Grief, anger & being convinced by the love of God

This is a sermon I gave this week at Bristol Cathedral in a service to remember people who have died affected by homelessness.

Reading: Romans 8:35-39 – read by Leo, Hope into Action tenant

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Danger and chaos

Just over twenty years ago I was the manager of an emergency hostel for 60 young homeless people in Soho, in the centre of London. In those days, Soho was extremely chaotic. Most of our work with the young people in the hostel was seeking to stem the flow of further damage caused by drug addiction and the associated issues of begging, shoplifting and selling sex.

It was a world which included many of the issues referred to in the reading:

Trouble. Hardship. Hunger. Destitution. Danger. Violence.

I am sure these are issues very relatable to many people here today.

Recovery journey

One of the young people who stayed at that hostel was Kerri Douglas. She was a young woman, still a teenager, whose life was dominated by her addictions. She was feisty and challenging. Like many residents, she stayed for a time, then left and I never knew what happened to her.

But 16 years later, I was put in touch with her by the charity St Mungo’s who had done a lot of work with Kerri in the intervening years. Kerri had gone on an long journey of recovery and had written a book called Gutter to Glory.

Too painful

I went to visit Kerri where she lived. I took with me a photo album of pictures of staff and residents from the hostel she stayed in all those years before.

She had said wanted to see it but after looking at a couple of pages, she wanted me to put the album away. The pictures were too painful; too many of the young people in those pictures are no longer with us. So many who had not survived the chaos.

Kerri’s story is one of hope. But her story does not reflect the tragic reality for many who do not survive. Homelessness is deadly.

No shortage of concern

Homelessness has no shortage of people concerned about it. Royalty. Government Ministers. Local politicians. Councils. Charities. Churches. Agencies. Activists.

But homelessness persists. It brings together so many different problems our society faces and combines both political failure and personal tragedy.

Most obviously, there is material poverty. People not having the resources they need: the lack of affordable housing, debt, unemployment, low wages and benefit problems. These are issues of social injustice.

But there is also the poverty of relationships. Whether through abuse, domestic violence or neglect, so many are not surrounded by healthy relationships.

And most deeply, the poverty which affects someone’s very identity and the way they see themselves. Mental health problems, low self-esteem and addictions.

Deeper than house-lessness

It shows why homelessness is so much deeper than house-lessness. Houses are a key resource, but homes are places of relationship and identity.

Giving someone accommodation can be relatively simple but restoring relationships and re-building a positive self-identity is far more challenging.

People need a place to be, but we also need people to be with. We are relational beings. This is why love is so central to human hopes and dreams and our films and songs. We all seeking a place where we belong.

The root of love

And I believe that there is something deeper than human love, something which human love stems from and is rooted in: the love of God.

Humans are not a chance collection of atoms who happen to breathe. We are body, mind and soul. We are relational beings created in the image of a relational God.

In the reading, we heard:

‘I am convinced that nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’

The writer of these words was the Apostle Paul. Elsewhere in the Bible, he calls himself the chief of sinners – the most guilty of all – because he had persecuted and helped kill innocent followers of Jesus. But his life was turned on its head when he encountered Jesus for himself.

Sure and convinced

I want to focus on 3 words Paul says: I am convinced.

Paul was so sure, so convinced about the love revealed in Jesus, that he gave up a life of respectability for one of difficulty and hardship. On his travels he was continually abused, threatened, arrested, beaten up, even shipwrecked because he was convinced about the love of God.

And he writes that that he is convinced that this is a love can overcome everything: time, space, all natural and super-natural forces. Even death itself. And through this love we can be conquerors and overcome the most painful challenges in life.

This is the love that transformed Kerri’s life. As she writes in her book:

‘On the last Sunday of April just days before my 30^th birthday, I declared my love for Jesus and was baptized in water…a feeling so immense, one that I could never forget. I was a new creation, washed clean in the water. The old had left me as the new became rooted.’

Kerri found the resource of accommodation and she had re-established relationships with people who cared for her. But in faith she found a new community and, most deeply of all, a new identity. ‘The old had left me…I was a new creation.’

Anger and grief

So today we solemnly and sadly remember all those who have died, whose names will be read shortly. And it is right to be angry about the injustice which causes such loss. Each is a precious person, made in the image of God and of infinite value.

And alongside grief and anger, I pray that each of us here can hear the message that Paul was convinced of. A message that he staked his life on. A message that built this cathedral and every church in Bristol, that started Hope into Action, The Salvation Army, inHope and countless other organisations. A message which transformed the life of Kerri Douglas. A message that I am convinced by and have built my life on.

A message that says, despite grief, terrible loss and sadness, that nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen.