I wouldn’t call myself a “dissectologist”—that is, a person

who has a passion for solving puzzles—although I do like

puzzles. But a trip to Michigan in our family is just not

complete without a card table brimming with 1,000 tiny,

brightly colored puzzle pieces.

It’s always a daunting project to put together a puzzle,

but the reward is so sweet—the transformation of chaos

and confusion into a beautiful picture, every piece fitting

into its place. It’s highly satisfying for a summer-vacation-

dissectologist like me.

Puzzles are a family affair at our lake cottage, or most of the

family at least, providing activity for a rainy day or a diversion

from the beach. Everyone has their own technique. Some

prefer the edges. Others sort by colors. One granddaughter

has an eye for shape. For some in our family, it even

becomes an obsession. As the puzzle begins to take shape,

it gets more and more difficult to get up and walk away,

to resist an opportunity to just finish a corner, or complete

a section. “I’ll be out to the beach in just a minute (or an

hour!).” Or, “Just a few more pieces and I’ll be up to bed.”

In case you didn’t know, puzzles pieces have names such as

“whimsies,” which are pieces cut into recognizable shapes

like a cat or a car, “tabs” for pieces with parts that stick

out, and “blanks,” pieces for the tabs to fit into. Knobs and

sockets, outies and innies—self-explanatory.

A puzzle speaks to our desire for wholeness and completion,

to see all the pieces fit neatly together to form a picture, to

bring meaning to all those individual shapes when the last

piece snaps into place. Now we see the big picture and it all

makes sense.

God too must desire that sense of completion. He is a God

of order after all. The Master Dissectologist is, and has been,

working on a master puzzle throughout time, arranging all

the pieces that, together, will reflect his picture of a restored

and glorious kingdom.

It is quite comforting to know that each of God’s puzzle

pieces (that’s us), has a place in time, with a job to do

that fulfills a purpose—that there is meaning to the even

sometimes chaos and suffering that are part of our lives.

Paul has a lot he wants to convey to the Roman Church in

his letter and in this passage. In just a few sentences, we

learn about prayer, trust in God, the Spirit, God’s plans for

us and for his creation, and the difficult subject of Christian

suffering and how that fits into God’s plans. Too much for

one sermon. But toward the end of it lies my favorite and

oft-quoted line: “We know that all things work together for

good for those who love God, who are called according to

his purpose.”

When Chris invited us to select a passage that has been

meaningful to us for a sermon this summer, I knew

immediately which one I would choose: Romans 8:28. This

line of Scripture has provided comfort and encouragement

when things aren’t going as planned in my life, and I

have quoted it to others to do the same. I thought it said

something along the line of “our lives are puzzles that

God will arrange into a pretty picture, making sense and

providing meaning out of the bad things that happen to us.”

But an important Bible lesson to remember is always to be

wary of taking a sentence or line from Scripture without fully

considering its context. It is so easy to make a sentence or

phrase fit our own purpose. So what is the context here?

Paul is addressing the issue of suffering to the young

Christian church in Rome, which is experiencing hardship,

and asking questions that we still ask today. What has

suffering got to do with faith? And why, if Jesus-followers are

God’s beloved, do we suffer?

The Roman church was comprised mostly of Gentiles,

but Gentiles who were faithful students of Hebrew

Scripture. The Roman Christians were outliers in Rome,

small, criticized and harassed on all sides: by the Jewish

community for their beliefs, and ostracized from Gentile

friends and families for the same. The suffering of which

Paul speaks here is Christian suffering, suffering for the sake

of Christ—criticism, ridicule, the threat (or reality) of political

or physical harm—for living as followers of Jesus.

Most of us, in the freedoms that we have just celebrated

this weekend, have not had to suffer much for our faith, but

around the world many Christians still do. But even here,

sometimes within our own circles of family and friends,

we feel the push and pull of our faith and the world, the

awkwardness of sometimes being out of step with everyone

else’s priorities. The more out of step we are, the more we

may feel the pressure. Paul reminds us that these sufferings

are temporary and inconsequential when compared to our

future glory. All things will finally resolve themselves for

good in God’s Grand Plan.

Paul tells us in this passage that when God is at the center

of our lives, we have hope, and that hope exhibits itself as

patience, peace, and courage, because we are confident that

God will eventually put all the pieces together in their proper

order and set things right. In Paul’s teaching, it is our joy to

work together with God for the creation of his kingdom.

So God (thank God), has a plan. Left to our own devices as

human beings, we are almost certain to make a mess of

things because of our human natures. In fact, we already

have, from the misuse of God-given resources, to poor

decisions we’ve made in our lives with bad consequences,

to historical tragedies like the Crusades and slavery.

Humans just tend to make a mess of things. Paul says not

only to quit worrying about our messes and challenges,

but to rejoice in them. Whatever our suffering for Christ, our

salvation is assured. We can be certain of our redemption,

because it is a gift from God and nothing to do with our

own efforts.

Even Creation waits with eager anticipation. Paul reminds

us that indeed, we have already been given a foretaste of

our future through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Redemption is

God’s powerful loving act through Christ.

It can be the little things in life that catch us up sometimes.

There can be a world of difference between two small

decisions, or two small opportunities, or two little words. In

this case, between the words “for” and “with.”

In the translation of Romans 8:28 I read, the word “for”

is used and is the one used in many other translations.

It sounds, with that word, as if Paul is saying that God is

working through all things in our lives, good and bad, for

our benefit. “We know that all things work together for

good for those who love God, who are called according to

his purpose.”

But the more accurate translation is actually “with.” “We

know that all things work together for good with those

who love God, who are called according to his purpose,”

meaning that we, as Jesus-followers, are to work in

partnership with God to help bring forth goodness and the

redemption of Creation. Two small words.

We heard this morning that the Israelites in Egypt had

God with them in their sufferings, and so did the Roman

Christians who faithfully studied that very story in Jewish

Scripture. But the “with” of Paul’s letter was perhaps

something they hadn’t considered. Moses—who had to

ask God if he was really sure that he wanted him, Moses,

to approach Pharoah and lead the Israelites out of Egypt—

seemed a bit surprised. Maybe the Romans were too.

God called Moses. God calls each of us.

The plan is God’s, but the building of the puzzle, the means

by which God will bring all Creation, including us, to

wholeness and completion, is a partnership thing. As Jesus-

followers, we must follow him and be like him.

The “with us” translation is very Paul, and fits well in his

teachings. We, God’s children, are not given a free ride but

are to work with God for the building of God’s kingdom, to

do good, to love one another, to have compassion, to be

generous, to follow Christ in our daily lives, for the goodness

of God’s creation, to help bring in God’s Kingdom that has

already been set in motion.

“One of the frustrations of being an elderly exegete, is to

find the text refusing to say what you thought it said sixty

years ago,” writes Theologian and scholar N.T. Wright. “I

understood the Romans 8:28 [text] to be saying that the

multiple disparate elements of life would sort themselves

out, under God’s benevolent guiding, like a sort of automatic

jigsaw puzzle. It might look chaotic, but a happy picture

would emerge from it all.”

When I first read this, I was crushed. But then, I must admit

that I felt a little bit vindicated. Even a noted scholar can

slip up every once in a while. So, when I fall and break my

wrist a week before our long-planned cruise, when a job is

lost and the mortgage is due, when a devastating diagnosis

is received, when we look around and see injustice and

suffering in our world and neighborhoods—does this

passage say that God isn’t with us? No. Not at all.

For we as children of God know in our hearts and from

Scripture that God is always for us, with us, and in us,

through the Spirit. We have each experienced God’s abiding

presence in our lives. But, “all things work together for good

with those who love him” doesn’t give us the privilege we

want, that everything in our lives will work together the way

we want them to.

Our thousand pieces of good and bad decisions, our

dramas, tragedies, joys, loves and losses, bad and good

things done by us, for us, and to us, form our puzzle piece,

but in partnership with God, God molds them to fit perfectly

into His Grand Puzzle, building piece by piece, toward his

glorious redemption of creation and each of us.

God collaborates with those who love him—that’s us.

“Those who love him” are special to God, each called

according to his purpose, which is to grow and develop into

the image of his Son. God is our co-laborer in the world as

we work together with him for good.

God “with us” or God “for us” isn’t mutually exclusive. It isn’t

an either/or situation. It’s (praise God) a both/and.

“What then are we to say about these things,” says Paul in

verse 31. “If God is for us, who is against us?” Indeed. Thanks

be to God.

God works with us in our efforts to follow Christ. After all, his

wisdom, power, and courage are needed, and He is for us

throughout our lives. Even though the passage does not say

exactly what I assumed it said, you don’t have to be very far

along in life to be able to look backwards and see the hand

of God at work. God often brings goodness out of a time

of suffering and trial. Theologian, writer, and priest Richard

Rohrer says that God spins gold out of the straw of our lives.

Years ago, during a rough patch in my marriage, when I felt

my life had fallen apart into a million pieces, I was in the

straw. But the Spirit encouraged me and provided hope,

heard only in my heart. A decision to work through it all, to

have patience, to forgive, and to give grace to one another, is

a redemption story for our family, for our relationships with

God, and working with God, has provided opportunities to

encourage and provide hope to others. It is a both/and story,

a true work of God’s puzzleology. God is the at the wheel,

spinning gold from straw.

We all have stories, and challenges. As a friend of mine says,

“Life be lifin,” meaning life has a way of throwing you some

hardballs, providing some detours that were not in your

plans for your perfect life. The good, the bad and the ugly

of our lives are, however, all part of our life puzzle piece and

uniquely form the way we fit into God’s plans.

One of the most famous redemption stories may be the

one that Susan read today: the redeeming of God’s people

from slavery to freedom. Lives transformed, a new history

written, carried out in partnership with God’s chosen people.

God is working in our lives for good. God is working with us

through our efforts for the good of the world.

I am a fan of Mr. Rogers, ever since our children were small.

They were entranced, and so was I, even more so when I

learned about his life. Fred, an ordained Presbyterian pastor,

was the first to recognize that “the space between the tv

and the viewer was holy ground” and that it could be a tool

to talk to children on their level about love. He was a faithful,

wise and courageous man of God who walked out of sync

with most of the world. He took a different path in life—one

for which he was criticized and misunderstood, but a life

with and through God, one in which he used his talents

and resources to work with God, helping to create more

sensitive and caring children and adults. He told us to look

for the helpers, the ones who come out in a crisis and work

with God.

“We know that with those who love God, he collaborates

for good,” N.T. Wright translates Verse 28. Those who love

God have the Spirit, and the Spirit is acting in them, in us, for

good. God, in God’s wisdom, designed the world so that its

puzzle pieces through time, would fall together according to

his plan. The world is moving toward his goal through those

who love him and work with him.

“With us” is our calling, our vocation, but God is also “for

us.” That too is part of God’s plan. And because we are in

God’s hands, all things finally resolve for good—for creation

and for us.

So where are we today in the scheme of God’s plans? Only

God knows of course. God’s plan was to create a Messiah-

shaped people through whom he would do what had to

be done. In the lives and prayers of the faithful, God’s plan

is underway. We live in the in-between time, between

generations of the faithful, the “already” and “not yet” of the

new age, initiated, but not yet fully here. As God shapes our

individual puzzle pieces, he smooths over the corners, and

shapes our tabs and blanks, to make us a perfect fit.

In the meantime, we wait in hope for what is yet to come.

We wait with patient endurance, steadfastness and

perseverance for the final picture to emerge. But we are not

to wait idly by—we are to make ourselves known by how we

love, live, give, and serve.

Without our individual puzzle pieces, the puzzle is not

complete, and we deprive the world of the hope that

emerges when we share our lives and our resources. With

our quirky, crazy whimsies, innies and outies, we show the

world what God has done for us, which motivates us, and

then we inspire those we meet who hear our stories, to learn

God’s story.

There must be no greater frustration for a true dissectologist

like God than a puzzle with a missing piece. Amen.