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I was fifteen years old when I preached my first sermon. The notes or the script are no longer with me, but I remember some of the feelings as I ascended the steps of the pulpit; rising to the point described by some as six feet above contradiction.

It was only a few years earlier that I started to attend the church – Christ Church in Highbury, London. My family was, as the term used to be, “unchurched” and were quite indifferent as to how I chose to spend Sunday mornings. Between my first church attendance and my first sermon, I had attended a Billy Graham Crusade – that changed my experience of life and, eventually, my future as I welcomed Jesus as Lord, Savior, and Friend into my life.

But, back to the first sermon. I know I was nervous, aware of the privilege and the responsibility. I know also that the minister and the congregation were supportive and encouraging. I suspect the sermon was a little stilted and awkward, the sentences were far too long for public speaking, but I am sure of the text.

I was reminded of the text earlier this week during my daily prayers – it was a passage from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, chapter 8 and, especially, verses 37-39: “37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (NRSV).

Paul’s comment “I am persuaded…” then and now gives me hope. The word suggests a process of convincing to the point of being bound by truth. Reading newspapers and social media, watching television news tempts me to be persuaded that all is chaos, wild and unchecked. Paul was persuaded by the love of Christ of a divine power that, in the end, will have the final word and bring beautiful order to reckless disorder. I need that “persuasion.”

Paul was persuaded of a great and triumphant truth that nothing anywhere, nothing in any time, no one person could “separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.” The word “separate” suggests dividing, putting asunder, creating a space between two people, two objects.

Whenever I think about that first sermon, it brings me joy to know that my preaching ministry (sixty years on) began with that wonderful, glorious message that “nothing… can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”
I can only hope that my ministry in preaching, teaching, pastoral care has been shaped and energized by these wonderful words and conviction of Paul and that this will continue to the end.

It truly is a divine task to create wholeness where there is fragmentation, to nurture association where there is separation – this divine task is perfectly and eternally achieved for “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.” I am invited, with a great company of others, to work out that divine task in our relationships at home, at church, at work and in our nation.

Lord, have mercy. God, help us.

Alan Neale is the Rector at Zion Episcopal Church in Washington