Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday, June 21st, 2015click here for past entries
Loving God, in the midst of our fears, you continue to proclaim your love and faithfulness. Help us to grow this day and every day in our faith and trust in you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Imagine that you are at a Bible study in Charleston, South Carolina, and a stranger who has joined you that day pulls out a gun and kills 9 people, including three of your pastors. Then imagine singing or saying Psalm 27: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” Would it make sense to say this?... Would you be able to respond with trust and confidence in God?...
Those who are able to say “yes” to this will likely do so for one very good reason: Experience! They will continue to trust God because they have seen God’s saving help in the past. They have experienced answers to prayer, and they have cried out to the Lord and have been saved. And so they know that God is both faithful and powerful.
However, those who have not had this previous experience are more likely to respond with a Psalm of lament. “I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God” (Ps. 69:3). How long, O Lord? Both kinds of Psalms are prayed in the midst of a crisis, but with experience comes trust.
The thing is that these Psalms make no bones about the fact that life on this earth can be both dangerous and deadly. What we learn over time is that God doesn’t just step in and stop every bad situation from happening. Instead, God has given both us and others the freedom to make our choices, whether good or bad. However, this also doesn’t mean that God is somehow absent wherever people are in crisis. To the contrary, God is right there with us, no matter what kind of crisis engulfs us. The question, though, is always whether we are still able to trust God, even in the midst of causes for fear.
As I think about this, I am reminded of the deep faith of some of the aboriginal people I have met. In some ways, it amazes me that they are able to believe and trust in God in spite of what they experienced at church-run residential schools. I especially think of Mary, who is aboriginal, and ordained in the Anglican church, and who usually attends the Anglican / Lutheran Study Conference in Pinawa. Her faith and trust are in Jesus. She helps many of her people who are in crisis, and she also teaches and practices native spirituality. And so when I think about trusting God in the midst of crisis, I think of her.
Of course, for those of us here, we probably each have our own causes for fear. In the case of the psalmist, when we read the whole Psalm we get a sense of what his situation was. Certainly, the part that we heard today talks about being in the middle of a war with an army surrounding you (Ps. 27:3). It also mentions evildoers who want to cause you bodily harm (v. 2). However, later in the Psalm it mentions something far more personal. “Though my father and my mother forsake me, the Lord will take me in” (v. 10, EvLW).
Especially on Father’s Day, that part hits home. All of us, I believe, want our parents’ approval and love. And so, it is hard to even imagine your parents forsaking you. For those who maybe don’t know their fathers or who have had impossible relationships with their fathers, there always seems to be something missing when it comes to confidence and trust. And so today, we not only acknowledge the pain that is there when there is no loving relationship with your father, but also give thanks for fathers who do instill that confidence and trust in their children.
There can be a lot of fear there when we think about our father or mother forsaking us. What’s wrong with me, right? What is so bad about me that they would abandon me? Many of the children who were taken in the 60's Scoop were wondering the very same things. Yet, even in the midst of fears like this, the psalmist has confidence that God will never forsake him or leave him.
We’ve been reminded here of some of the things that might have caused the psalmist to fear, but what are some of the things that cause us to fear? What are the things that come to mind for you?... If we kept on going, we could probably make a pretty long list! There are a lot of scary things in this world, and it is highly unlikely that we would never experience fear. However, the key here is what we do with that fear. We can be paralyzed by fear, or we can act in spite of our fear.
I have read a number of different stories about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the fear that sometimes overwhelmed him. He was arrested many times, and received death threats not only against him but against his family. There were times when all the stress and fear just seemed to close in on him, and he was tempted to give it all up. However, each time he was reminded of God’s presence and power. In the end, it was his faith and trust in God that gave him the strength to continue, and most would say that God used him in a powerful way before he was assassinated in 1968. In his case, it wasn’t that he didn’t experience any fear. He just acted in spite of it, believing that God would take care of him.
At the same time, he was seeking God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness above all else. He knew that as long as he was listening to God’s call, God would provide all that was needed. He also knew that ultimately, he was in God’s hands, in spite of what human beings might try to do to him.
While there are those who might say that God abandoned him in the end because he got shot, I don’t think that he would see it that way. For he shared the faith that is proclaimed in Romans:
We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s (Rom. 14:7-8).
This is true for all those who believe and trust in Jesus Christ.
And so, consider making the beginning of Psalm 27 your mantra: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (v. 1). For to all those who seek God’s kingdom above all else, all that is needed will be provided. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Pentecost 4 (NL summer) Psalm 27:1-6
June 21, 2015 Matthew 6:25-34
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison
© 2015 Lynne Hutchison All Rights Reserved
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