All’s Well that Ends Well—Rom 15:7-13

The Bible isn’t a tragedy.  It has its tragic moments, plenty of those!  The Bible is a comedy.  That doesn’t mean the Bible is filled with laughs from start to finish.  The Bible is a comedy in the sense that the Late Medieval Italian poet Dante perceived, when he wrote his Divine Comedy seven hundred years ago: one of the great works of literature.  Dante saw the Bible was a comedy because, like the great ancient Greek comedies, everything turns out alright, in the end.  In tragedy, nothing turns out alright in the end; everything falls apart.  In comedy, as Shakespeare so memorably put it, all’s well that ends well.

Comedy certainly recognizes that things fall apart, things go haywire, often very quickly, sometimes dangerously so.  The assurance of comedy is that, although things do go haywire, everything works out in the end.  No matter what might happen along the way (and even in comedy, bad and sad things happen along the way), despite all the misunderstandings, all’s well that ends well.  The crucial difference between how things were before and how things end up is that people—some people, anyway—end up a bit more mature, a bit wiser, a bit more humble.  If we stagger out of a tragedy sadder but wiser, we leave a comedy wiser and happier.

One common comic plot is the often painful desire to find acceptance.  If you’re of my generation, plus or minus a few years, you might remember The Breakfast Club (1985).  A handful of high school kids is doing detention on Saturday morning.  Each of them is representative of a clique: the jock, the popular, wealthy girl, the troublemaker bad boy, the quiet, weird girl, and the awkward, invisible freshman.  They are who they are, and that is part of the comedy, and the other part of the comedy is the way in which they discover that day that each of them is also something more, more wonderful.  This truth comes home to us as we reflect that such discovery takes work, takes time; it takes being thrown together and, maybe, it takes a little grace.

When we’re talking about acceptance, we need to remember one thing.  God had chosen a people.  You and I were not among that chosen people.  No promises had been made to us.  No covenant of salvation, protection, and special care had been made with us.  There may be someone here who comes from a Jewish background.  I don’t know if there is or not.  If there is, I really, truly rejoice in you.  The rest of us are not Jews.  We are Gentiles.

The great, joyful news, for us, as St. Paul reminds us, is that, in Jesus Christ, God chooses to accept us as His people.  In Christ, God accepts us as His people just as we are.  We don’t have to try to be Jews.  One of the lessons of comedy, where everything works out in the end and all’s well that ends well, is that we can learn to accept one another just as we are: broken down, messy, with good intentions and a poor record of following through.  Comedy, that is to say, the Bible, God’s Word, helps to keep us humble and grounded.

Paul says as much to the believers in Rome, capital of human folly, when he reminds and encourages them to accept one another.  We are to accept one another because Christ has accepted us—and Lord knows, if God has accepted me, how can I then not accept any of you!?  When we accept one another, which is not an easy thing to do, we are glorifying God.

Paul reminds the believers that Christ lived in order to serve God’s people, the Jews, and also in order to make it possible for Gentiles, us, to be able to praise God for His mercy.  I can’t think of many hymns that do not praise God for His mercy.  I can’t think of many prayers to do not praise God for His mercy.  It’s God’s mercy that takes the tragedy of our stories, our lives, and, by His grace transforms these, redeems these, into the comedy of the story He is telling, where everything turns out alright in the end, and all’s well that ends well.  In Jesus Christ, as the Bible tells us, all will end well, indeed!

When we keep in mind that Christ came and did all that he did so that we, who were not previously among God’s people, might, through Christ, be numbered among God’s chosen people, we start to look at ourselves and others more clearly.  We know that millions have been drawn to this nation, over the centuries, wanting to live in America.  Why?  Because they believe that life here, even at the bottom, is vastly superior, vastly more to be desired, than anything they could have where they were.  Now, even with all the current political baggage of that metaphor, apply it to the kingdom of God.  We want in.  We want in because we have the Spirit.  How do we get in?  Through Christ, who opens the way for us, who came so that the way could be open for us, too.  If that doesn’t make you want to clap your hands, laugh, and sing Glory, Hallelujah!, then you’re either a real Presbyterian or the message hasn’t sunk in quite yet.

Now, if we’re Presbyterians of a very traditional sort, at heart, we whole-heartedly acknowledge that, every day, we give God reason to smile and laugh: not because we please God, but because our failures, poor discipleship, and sins daily present God with two alternatives: wipe the earth clean of us all, or take a deep breath, smile, and laugh.  The theological word for this second alternative is mercy.  Mercy comes from grace, and grace and mercy come from love.  God is love, as St. John so memorably puts it.  Rather than letting the tragedy we have made of this world be the sum and end of the story, God has prepared and arranged things so that the story of His comedy—His ongoing mercy, His steadfast love, and His glorious joy—His story triumphs.  All that the world can pull off is a Good Friday.  God pulls off Easter.

When we learn from God, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit, He changes our perspective, so that we grow in mercy too.  This is how we come to accept one another.  When we think on our own follies, foibles, failures, and failings, soberly yet also in the joy and hope we have in Christ, it becomes much more difficult for us not to accept one another.  When we look at ourselves in the mirror of Christ, we don’t say, well, I’m not that bad.  When we see ourselves in the mirror of Christ, we see our mugshot with the word “Accepted” stamped on it, in red.

Jesus gives us the gift of hope, and hope causes us to praise, and praising causes rejoicing, and rejoicing is our ground for laughter, delighted laughter, joyful laughter.

At the end of what I read to you, Paul offers a blessing, a prayer for Gentiles, for us.  “May God, the source of hope, fill you with all joy and peace, by means of your faith in Him, so that your hope will continue to grow by the power of the Holy Spirit” (15:13).

God is the origin, the fountain, the source of hope.  We are hopeful that, though things do go awry, everything will work out in the end.  “[A]ll things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (Rom 8:28).  That can sometimes be hard to see, just as the happy ending of a comedy can be hard to see, in the messy middle of the movie.  Hope is comic; hope is the heart of comedy.  Christ is the assurance that our hope is not in vain, that we are not fools, dupes of a mean, empty, dark universe.

The origin of our hope, God, can fill us with joy and with peace, with all joy and peace.  Joy and peace go together.  I can’t imagine peace without joy.  What is peace without joy?  The tomb?  I can’t imagine joy without peace.  What is joy without peace?  Delusion, mania, sorrow?  If sorrow is joy, then we are in an Orwellian world after all!  When God fills us with joy and peace, His joy and His peace, peace sustains joy and joy sustains peace.

If we are filled with joy and with peace by God the source of hope, we have that fullness by faith.  Where does faith come from?  Not our resolve.  Not our will or our work.  Faith comes from God, who gives us faith.  Beloved, it’s when we truly have faith in God that we discover we are filled with joy and with peace, this wonderful fusion, of faith, peace, joy, and hope.  This is courage for us, and strength.  Strength, courage, hope, peace, joy, and faith are signs and assurances of the Holy Spirit, alive in us and at work, in us and among us.  The Holy Spirit is preparing us for God.  The point of our joy is hope, and the end of hope—the destination—is God.

It’s good to be able to laugh at ourselves.  And while we laugh at, it’s also good (better, really) to know that God is at work in us so that we can laugh with Him, enjoying His goodness, enjoying His grace, enjoying His love, knowing that God does not require that we become something other than we are to be accepted by Him, knowing that His acceptance of us does not depend upon anything we are or do.  Acceptance is through faith, faith in Christ, and faith and Christ are from God.  Let us accept one another, then, with humor, which is hard work, with love, no easy task, and with mercy, just as Christ accepts us.

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  For from God and through God and to God are all things.  To God be glory forever!