Platitude Attitude

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

April 26, 2015

Platitude Attitude

Romans 8:28

We know that all things work together for good

for those who love God,

who are called according to his purpose.

***************************

Paul makes quite a statement,

absolute, confident:

all things work for the good;

All things;

All.

All?

For as strong as our faith might be,

there is something about this statement

that makes us want to question it,

given the often harsh realities of life.

All things?

Tell that to the woman who has just lost her job.

To the spouse who has just heard the words,

“I no longer love you.”

To the man two months into retirement

who just heard his doctor say,

“Yes, it is stage four.”

To the high school senior who didn’t get into the college

she was sure would admit her,

the place she wanted so badly to go.

Paul starts his statement with the words,

“We know”.

Well, what we know is that life is not easy.

Life can often be so hard,

filled with struggles and challenges,

setbacks, losses,

and heartbreaks.

When someone we know is going through a tough time,

what is easy, almost too easy,

is to respond with a cheerful platitude,

a sunny bromide:

“Don’t worry. All things work out for the best.”

But when we are deep in grief and despair,

platitude attitude is not what we want;

it isn’t at all helpful.

In fact, someone with a platitude attitude

can be downright annoying.

“Take your sunny smile

and leave me alone in my gloom,”

is what we find ourselves wanting to say.

Paul didn’t write the sentence that is our text

to provide us with a platitude,

a bromide,

an emotional band-aid,

something for us to keep at the ready,

to say to someone in despair,

when we can’t think of anything else to say.

Paul was, after all, writing to the

Christians in Rome,

where persecution and the possibility,

even the probably, of death,

hung over the community like a thick fog,

smothering joy,

smothering hope,

threatening to smother faith.

Platitudes were not going to help.

Paul’s readers and listeners were exhausted

by the struggle,

emotionally and physically exhausted

simply trying to live their faith as followers of Jesus.

They were so exhausted

they could no longer even lift up prayers

for help and hope.

Paul’s response to them was not at all facetious

when he said in effect,

“Don’t worry about it.”

He meant it, as he explained:

“God is with you even in your exhaustion,

your fear,

your despair.

God is so completely with you

that God will even help you pray.

When you can’t find the words,

God’s Spirit will pray through you

and for you.”

Eugene Peterson, in his wonderful paraphrasing

in The Message helps us to understand

what Paul is saying.

Listen to how Peterson writes the longer paragraph

from which our text comes:

“Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting,

God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along.

If we don’t know how or what to pray,

it doesn’t matter.

He does our praying in and for us,

making prayer out of our wordless sighs,

our aching groans.

[God] knows us far better than we know ourselves,

knows our [situation]

and keeps us present before God.

That’s why we can be so sure

that every detail in our lives of love for God

is worked into something good.”

Do you hear here what Paul is saying?

When we are so forlorn,

so exhausted,

so angry,

so grief-filled,

so down,

so all-but-out,

God will be there through God’s Spirit

to lift us up,

and even to pray for us,

if that’s what we need.

God’s Spirit will keep us present before God,

and help us to feel God’s presence.

God’s Spirit will give us hope.

So, as Peterson crafts the words of that final sentence,

“That’s why we can be so sure

that every detail in our lives of love for God

is worked into something good.”

That’s no platitude; that’s truth.

Truth that neither masks pain

nor denies struggle.

Truth that so simply and eloquently reminds us

that we live in hope,

resurrection hope.

Paul is speaking to God’s “covenant faithfulness”

to, with, and for us,

manifested in our Risen Lord.

As one writer puts it,

“The heart of Paul’s argument is for assurance

in the unshakable and sovereign love of God,

and the certainty that this love will win out in the end.”

After all, didn’t love win out over evil

and even death on Easter?

So even in our pain,

God will help us through,

God’s love lifting us,

leading us,

nourishing us even when we feel drained,

depleted, empty and hopeless.

Through the prophet Isaiah God reminds us that

there may well be times in our lives

when we feel ourselves up to our neck in problems,

caught in a torrent of struggle,

seeing no obvious way out,

no obvious solution,

not even the glimmer of light in the tunnel.

And still, God is with us.

It isn’t God’s plan that we go through periodic times

of suffering and even tragedy. 

To say so is a platitude:

that when something bad happens,

it is part of God’s plan.

It’s not only a platitude,

it is bad theology.

God doesn’t inflect pain and suffering;

life does.

What God offers is the hand of hope

anytime we feel ourselves

about to be swept away by life’s turmoils.

Every time we say the Lord’s Prayer,

we pray that God’s will be done,

and God’s will is love,

God’s will is grace,

and God’s will is hope.

We take this on faith, of course,

and faith, as we will sing in a few minutes,

begins with letting go;

letting go not of rational thinking or questions,

or even doubts.

But rather, letting go our lives,

trusting in God,

more with every passing day,

falling back into God’s everlasting arms.

It is seeing even in our most despairing moments

that God is with us, walking with us,

seeing us through.

I can speak from my own experience

and say without hesitation

that in those times of my life

when I’ve felt myself

most knocked around and down

I’ve not had any doubt that God was with me.

In fact, I’ve found that those have been times

my faith has grown noticeably.

I’ve traveled through enough years

to have had them all:

career setbacks,

financial concerns,

relationship meltdowns,

even serious health problems.

And in every situation,

God was present,

God’s Spirit praying for me when I couldn’t,

when I was too distraught, frustrated,

or exhausted to string words together.

Life can often seem so muddled, baffling,

even mysterious to us—

at times extraordinary, joyous, wonderful,

and at other times just plain awful.

So we learn to walk in faith,

we learn to walk in trust,

drawing hope from our faith.

In his letter to the Corinthians Paul wrote,
“What no eye has seen,

nor ear heard,

nor the human heart conceived,

what God has prepared for those who love him.”

And what God has prepared for those who love him

is what he said through the prophet Jeremiah,

“a future with hope”.

(Jeremiah 29:11)

Our Risen Lord said he came to

fulfill the words of the prophets;

(Matthew 5:17)

which means he came to fulfill those words,

that God will give us a future with hope.

                                   

Jesus came to give meaning to the promise

that underneath us are the everlasting arms of God.

Jesus came to fulfill and give meaning to

all God’s words spoken through the prophets:

“I am with you;

you are precious;

I have redeemed you;

fear not;

I will wipe away every tear.”

So yes, Paul is right in saying,

in Eugene Peterson’s version,

“that every detail in our lives of love for God

is worked into something good.”

Every detail: the good, the bad,

the happy, the sad,

the wonderful and the awful,

For God is present with us in our Risen Lord,

walking with us,

God’s Spirit with us as well,

nurturing, comforting,

sustaining us,

even when life’s dark clouds descend upon us.

“All things work together for good

for those who love God.”

We cannot argue with Paul’s bold, confident words,

for they are indeed

the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

AMEN