We know that the whole creation is groaning together and suffering labor pains up until now. And it’s not only the creation. We ourselves who have the Spirit as the first crop of the harvest also groan inside as we wait to be adopted and for our bodies to be set free. We were saved in hope. If we see what we hope for, that isn’t hope. Who hopes for what they already see? But if we hope for what we don’t see, we wait for it with patience.

In the same way, the Spirit comes to help our weakness. We don’t know what we should pray, but the Spirit himself pleads our case with unexpressed groans. The one who searches hearts knows how the Spirit thinks, because he pleads for the saints, consistent with God’s will.

Romans 8:22-27 (CEB)

One of my pleasures each day is playing a game called Words With Friends.  It is Scrabble that you can play on your phone with others who have the same game on their phones.  I enjoy playing Words With Friends.  It seems to me a sermon could be called Words With Friends.  You are my friends, and for a few minutes I share words with you.  You share your words with me all through the week too.  I’d like to share three words with you my friends today, and they are represented by the three Scrabble tiles on the bulletin.  G H and P.

G stands for groaning.  Our scripture is from Paul’s letter to the Romans.  He speaks about all creation groaning, and we ourselves groaning, yearning to be set free from our bodies and our circumstances.  At some point in life we all will groan.  The word for groaning he uses is stenadzo, and the root is stenos, which means a narrow, confined space.  When you are stuck in a narrow space, with no way to get free, then you groan.

Think of a person in a hospital bed.  Medicine has done all it can do for them, and they are not going to get better.  So they groan.  Think of someone in a hard and difficult marriage.  Things have been tough in their marriage for a long time, and they don’t expect it to change.  So they groan.  Think of someone in a factory job.  The work load gets more and more, and there never seems to be an end to it.  They’d love to leave the job, but they need the income.  So they groan.  Think of someone in a big city, living in a crime infested neighborhood.  There are shootings practically every week, and no one seems to be able to change it.  They can’t simply move away.  So they groan.

In these ways and many others, people find themselves stuck in a narrow space, unable to get away.  In her book Dakota, on the very last page, Kathleen Norris says, “All you have to do is allow the place you are in happen to you: the loneliness, the silence, the poverty, the futility, indeed the silliness of your life.”  If that place describes your place today, you are probably groaning.

The second word begins with H.  Hoping.  Paul says, “We were saved in hope.”  And he goes on in a few lines to mention the word ‘hope’ 5 times.  He believes hope is possible in any situation, even ones that make us groan.  He believes hope is the normal Christian experience.

Henri Nouwen tells a little parable.  A sister and her brother are having a conversation in the womb.  They are a pair of twins yet to be born, and they are talking.  She says, “I believe there is life beyond birth.”  Her brother says, “No, that’s just a dream.  All we have is this dark place we are in, with this cord we cling to.  There is nothing else.”  She says, “But I can’t help but believe there is a place beyond where we are, a place of light and freedom and movement.”  Her brother says, “No, there isn’t anything else.”  She says, “I have also come to believe that there is a Mother.”  At this her brother gets angry, “There is no mother!  There is no life after this place.  This is all we have.  Be realistic.”  She says, “But sometimes we feel this pressure squeezing us from outside.  It makes me uncomfortable.  But it reminds me that there must be life after birth, life beyond where we are, a life where we will see our mother face to face.”  At this her brother turns away from her and stops talking.  The conversation is over.

This parable reminds me of two kinds of people, the ones who have hope and the ones who do not.  And sometimes the two people are us at different times in our life, having hope and not having hope.  The question for us is this: when we are in that narrow, confined space that makes us groan, and hope is hard to come by, how can we find hope again?

That brings me to the third letter P, and the third word Praying.  Paul speaks of the Spirit of God coming inside of us to help us, and he makes the astonishing statement, “We don’t know what we should pray.”  We don’t know how to pray at all, but the Spirit within us prays within us with words and groans that cannot be expressed.

I have been a minister for 17 years.  One of the occupational hazards of being a minister is that since you are called on so often to pray, it is easy to think you know how to pray.  It is easy to forget that none of us really knows how to pray, or even what to say to God.  So God comes within us to help us.

There is a business downtown called Ink Fever.  It’s a tattoo shop.  It’s owned by a woman named Anissa, who has an art degree from Siena Heights.  She puts on her blue gloves and gets out her ink gun, which makes little holes in the skin and leaves ink there.  She is very good at it.  Her work was highlighted in the newspaper a few months ago.  On the walls are pictures of lots of different designs you can get.  There is a display of religious tattoos, including prayers people have had written on their bodies.  The Lord’s Prayer, the Serenity Prayer, or simple one-word prayers like faith or mercy.  Anissa will write those prayers on their bodies.

This is one of the stranger analogies I’ve made in a sermon.  But I see the Spirit of God praying in us as a kind of tattoo artist.  The tattoo artist can write a prayer on the skin.  The Spirit writes prayers on the walls of our hearts.  The Spirit is at work in us, writing these prayers in us in indelible ink.  Thomas a Kempis, the medieval mystic, said that God takes up residence in us and writes God’s own name on our hearts.  It is as if God is claiming ownership and protection over us.  It is like God is saying, “In life, in death, in life beyond death, this person belongs to me, so I will write my name here.”  Frederick Buechner said that each of us is really a mystic, whether we realize it or not, because each of us senses within us, in our depths, a something or a someone with the power to bless us.
When I am in a groaning time, and I can’t seem to find the capacity for hope, what helps me is to realize that I am not left to my own resources.  There is a something, call it the Spirit of God, that is within me — hoping, yearning, groaning, praying on my behalf.  A something inside that blesses me and sets me free, now and forever from now.

I may not have explained all this very well.  It’s hard to put it in words.  If something I have said strikes you, hold onto it and let the rest go.  But please know that I’ve enjoyed playing Words With Friends today.  We’ll play again later.

It is the season of orange barrels on South Main St. This rebuilding road project will take months. Winter St, which runs parallel Main, will be my friend through the summer.

I want to be reasonably happy, don’t you?  We all do, I think.  Even in our religious practices, we desire to find happiness.  St Augustine said, “When I am seeking you, God, I am seeking a happy life.”  The question is, how can we find a happy life?  What can I do to facilitate happiness?

For an answer, let’s turn to Psalm 1.  The Book of Psalms is the living heartbeat of the Bible.  The very first word of the very first Psalm is the Hebrew word asher, which means happy or blessed.  Psalm 1 is a study in what makes for a happy life, and what makes for an unhappy life, but I have the happy side of things more in view today.  Psalm 1 gives us two clues to how we can be more happy.

1) “Happy is the person who doesn’t walk with the wicked, stand with the sinners, or sit with the mockers.”  Let’s stop there.  Notice the progression of verbs.  First walking, then standing, then sitting.  If you walk with people then eventually you will stand with them, and if you stand with them then in the end you will sit down with them and live with them.  The people we walk, stand, and sit with have the power to make us unhappy or happy.  This is the first clue to happiness — be careful who you associate with.

A few weeks ago, Jim Olsen gave a talk here at church on his experience in the criminal justice system.  He talked about the characteristics of people who are habitually in and out of jail.  Substance abuse was a common thing, of course.  But another characteristic he mentioned was their associations in life.  Habitual offenders have a knack for hanging with the wrong crowd.  Someone could leave the jail, he said, and move to a new community, and within a day they would mysteriously find the wrong folks to hang out with.  They think these folks will make them happy, but they are really false friends.  Our associations matter, who we walk, stand and sit with.

For the last 75 years, Harvard University has been conducting a study on what makes people happy.  It is called the Grant Study today.  A couple of years ago, the head researcher was asked about the results of the study.  The most important factor in happiness, he said, is relationships.  It is our relationships that can make us happy or miserable.

So what do we do?  First pruning.  We can recognize that there are people in our life who make us happy and unhappy, and as much as it is in our power, we can prune away those relationships that tend toward our unhappiness — the negative and complaining people.  We don’t always have a choice, but as far as we can it is important to prune those connections away.  Next watering.  We can water and nurture those relationships in our life that tend toward our happiness.  And if we are able to do more watering than pruning, then on the whole we will be happier.

2) The next section speaks about the happy person “who delights in God’s law and meditates on God’s law day and night.”  The classic understanding of this verse has to do with scripture.  We are to read and meditate on scripture regularly each day.  When we find our delight in this practice, it tends to make us happier.  For myself, I follow daily readings put out by the Presbyterian Church.  I can read them easily on my phone.  I also like to read devotional writers recommended to me by church members, such as Henri Nouwen and Sarah Young.  They help me to see the Bible’s teaching in a new way.  When I do these things, I am happier.  Find a way that works for you and it will help make you happy too.

Actually, though, I am thinking about this verse in a broader way this morning.  The word rendered ‘law’ is the Hebrew word torah, and it means instruction.  I think that God’s instruction is broader than simply what we read in the Bible.  God’s torah, God’s instruction comes to us daily in all the circumstances of our life.  It is up to us to have the ears to hear this instruction that is always coming to us from God.

Robert Lawrence Smith was for many years the headmaster at the Sidwell Friends School in Washington DC.  A lifelong Quaker, he says this about our theme: “Each day of our lives is another journey down the path of truth.”  I love that!  Quakers believe that Truth is always speaking to us in all the places of our lives.  It is up to us to listen to what Truth says.

There is a truth you will only learn digging in the garden.
There is a truth you will only learn playing on a baseball diamond.
There is a truth you  will only learn stretching on a yoga mat.
There is a truth you will only learn fixing dinner in the kitchen.
There is a truth you will only learn sitting in a doctor’s office.
There is a truth you will only learn sleeping in a jail cell.
There is a truth you will only learn walking in the woods.
There is a truth you will only learn holding hands with one who loves you.
There is a truth you will only learn singing in church.

In all of these places, truth is speaking to us.  It is up to us to ask, “What is truth telling me today.”  When we listen for that instruction and delight in it, we are happy.

Leo Tolstoy wrote the classic novel Anna Karenina.  Her story ends in a tragic way, unfortunately.  But there is another story line in the book that ends in a better way.  It involves Konstantin Levin.  We watch Levin as he courts and marries a young woman named Katerina.  They love each other very much and are so happy together.  But Levin himself struggles with doubts and questions about whether or not there is a God.  He sees people like his wife who are believers, but he fears he is not, and it bothers him greatly.  He goes through the entire Orthodox marriage service with his fingers crossed (so to speak) because he doesn’t know what to do with religion and all its doctrines.  He has a crisis the day their first child is born.  Katerina is in labor for 22 hours, and Levin is frantic, fearing that she make die.  He prays for the first time since childhood.  A baby is born, a son, and mother and child are fine.  Then they leave the city and go back out to their estate in the country.  Levin is still struggling with his doubts.  He reads philosophers, but they do not answer his burning questions.  He grows more depressed and stops carrying a gun with him around his property for fear he might use it on himself.

It all comes to a head one day when Levin is in the barn working on a piece of machinery.  One of his laborers is working next to him.  They begin talking about a local landowner, and unscrupulous man who takes advantage of everyone.  Levin has no respect for him.  The laborer says, “We should not just live for our belly.  We should live for the soul, live for God.”  Levin stares at him, dumbfounded.  It is like the voice of God speaking to him.  He staggers out of the barn and sits down under a great tree.  The words echo in his heart.  Don’t live for your belly.  Live for your soul, live for God.  The tears of joy begin to stream down his face, and he realizes that yes he is a believer.  He does have faith after all.  He can do this, live for his soul and live for God.  He has a spiritual awakening.  Truth was speaking to him, and he listened and was changed forever.

Truth is always speaking to us.  It bubbles up in our experience when we don’t expect it.  And if we listen to it, it can make us happy, reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy in the next.

There is so much more to say here!  I love the image of the tree planted by streams of water, which bears fruit in season.  Not always, but only in its season.  But that is a sermon for another time.

Let me just end with this.  What about God?  Is God happy or unhappy?  In religion, we seem mostly to think that God is unhappy with us, so we are always apologizing for ourselves to God.  But I think this is an inadequate image of God.  Thomas Aquinas said, “We must dare to affirm that God is ecstatic with joy.”  One of the things that gives God joy is us!  When Jesus came up out of the water, the voice from heaven said to him, “You are my beloved son.  With you I am well pleased.”  That voice can speak to us too.  Our life will truly change when we hear the voice that says, “You are my beloved son, my beloved daughter.  I am happy with you.”

A final image.  Two moms are at a park watching their children play.  One mom says to the other, “One of your kids is biological, and one is adopted, right?”  The other mom says, “Yes.”  The first says, “Which one is your adopted child.”  The other looks out at all the children playing and says, “I don’t remember.”  We think God scrutinizes us and puts us in these categories.  But God doesn’t.  God looks at us with eyes of love and says, “I am happy with you.”

If you haven’t been happy in a long time, then let this thought of God’s happiness seep into your soul.  Maybe it will help you to do something you haven’t done in years — to smile.

It’s been said a writer is someone on whom nothing is lost.  I imagine Tolstoy as one who in any situation would absorb all the sensory details so that it would come out later in his writing.  It is lovely how he can describe a scene.  For novelists, it is hard to beat the two Russians Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, and of the two Tolstoy is better at portraying life itself in its detail.  He also has an ability to probe beneath the surface of his characters and show what they are thinking and feeling in every encounter.  Life is more than what meets the eye or ear.  I first read Anna Karenina during my senior year of high school 31 years ago.  We joked about it as our ‘Russian soap opera.’  The story meant more to me now, of course, because I have lived longer and known loss and joy.  This is a rich and wonderful novel.  I read the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation, which is excellent.

(image: Greta Garbo as Anna Karenina)

I wonder if an overlooked culprit in this conflict between right and left is the word justice.  Both sides pursue justice as they understand it.  But when we equate our cause with justice, that puts anyone who disagrees on the side of injustice. In other words, the language of justice is inherently polarizing. The Sermon On the Mount says, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in other to be seen by them.” Literally it says “beware of making justice before others.”  The immediate context is alms for the poor, which should be done in secret rather than for show, but the problem with ‘making justice’ has a wider scope.  Whenever I put my concern for justice out on public display, so to speak, there is an inherent danger to my spirit and to my relationships with others who disagree with my vision of justice.  It also makes the (breathtaking) assumption that I know exactly what justice is in this case.  A passion for justice leaves little room for humility or reticence, and it makes conversation and consensus that much harder to find.

Since I quoted the Bible, it also makes sense to quote Shakespeare:  “Though justice be thy plea, consider this, that in the course of justice none of us will see salvation.  We do pray for mercy.  And that same prayer doth teach us to render the deeds of mercy.”  In the end, mercy weighs more than justice.  If I see little mercy in the anti-gay crusade of the Religious Right, I also see little mercy in the anti-conservative rhetoric on the Religious Left.  It is hard to have a passion for justice and for mercy.  It’s like trying to serve two masters — you will follow one or the other.

Yet, I suspect, there are many United Methodists who, like me, find themselves among the muddled middle.  Don’t get me wrong, I can be as polarizing as the next person. Anyone who knows me, knows that I can be opinionated and often passionately obstinate. I confess my failure, in this regard. I seek to do better, by the leading of Grace. Even so, as I watched General Conference (thankfully not a delegate), I was keenly aware of both sides of most positions. I could see the value in both sides (and often the theological basis for both sides). What I couldn’t see very often was the willingness of the “poles”—or those who argued most vehemently for a position—to listen and, perhaps, even change their minds. Or at the very least, nuance their position…

I don’t have the answer to what ails us as a church. I’m not sure anyone does. But this semester, I have been teaching a course in John Wesley’s theology, specifically focused on sanctification and holy living. In the early annual conferences of the Methodist movement (well before any such gargantuan as General Conference emerged), they began the conference “after some time spent in prayer.” (See the Minutes of the First Annual Conference) We do have worship at General Conference, sometimes very meaningful worship. I wonder what might happen, though, if we spent the first 24 hours gathered in prayer, silent prayer especially, and listening for God? No politicking or maneuvering allowed! Can we expect holy conferencing to be holy if we haven’t quieted ourselves to listen for God?

Robinson teaches at St Paul School of Theology.