly of Gentiles,
but Gentiles who were faithful students of Hebrew
Scripture. The Roman Christians were outliers in Rome,
small, criticized and harassed on all sides: by the Jewish
community for their beliefs, and ostracized from Gentile
friends and families for the same. The suffering of which
Paul speaks here is Christian suffering, suffering for the sake
of Christ—criticism, ridicule, the threat (or reality) of political
or physical harm—for living as followers of Jesus.
Most of us, in the freedoms that we have just celebrated
this weekend, have not had to suffer much for our faith, but
around the world many Christians still do. But even here,
sometimes within our own circles of family and friends,
we feel the push and pull of our faith and the world, the
awkwardness of sometimes being out of step with everyone
else’s priorities. The more out of step we are, the more we
may feel the pressure. Paul reminds us that these sufferings
are temporary and inconsequential when compared to our
future glory. All things will finally resolve themselves for
good in God’s Grand Plan.
Paul tells us in this passage that when God is at the center
of our lives, we have hope, and that hope exhibits itself as
patience, peace, and courage, because we are confident that
God will eventually put all the pieces together in their proper
order and set things right. In Paul’s teaching, it is our joy to
work together with God for the creation of his kingdom.
So God (thank God), has a plan. Left to our own devices as
human beings, we are almost certain to make a mess of
things because of our human natures. In fact, we already
have, from the misuse of God-given resources, to poor
decisions we’ve made in our lives with bad consequences,
to historical tragedies like the Crusades and slavery.
Humans just tend to make a mess of things. Paul says not
only to quit worrying about our messes and challenges,
but to rejoice in them. Whatever our suffering for Christ, our
salvation is assured. We can be certain of our redemption,
because it is a gift from God and nothing to do with our
own efforts.
Even Creation waits with eager anticipation. Paul reminds
us that indeed, we have already been given a foretaste of
our future through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Redemption is
God’s powerful loving act through Christ.
It can be the little things in life that catch us up sometimes.
There can be a world of difference between two small
decisions, or two small opportunities, or two little words. In
this case, between the words “for” and “with.”
In the translation of Romans 8:28 I read, the word “for”
is used and is the one used in many other translations.
It sounds, with that word, as if Paul is saying that God is
working through all things in our lives, good and bad, for
our benefit. “We know that all things work together for
good for those who love God, who are called according to
his purpose.”
But the more accurate translation is actually “with.” “We
know that all things work together for good with those
who love God, who are called according to his purpose,”
meaning that we, as Jesus-followers, are to work in
partnership with God to help bring forth goodness and the
redemption of Creation. Two small words.
We heard this morning that the Israelites in Egypt had
God with them in their sufferings, and so did the Roman
Christians who faithfully studied that very story in Jewish
Scripture. But the “with” of Paul’s letter was perhaps
something they hadn’t considered. Moses—who had to
ask God if he was really sure that he wanted him, Moses,
to approach Pharoah and lead the Israelites out of Egypt—
seemed a bit surprised. Maybe the Romans were too.
God called Moses. God calls each of us.
The plan is God’s, but the building of the puzzle, the means
by which God will bring all Creation, including us, to
wholeness and completion, is a partnership thing. As Jesus-
followers, we must follow him and be like him.
The “with us” translation is very Paul, and fits well in his
teachings. We, God’s children, are not given a free ride but
are to work with God for the building of God’s kingdom, to
do good, to love one another, to have compassion, to be
generous, to follow Christ in our daily lives, for the goodness
of God’s creation, to help bring in God’s Kingdom that has
already been set in motion.
“One of the frustrations of being an elderly exegete, is to
find the text refusing to say what you thought it said sixty
years ago,” writes Theologian and scholar N.T. Wright. “I
understood the Romans 8:28 [text] to be saying that the
multiple disparate elements of life would sort themselves
out, under God’s benevolent guiding, like a sort of automatic
jigsaw puzzle. It might look chaotic, but a happy picture
would emerge from it all.”
When I first read this, I was crushed. But then, I must admit
that I felt a little bit vindicated. Even a noted scholar can
slip up every once in a while. So, when I fall and break my
wrist a week before our long-planned cruise, when a job is
lost and the mortgage is due, when a devastating diagnosis
is received, when we look around and see injustice and
suffering in our world and neighborhoods—does this
passage say that God isn’t with us? No. Not at all.
For we as children of God know in our hearts and from
Scripture that God is always for us, with us, and in us,
through the Spirit. We have each experienced God’s abiding
presence in our lives. But, “all things work together for good
with those who love him” doesn’t give us the privilege we
want, that everything in our lives will work together the way
we want them to.
Our thousand pieces of good and bad decisions, our
dramas, tragedies, joys, loves and losses, bad and good
things done by us, for us, and to us, form our puzzle piece,
but in partnership with God, God molds them to fit perfectly
into His Grand Puzzle, building piece by piece, toward his
glorious redemption of creation and each of us.
God collaborates with those who love him—that’s us.
“Those who love him” are special to God, each called
according to his purpose, which is to grow and develop into
the image of his Son. God is our co-laborer in the world as
we work together with him for good.
God “with us” or God “for us” isn’t mutually exclusive. It isn’t
an either/or situation. It’s (praise God) a both/and.
“What then are we to say about these things,” says Paul in
verse 31. “If God is for us, who is against us?” Indeed. Thanks
be to God.
God works with us in our efforts to follow Christ. After all, his
wisdom, power, and courage are needed, and He is for us
throughout our lives. Even though the passage does not say
exactly what I assumed it said, you don’t have to be very far
along in life to be able to look backwards and see the hand
of God at work. God often brings goodness out of a time
of suffering and trial. Theologian, writer, and priest Richard
Rohrer says that God spins gold out of the straw of our lives.
Years ago, during a rough patch in my marriage, when I felt
my life had fallen apart into a million pieces, I was in the
straw. But the Spirit encouraged me and provided hope,
heard only in my heart. A decision to work through it all, to
have patience, to forgive, and to give grace to one another, is
a redemption story for our family, for our relationships with
God, and working with God, has provided opportunities to
encourage and provide hope to others. It is a both/and story,
a true work of God’s puzzleology. God is the at the wheel,
spinning gold from straw.
We all have stories, and challenges. As a friend of mine says,
“Life be lifin,” meaning life has a way of throwing you some
hardballs, providing some detours that were not in your
plans for your perfect life. The good, the bad and the ugly
of our lives are, however, all part of our life puzzle piece and
uniquely form the way we fit into God’s plans.
One of the most famous redemption stories may be the
one that Susan read today: the redeeming of God’s people
from slavery to freedom. Lives transformed, a new history
written, carried out in partnership with God’s chosen people.
God is working in our lives for good. God is working with us
through our efforts for the good of the world.
I am a fan of Mr. Rogers, ever since our children were small.
They were entranced, and so was I, even more so when I
learned about his life. Fred, an ordained Presbyterian pastor,
was the first to recognize that “the space between the tv
and the viewer was holy ground” and that it could be a tool
to talk to children on their level about love. He was a faithful,
wise and courageous man of God who walked out of sync
with most of the world. He took a different path in life—one
for which he was criticized and misunderstood, but a life
with and through God, one in which he used his talents
and resources to work with God, helping to create more
sensitive and caring children and adults. He told us to look
for the helpers, the ones who come out in a crisis and work
with God.
“We know that with those who love God, he collaborates
for good,” N.T. Wright translates Verse 28. Those who love
God have the Spirit, and the Spirit is acting in them, in us, for
good. God, in God’s wisdom, designed the world so that its
puzzle pieces through time, would fall together according to
his plan. The world is moving toward his goal through those
who love him and work with him.
“With us” is our calling, our vocation, but God is also “for
us.” That too is part of God’s plan. And because we are in
God’s hands, all things finally resolve for good—for creation
and for us.
So where are we today in the scheme of God’s plans? Only
God knows of course. God’s plan was to create a Messiah-
shaped people through whom he would do what had to
be done. In the lives and prayers of the faithful, God’s plan
is underway. We live in the in-between time, between
generations of the faithful, the “already” and “not yet” of the
new age, initiated, but not yet fully here. As God shapes our
individual puzzle pieces, he smooths over the corners, and
shapes our tabs and blanks, to make us a perfect fit.
In the meantime, we wait in hope for what is yet to come.
We wait with patient endurance, steadfastness and
perseverance for the final picture to emerge. But we are not
to wait idly by—we are to make ourselves known by how we
love, live, give, and serve.
Without our individual puzzle pieces, the puzzle is not
complete, and we deprive the world of the hope that
emerges when we share our lives and our resources. With
our quirky, crazy whimsies, innies and outies, we show the
world what God has done for us, which motivates us, and
then we inspire those we meet who hear our stories, to learn
God’s story.
There must be no greater frustration for a true dissectologist
like God than a puzzle with a missing piece. Amen.