One of the knottiest problems in theology comes up when we ask the question: "What is God like?" Theologians agree that God is beyond our ability to fully understand and describe. Being human, our knowledge and imaginations are limited. Our tendency—and our temptation—is to imagine that God is like us, only bigger. More precisely, we pick a particular type of person and imagine God is like him (usually), only bigger. Even those of us with seminary degrees do that. I know that if you were to wake me in the middle of the night and say: God!, the picture that would pop up in my mind is that of a large, portly, older white gentleman with a long white beard in an oversized white robe. Fully awake, we can recognize that for the fiction it is. We can even point to the historical reasons and prejudices that lead some of us to picture God that way. But when we try to give a more thoughtful definition or picture of God our words and images only hint at who God is. We find ourselves speaking in very broad terms—God is Good or God is Powerful—that beg for explanation. Or we say what God is NOT. God is not a man. God is not a woman. God is not white. Now, since we're created in the image of God speaking about God in human terms isn't totally off base—in fact, we have to use human categories when speaking of God because they're what we know. But they can only take us so far.
This is also true when we speak of the love of God. And I'm going to speak about the love of God by first saying some things to say about human love. Love is important to us. Many people, even Christians, would say that love, human love, is the most important thing in their lives. For some, life revolves around intimate love for one particular person—a wife, partner, husband. Cooking dinner, talking in the morning and sleeping at night, vacations, future plans, paying bills—all are done with the beloved, and life without him or her may be nearly unimaginable. Others put the love of children at the center of their lives with the ferocity of mother bears. Some people live their lives in quiet devotion to parents; others place loyalty to friends and the joy of companionship at the top of their list. Some people are guided by their love for strangers, and spend their lives caring for the sick or housing the homeless. When disaster strikes we suddenly realize how dependent we are on the love—the charity, the solidarity—of neighbors near and far. If we're lucky we know something of all these loves. And for most of us, at some point, the yearning for love is at the center of our existence. Love: the favorite subject of poetry and song, television shows and late night conversation. We even celebrate it on postage stamps.
Human love is precious, but it's also fragile and fickle. Some loves last a lifetime, but we all know how easily we're separated from those we love. We fall in love and we fall out of love. Divorce is nearly as common as marriage. We lose touch with friends, we part over arguments about money. Children become estranged from their parents. Even sadder, some parents never love their children. The daily, unheeded suffering of millions—from the persecuted in Darfur to people without homes in New York to prisoners tortured here and abroad—is testimony to our lack of love for one another. So many things separate us! We cannot count the ways. Couples vow to love one another for better or worse, but hardships prove too much: the death of a child, prolonged unemployment, even credit card debt and mortgage payments can overwhelm a marriage. Psychological distress wreaks havoc. Inner demons we don't understand come between us and our beloved. Alcohol is a big killer of love. Hunger, famine, and want tears apart families and turns neighbors against one another. Fear, peril, and sword are a mighty threesome that undermine love. Declare a war and turn millions into instant enemies. Plant a bomb, and the fear and peril of a simple subway ride creates suspicion and distance among neighbors.
But it's not only suffering that separates us. Wealth and good fortune can do it, too. The siren song of new cars and appliances, a growing bank account and the long work hours that go with it can separate us from those we love. Our desire for comfort and security blinds us to the needs of others and to the exploitation that comes with greed. Finally, death separates us from those we love. In eternal life we dare to hope for reunion with loved ones, but in the meantime, death comes in between. Yes, love is central to our lives, but it may be a toss-up as to which is stronger: love—or the grief and loss that comes with separation from that love.
So what about the love of God? We know a lot about the love of God from human love. The love we have for one another softens our hearts, and helps us to understand, God's love. The care, the tenderness, the passion and accountability we experience in human love at its most faithful is also like the love of God. The love and care of the shepherd for her sheep is, as the psalmist says, like the love of God who leads us beside still waters and makes us lie down in green pastures. The disciples and other followers of Jesus knew him through his human love as well as the divine love. Divine and human love share much and even intermingle, as we're called to represent the love of Christ. We even claim it's God's love that allows us to love one another, whether or not we believe in God.
But Paul is convinced—and wants to convince us—that there's one way in which God's love is radically different from human love: Nothing can separate us from it. Nothing in all creation. Those things which sunder human love: hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril and sword? They will not come between us and the love of God, Paul insists. In all these things we are more than conquerors through Christ who loves us.
But what about our sin, we may ask. Isn't God's love ultimately conditional? Isn't there some line we can cross, some evil we can do, where God stops loving us? Where instead of mercy we receive condemnation? No, says Paul. Only Christ is in a position to condemn: the Christ Jesus who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Christ prays for us, says Paul. Christ may be pained by our sin and one day we may even face judgment: but God in Christ does not stop loving us.
OK, we may say, but what about those angels? Those sweet young things that introduce us to pleasures in life, fast cars and stuff like that. Can't they separate us from God's love? Can't our idols—our desire for power, our love of money—can't they separate us from the love of God? Cannot the depths take us from the love of God? If we are pulled to the deepest depths and take our own life, do we not separate ourselves from the love of God?
No, says Paul: 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 can separate us from the love of God. Even our rejection of God's love cannot separate us from the love of God.
These are among the most beautiful words in scripture, and surely among the hardest to believe. They're hard to believe because of appearances to the contrary. We see and feel, pain, suffering, and despair and ask: aren't these signs that God has abandoned us? Haven't we been separated from God's love? These words are hard to believe because we know that if we try hard enough we can push anyone away—can't we push God away as well? They're hard to believe because we don't always feel God's love, and it's hard to believe in something we cannot see or feel.
Believe it, says Paul. Believe it. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. And if you don't believe, pray, and the Spirit that intercedes with sighs too deep for words will intercede for you. The Spirit will intercede for you according to the will of God who loves you more than you can know.