"Trust" - Proverbs 3:5 - 6; Hebrews 12:1-2

A Sermon by Alex Evans, Pastor

Second Presbyterian Church, Richmond, VA

Texts: Proverbs 3:5-6; Hebrews 12:1-2

“TRUST” – August 16, 2020

            Guess what? We are planning to have a wedding this coming Saturday in our sanctuary! That may sound routine – a summer wedding in this beautiful space. But – as you know – this wedding is anything but routine given the challenges of the pandemic. 

            Across the last five months, this sacred space has been used, almost exclusively, for recording our worship. We had to postpone weddings; we have not been able to gather for funerals or other occasions. We have had to postpone baptisms and so many other fellowship and fun activities – all because of COVID-19. And I know some important events in your lives have been altered too.

            The wedding this coming weekend is for bride, Erin Richardson, who has been a member of this church her whole life, and bridegroom, Ashby Carver. It is certainly not going to be the wedding Erin dreamed about. The list of those invited has continued to shrink. All guests will be wearing masks. The wedding festivities have also been greatly altered because of social distancing and dangers. But there’s going to be a wedding – and Erin and Ashby will be married here on Saturday – with worship and joyful activity - and that is what the bride and groom continue to focus on in these unusual times. 

            You have heard me, and others, preach sermons from the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah is my favorite Old Testament prophet. Jeremiah was a spokesman for God who lived in some very trying times for God’s people. During Jeremiah’s time, God’s people – around 600BC – had drifted far away from faithfulness to God. Called to worship God and God alone, the people were worshipping other gods. Called to lead lives of love and service, the people were inclined toward selfishness and greed. Called to live in covenant with God, the people had forsaken God’s ways. Because of that unfaithfulness, Jeremiah’s message was one of doom and gloom. In fact, Jeremiah preached that the Babylonians – a powerful, neighboring nation – would attack and sack Israel and every aspect of life as they knew it. Their king would be killed, the Temple destroyed, the land taken over. And the people would be carried away because God had had enough of the unfaithfulness.

            At least three times in Jeremiah’s prophetic message – and as an example of how bad things had gotten – Jeremiah says “there will be no weddings in the land.” You cannot celebrate life and love when you are about to be sacked by a foreign power. Jeremiah says there will be “an end to the sound of mirth and gladness; the voice of the bride and the bridegroom will be no more” (7:34). Jeremiah even says – it is not only weddings that will be gone – but funerals too – you will not be able to gather and sit with grieving people and eat and drink. As a punishment, the Lord will banish gladness and joy, the connections that happen at both weddings and funerals (see 16:19). Because of unfaithfulness, Jeremiah says, the whole land will become a ruin and waste (25:10). 

            Jeremiah, as much as anyone else in Scripture, talks lots about the sadness and loss, the devastation that can happen in life, even to God’s people.

            Life is often filled with heartache and challenge. We know heartache and challenge. It flows all through our hearts during specific seasons, even for long chapters. It flows – and it seems to be flowing especially hard in these days – as we battle a persistent and complicated coronavirus. We long for this pandemic to be over. Heartache and uncertainty flow hard too as we confront major and systemic issues of racial injustice. We have a long way to go toward redemption, reparations, renewal as faithful people where liberty and justice are available to all people.

            But as the book of Jeremiah unfolds, and life gets bleaker and bleaker, the prophet offers another reference to the bride and the bridegroom. The prophet mentions weddings again, a fourth time. This time he is able to envision – at some point in the future - a resumption of weddings as young people and their families are willing once again to bet on and invest in love and life in the future. Jeremiah says, “there shall once again be heard the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voices of those who sing, as they bring thank offerings to the house of the Lord.” (33:10-11) 

            The prophet reminds us, with his anticipation of gladness and mirth at weddings, that we can indeed always bet on and invest in the future. We can bet on and invest – have weddings – because finally life belongs to God. We cannot be sure what happens to us, but we can be sure of God. The present and the future, are always held by God. Jeremiah echoes familiar words of the psalmists – “give thanks to the Lord; for the Lord is good; God’s steadfast love is forever.” 

            In the midst of one of the worst seasons of life for God’s people, in the middle of the bleakest chapters in all of Scripture, we are reminded: “give thanks to the Lord; God is good. God’s steadfast love is forever.” With God, no matter how bleak it gets, how oppressive it feels, how overwhelmingly beat down we get, there is always hope.

            This is the great refrain of Scripture: “give thanks to God; God is good; God’s steadfast love is forever.” The Hebrew word is “hesed” – often rendered “steadfast love.” Walter Brueggemann likes to translate it  – tenacious solidarity. That is what is forever – God’s tenacious solidarity with God’s people. 

            The Scriptures keep reminding us to sing, to say, to keep singing and saying – God is good. God’s steadfast love is forever!” God’s tenacious, loving, solidarity is for us, with us! God does not abandon God’s people – not in Babylon, not in pandemics, not in difficult seasons – “God’s steadfast love is forever.” This should shape everything about our lives. God is never absent, always present - in difficult chapters of life, in seasons of great loss, in times of devastation. God is present even exile in Babylon. God is abidingly faithful. “God’s steadfast love is forever.”

            Where do you need to hear this word today? What is happening in your life – when you may be doubting God’s presence, struggling with God’s promises, struggling to TRUST God? 

            We are in tough times. A recent report by cardiologists at the Cleveland Clinic has noted an increase of broken-heart syndrome during the coronavirus. This is the colloquial name for stress cardiomyopathy, a disfunction or failure of the heart muscle caused by psychological and emotional stress. Polls have shown that Americans have experienced increased depression and anxiety, and the need has surged for medications for such conditions in recent months. (see Christian Century, “Marks,” 8/12/20, p. 8)

            These are tough times. Maybe it is a medical issue for you, . . .  or a desperate situation with a loved one, . . . or a chronic journey with depression, loneliness, despair, . . . or a cultural or national crisis. Maybe it is something that  keeps you tossing at night. Here is the message for today, the consistent refrain of Scripture, the most important promise of God: God is good; God’s steadfast love is forever. 

            We have two Scripture passages that go along with that refrain about God’s steadfast love. The first from Scripture is easy to remember and worth memorizing, from Proverbs 3:5-6: 5Trust in the Lord with all your heart,and do not rely on your own insight. 6In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths. 

         The second passage comes from Hebrews 12: Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,2looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.     This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

            Even with craziness and challenge and heartache and confusion swirling around us – because it is always swirling around – we are called to TRUST God, and seek to keep running the race set before us, surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, looking to Jesus, knowing that our lives are always held by God.  

            One of my all-time, favorite hymns is one we will sing in just a moment, “Now Thank We All Our God.” This hymn was written by a German pastor named Martin Rinkart, almost 400 years ago. It was originally written in a very difficult season of his life and times – the famous and devastating Thirty Years War – 1618-1648 – a war in Central Europe that killed more than 8 million people, including 20% of the German population. People died not only from the years of killing, but from the hunger and disease created by such a long war. 

            Martin Rinkart was the only clergyman in a walled city – Eilenburg, Saxony - in the midst of this long war. History tells us that Rinkart did funerals and buried so many, sometimes 40-50 people a day! So much suffering and devastation. Rinkart’s wife died in these troubles along with so many others. Rinkart wrote this hymn as a table prayer for himself and his children. 

            In the midst of devastation and loss, the words of that hymn intend to deepen our trust and encourage our living: Now Thank We All Our God, with hearts and with hearts and hands and voices, who wondrous things hath done, in whom this world rejoices; who, from our mothers’ arms, hath blessed us on our way with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today. 

            In the midst of devastation and loss – we trust God and run our race: O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us, with ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us; and keep us in God’s grace, and guide us when perplexed, and free us from all ills in this world and the next. 

            This hymn comes straight out of great difficulty, challenge, loss and death, far worse than our own times. Yet the hymn sings of “wondrous things” and “this bounteous God.” The hymn invites us to cling to God’s grace. We keep singing it – no matter what is happening with us. We keep saying it – regardless of the challenges surrounding us. We keep urging it with each other, praying it together, and being shaped by these promises. God is good – we trust in God – not in ourselves – and keep running the race set before us. 

            Friends, even a pandemic is outflanked by the tenacity of God. Because of God, we are always people of hope – relentless hope. This is what we TRUST. God is tenacious and steadfast. We keep running the race. This is what the people of God are called to do, always. God is good; God’s steadfast love is forever. And we can for sure, keep striving to serve God – spreading kindness and love, comfort and care, joy and justice, seeking to do God’s important work in the world. 

            May it be so. AMEN

(Many of the thoughts and insights in this sermon emerge from an article by Walter Brueggemann, “Until the Dancing Begins Again,” through an email sent out by Journal of Preachers, August 2020) 

Prayer of Commitment: Holy God, to turn from you is to fall; to turn to you is to rise; to trust our lives to your abiding promises and tenacious love, and to serve you following Jesus – well – that is to abide forever. We seek that way. Amen

Alex W. Evans, Pastor, Second Presbyterian Church, Richmond, VA preached this sermon during Sunday morning worship on August 16, 2020. This is a rough manuscript.