A Sermon: When Trouble Comes

photo by ancient history / flickr

A great preacher once said, “When I get into trouble I always turn to the Psalter.”  That’s not surprising. For God’s people have always found hope and healing from the Psalms. Psalm 130 writes: “Out of the depths I cry to you.” And year after year people have turned to the Psalms because they deal with the raw stuff of life. “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” they asked in that terrible exile time. We keep coming back to David’s confession in Psalm 51 because those words are our words: “Have mercy on me, O God , according to your steadfast love.” “Blot out all my transgressions.” ”Create in me a clean heart…O God.” “My soul thirsts for God…” “Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. (Ps. 25.17) “In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help.” (Ps. 18.6b)

Claus Westermann a very fine theologian was Pastor in Germany during the Second World War. Hitler had him locked up in a prison camp like so many other courageous Pastors. Westermann said he only had two books with him in prison. A copy of Luther’s translation of the New Testament and the Psalms. And this is what he wrote about those Psalms: 

 “Whenever one in his enforced separation praised God in song or speech, or silence, he was conscious of himself not as an individual, but as a member of the congregation. When in  hunger and cold, between interrogations, or as one sentenced to death, he was privileged to praise God, he knew that in all his ways he was borne up by the church’s praise of God.”

photo by Carson Coots / flickr

More than half the Psalms were written in a time of trouble and great need. And this is the setting of the words we come to today. Psalm 62. We don’t know what the trouble was. Enemies—within or without. People who hated him and wanted to do him in. He says he felt battered and anxious and assaulted. Enormously disappointed. Sound familiar? Of course it does. For out of the depths of our lives—we reach out too, don’t we. A world in disarray. Kids or grandchildren we can’t reach don’t understand. Like the woman that told me after they arrested her only son for more than the first time, “You know, if I had known it would be this hard—I would never have had a child.” I teach a Grief group these days—and they come in with their stories. None are the same. And yet—underneath all their separateness there is this common thread. Help. What are we gonna do? It life over? 

We all have asked these questions in hard times. And if God were here today sitting in this chair—I think we would have a lot to ask him. Wouldn’t we? 

It has always been that way—we have these lists not only of our troubles—but the woman  who lives across the street. The brother that is so difficult. The heartbreak of the headlines.  And all the worries we carry around. And if we are wise—like that old preacher—we too turn to the Psalms with our questions. Because this old book always provides a good word for a church without a Pastor and wondering, just wondering.

photo by Timothy Vogel / flickr

I think most of us are like little Davie. His Mama told me that years ago every morning they would sit at the breakfast table and they had this little box on the table. It contained little tiny Scripture verses. And every morning they would take one out little card and read it. And she helped him memorize those verses. Maybe the words would help. So one morning he took out this card that read: “I will trust and not be afraid…” And over and over his mother made him say the verse: “I will trust ands not be afraid.:” That afternoon she took him to see a movie. “Oliver Twist.” And there is a scene in that film when things get dark and the music is ominous—and someone is being hanged and they are twisting in the wind. And little wide-eyed Davie stood up, in the darkened theatre and said out loud: “I will trust and not be afraid…” And he sat down and wet his pants. 

So much for trust. Except—underneath our laughter—we know, don’t we that when times get dark and scary—we find it so hard to trust. And this is why I think the church keeps coming back to these old words: “How long will you assail a person, will you batter your victim, all of you, as you would a leaning wall or a tottering fence? Their only plan is to bring down  a person of prominence. They take pleasure in falsehood: they bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse.” (Ps. 62.3-4)

But we don’t stop there. The trouble is that many times we stop right here. But this isn’t the end of the story. Listen. These are his next words: “For God alone my soul waits in silence., for my hope is in him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my deliverance and my honor; my mighty rock, my refuge is in God.”(vs. 5-7)

And then as in summary he says: “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.”(vs. 8) And then he ends the Psalm:  “…Power belongs to God, and steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord.”(vs.11b)

You see what kept them going. Trust. Not trust in the things we worry about every day. No. But a larger trust. Twice in the Psalm he says it: “For God alone my soul waits in silence.” 

Thomas a Kempis found this to be true. In silence he sat there. And he whispered, “Oh, if only I knew I would hold out to the last.” And his soul rose up and answered him with scorn, “Look back…Has God ever failed you in the past?” and his soul answered, “No.” And then he thought. “For the same God who has been and who is so evidently sufficient, will be with you every step to the end, always as gloriously present for you then as  now.”

Trust. Hang on. Trust what? Look at what the Psalmist says:

Trust—the God hope. Buechner says that if Paul were writing today he would not say:

photo bt Subana / flickr

“Faith, hope and love….but the greatest of these is love.” No, Buechner said, “If he were writing today he would say: Faith, hope, love—but the greatest of these is hope.” For this is the desperate need of our time. To believe that whatever happens somehow God will be with us all the way.

Trust—God is a rock. Years ago my little boy was in a Montessori school and his teacher took them outside the church to a huge rock that was next to the church. And she told them: “God is like a rock…children…climb up on that rock and try to move it.” Trust remembers that God is  strong and will be there for every occasion. Nothing—no thing can separate us from the love of God.

Trust—God is salvation. Not only that I was saved way back there. Nah. But trust that this God will save you, not once—but again and again…and you will believe, like Paul said, “that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.” God still saves us. And his salvation in a continuing thing. 

Trust—God is Fortress. We visited Ireland months ago and everywhere we went were these monasteries. And they were all tall with tiny windows. And the monks would peer through those windows and look for the enemy—they were protected behind their fortresses. And so are we.

Trust—God is Deliverer. He will not put more on us that we can bear. Sometimes we don’t believe that. But the old prayer which we keep praying over and over: “Deliver us from evil…” is true. Trust—God is our deliverer. Isn’t this why we keep praying it over and pver—we all still need a delivering. 

Trust—God is honor. Strange term, it seems. God honors us. Isn’t that what happened to the Prodigal son. He came stumbling back. Smelled awful. Lost everything he had. Wouldn’t look his father in the eye—even though the old man had tears running down his face. "Take me as one of your servants", the boy  mumbled. And the old man said: "No. No. Bring a robe for his back. Put shoes his calloused feet. Prepare a banquet—for he is hungry and we will celebrate." Regardless of what we have done. He wraps us in the arms of love. Let’s not forget that. He honors us all.

Trust—God is a rock. He’s already said that. But he reminds us again. He really is the Eternal Father—strong to save…as the old song goes: For all those in peril on the sea. In him we will find our strength.

Trust—God is also refuge. Old Abraham Lincoln beset with so many problems. So many killed. The country in disarray. "How do you stand it"? they asked. And he said, “Again and again I have turned to God because there was no other place to go.” And he was right. God is our refuge and strength—a very present help in time of trouble. But then he said: We will not fear. 

It’s so hard to trust when awful things happen to us. But I remember a story from 2011. It was told by the Interim Pastor of a Lutheran Church in Joplin, Missouri. 

A tornado swept through the town on May 22 of that year. And when the tornado hit this Pastor was not in the church but in his motel—and he hunkered down in the basement. And when the storm was over he went outside and saw that the church was blown away. The whole place was gone.

And he said the Monday after the storm a lot of church members were walking around the rubble of the church building asking, “Where are we going to worship next Sunday?” 

He said they decided to meet in the parking lot where the church had been the next Sunday. They wanted to remind each other and everyone that even after what happened in Joplin they were still a congregation. So, he said, the next Sunday the service was chaotic but a moving spiritual experience. Newspapers and radio and television stations sent people to that service. ABC, NBC, CNN were all there.

photo by Landon Taylor / flickr

That Sunday morning when they gathered the rain had finally stopped. It was a beautiful day except the winds were still blowing about 35 miles an hour. But the preacher said, most importantly—God was there —moving among the hundred people that came that morning.

The service moved along. Somebody had loaned them a keyboard, somebody came and played a flute…and they prayed and he preached and then they had Communion which gave the people to celebrate and weep over lost homes and jobs and friends and some family members. He said, despite it all—God was there. He didn’t know where they would worship the next Sunday—they couldn’t keep meeting in the parking lot. He said they had no hymnals even though some church had offered some. They had no musical instruments even though they had been offered an organ. He said they had no copy machine and no computers or telephones. Nothing was left. He said they had lost so many things that the church just took for granted every Sunday. But the members came together to do whatever had to be done. And the Synod and churches from all over the country pledged their help.  And the Pastor said how could they not have gone on with that kind of a back-up team. And he ended his article by saying just this: “God is, and remains, with us in Joplin.” Not only in Joplin, my friends. Not only in Joplin. Even here. Especially here.

So, you see the old book is right. “For God  alone may soul waits in silence.; from him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation,  my fortress: I will never be shaken.” (vs. 62.1) Thanks be to God.

photo courtesy of SSFWSmidwest / flickr

(This sermon was a preached at the First Presbyterian Church, Pendleton, SC, January 21, 2018 

where I serve as Supply Minister.)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com