Trinity Metropolitan Community Church of Gainesville (Trinity MCC)

Sermon: Speechless…But Always Heard

Rev. Vickie Miller

Date: June 21, 2009 Scripture: Romans 8:26-39

The scripture reading today from the 8^th chapter of Romans is one of the most beloved Christian chapters. There are many well-known verses in it.

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will distress, or persecution, or famine?

If God is for us, who is against us?

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to God’s purpose.

This chapter is a preacher’s dream!

One of my favorite scriptures in Romans 8 is the passage we read today, verse 26: “Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”

Maybe I am drawn to this passage because I am a sigh-er. For 16 years I have lived with Carol, and it wasn’t until a few years ago that she made me aware of how much I go around the house sighing. And I discovered that for many years she tried to interpret my sighs, and we finally had a conversation about my sighs.

For example, when I am doing chores, I often sigh. What do they mean? Am I in deep thought about something? Am I frustrated with this boring task? Am I sighing because I am aggravated with Carol for not helping me?

And you know what my answer was: I don’t know why. It just feels good to sigh. It’s like a release of unknown inner burdens or thoughts…like the scripture says

…for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

You know who else was a sigher, Charlie Brown? Sometimes it was as a result of Lucy pulling the football away as he attempted to kick it or his feeling rejected by the little red head girl. Charlie Brown often had that confused or frustrated expression on his face and surrounded by asterisk’s, in all capital letters would be a large *SIGH*. The funny thing is we usually knew what Charlie’s sighs meant. One comic commentator wrote about Charlie Brown’s sighs, they are the “the perfect expression of the inexpressible.”

…for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

After reflecting on this verse, I began listening more carefully to people’s sighs. Once on a plane, I heard the woman behind me let out a big sigh. I immediately interpreted it as the sigh of frustration. She had looked into her carry-on bag and found that her teenage son had eaten her chocolate-covered weight-watcher granola bar.

Then about five minutes later, she let out another even greater sigh of frustration as she looked further and found out that Jason had eaten ALL of her weight watcher bars. She then proceeded to give him a lecture on how that was morally wrong and told him that just for that he was not going to get a banana. I don’t think Jason cared about the banana. He enjoyed those chocolate covered weight watcher bars.

The sigh of frustration…for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

Then there is the sigh of exhaustion. I read about a woman who said that not only she is tired, but she said “if you listen closely, you will hear my check book sigh with exhaustion.” This woman anonymously calls herself LO, short for Living Oprah. She has decided to watch the Oprah show and faithfully do everything that Oprah suggests for one year.

Lo has spent $60 to replace her light bulbs, added ‘something from the sea’ to each room of her apartment, purchased a post-it highlighter, voted for Barack Obama, been re-fitted for the correct sized under garments, had margaritas with girlfriends, acquired a weighted vest to lose weight, and spent an evening sautéing Granny Smith apples, blending them with fresh parsley, celery and $28 worth of organic turkey meat. “Usually our dinners take about 30 minutes to make,” she says. “This one took three hours.”

The sigh of exhaustion…for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

Then there is the sigh of relief. I often utilize the sigh of relief when God rescues me from the silly things I do. For example, while on a vacation in Yellowstone National park several years ago I locked the keys in the rental van. You can imagine that Carol was not too happy with me for evening was approaching and we were in a remote area of the park. This van, of course, our only transportation, held our food and clothes, and even had become our sleeping area since grizzly bear warnings prevented us from sleeping in the tent. Thankfully a park ranger was called and was able to unlock our van. Believe me, I sighed a huge sigh of relief.

But that’s not the end of the story. Two days later in another section of the park I locked the keys in the van for a second time, this time as it started to rain. And Carol still married me! Even worse, the park attendant this time asked me if Carol was my daughter. When we got back into the van, I was making all kinds of sighs, sighs of relief, sighs of disgust, sighs of disbelief!

…for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

And there are other types of sighs: the sigh of boredom, the sigh of hopelessness, the sigh of deep contentment, the sigh after a long, hearty laugh.

In life we experience all kinds of emotions that often leave us speechless.

IV. The comfort in this passage for me is that even in my sighs, even in my times of deep inner searching without words, we are assured that we are always heard. God knows our very hearts. The Spirit is taking our sighs too deep for words and the Spirit intercedes for the saints. The Divine is always working for our good, even when we do not know how to ask for it or even for what to ask.

Roberta Bondi, in her book, To Pray & To Love, says that as modern Christians we have taken on a great amount of guilt about our prayer lives. She said that in this age we have some peculiar and self-destructive convictions about prayer that people of other time periods do not share. We often believe that if our prayers don’t come easily or if they are not spontaneous, then our prayers are not sincere. And if our prayers are not sincere, then we must not be good Christians.

Instead, the early monastic leaders learned through their experiences that prayer was not always what is said. Instead, prayer is a shared life with God over an entire life time. When we enter into deep relationship with God, we give up our sighs and unspeakable thoughts and emotions, and we develop this deep conviction that the Spirit speaks for us at all times. Prayer is not always what we say. Prayer is an attitude of utter dependence and trust in God. It is in the times of chaos, exhaustion, frustration, confusion, when we do not have the words, that our prayer life grows the most because, so does our dependence on God.

VI. In Yosemite National Park in California, one of my favorite sites is the Mariposa grove of the Giant Sequoias, beautiful huge cinnamon colored trees, some of which are over 2000 years old. Galen Clark discovered these trees in 1857, fell in love with them. He immediately felt a need to protect them and to speak for those who could not speak for themselves.

Unfortunately, Clark was diagnosed with tuberculosis and given little time to live. However, for the time that he had left, in the midst of the Gold Rush which brought tourism and the logging industry, Clark, incessantly interceded for these trees. We have to conclude, that this passion was what sustained him in his illness for another 60 + years when he died as the oldest person in his community at the age of 96.

There have always been those who have interceded for causes and for others. We are thankful to the founder of our denomination, Troy Perry, who interceded for marriage rights for the past several decades and now it is happening quicker than we ever expected.

I have concluded that intercession on the behalf of others and other living things is a holy act. Scripture frequently reminds us that the Spirit speaks for us and that one of Christ’s main focuses is to intercede for us. Therefore, intercession must be a holy act, worthy of our duplication.

And, I think, that if these Giant Sequoias are worth intercession, then surely are our very souls, which live into eternity. How fortunate we are to have that kind of God, who loves us enough to provide a way for communication…

…for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

VI. It is interesting that the Apostle Paul uses sighs as the description of the Spirit’s mode of speaking for us. The Hebrew word for Spirit “ruah” literally means breath, the breath of God. It is as if when we cannot pray, we begin running out of air. When we cannot pray, we become spiritually lifeless and breathless.

Yet, the Spirit becomes our oxygen, our “ruah” and breathes for us, relieving us of the struggle like a cleansing exhale.

When we allow the Spirit to breathe and pray for us, then we then die to ourselves, we give up control. When Jesus breathed his last breath and died, he took his very next breath in the realm of eternity. When we release our selves and our prayers to God, the Spirit also takes our breath, our prayers, into the very breast of God, into the dominion of God.

…for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. Amen.

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