The Twenty-Fifth Sunday After Pentecost

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The ballots have been cast, the votes counted; but the outcome of our latest presidential election hasn’t solved anything. Whatever one’s feelings about our former and soon-to-be Commander in Chief, I think we can all agree on one thing: Our politics are ailing. And I’m not talking about legislation or the core issues of the Republican or Democratic parties. I’m talking about how people talk to one another. How they treat one another. How they see and portray their political opponents. 

The United States is now known globally for the intensity of its political discord. For the vitriol each party hurls at the other. It’s not just the problem of the Right or the Left. It’s everyone.To quote the Apostle Paul, “No one is righteous, no not one.” 

And most people can recognize that. Most people can recognize how ungracious and suspicious we’ve all become if given the chance. We’re just not often given that chance because politics in the United States has taken on the weight of religion, which politics was never meant to have. 

When we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America or when we put our confidence in a particular political party and its leaders, we will go wrong if our ultimate devotion does not lay elsewhere. As the psalmist says, “Put not your faith in rulers, for there is no help in them.” 

It’s ironic, actually, that he would write those words. According to tradition, the Prophet David composed the psalm we recited just a few minutes ago. Of all people, you’d think, David would be the last to caution us from relying on our leaders and the governments they control. He was, after all, a king. And yet, king though he was, David knew from terrible experience just how quickly those in authority can fall. All it took for him was a glance out of the window on a sultry summer evening. 

David knew that even the wisest ruler can stumble over his own desires or twist the use of his office to his own ends — because David knew that even the wisest ruler is human. And human beings are not perfect. Much as we might want to think it, we do not exercise ultimate power or, more importantly, faultless self-control. We are too mortal for that. We hunger, we thirst, we want. We need. And, in the end, we die. There is no help in us. There is no help in us because, like the flowers of the field, we will fade away. We will return to the earth, and in that day all our thoughts will perish. 

Which is a conclusion that has a double meaning. We human beings and our institutions are mortal and, therefore, what we do and what we say has great importance. Our actions are not trivial. Each of us is wholly unique, and no other life will be lived like ours ever again. But at the same time, we human beings and our institutions are mortal and, therefore, what we do and what we say stops short of having ultimate significance because we are not ultimate. We participate in what is ultimate. We interact with what is ultimate, but we don’t own it. We can’t control it. Our lives are but a breath. We cannot know what the future will hold. 

There is only One who can. There is only One who does. 

Only one Lord lives forever. Only one King conquers to save. Only one God is truly God.

He is ours, and we are his. 

“Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help, whose hope is in the LORD their God.” 

Happy are they, happy are we, when our confidence is in the LORD our God, for he made heaven and earth. He hung the stars in the sky and set the bounds of the sea. He keeps his promise forever. 

God does not change. He is not fickle or capricious. He does not hesitate to defend the weak and chastise the strong. God speaks, and the mountains tremble. He shouts, and the forests fall. He cries, and his blessed mother picks him up and cradles him at her breast, whispering stories of creation into the Creator’s ear.

Our God is like no ruler who has been or ever will be. He fights for us like a lion and then dies for us like a lamb. But he doesn’t die for us alone.

God’s salvation is for all people — because all people need him. From the youngest to the oldest, the richest to the poorest, we all need God’s grace in our lives because our hearts are divided, our minds distracted, our bodies exhausted. Like sheep without a shepherd, we are harassed and helpless without him. 

And God knows that. He knows how much we long for peace; he knows how much we long for justice; and he knows how much we won’t find those things apart from him.

God is the source of all good. The foundation of all holiness. The life-giving spring bubbling up unto eternity. Every loveliness, every satisfaction, every truth comes from him. And so he draws us, ever so slowly and ever so gently into the knowledge of his life and love not only in those moments of truth and beauty but perhaps more effectively in and through the trials and triumphs of the everyday realities of our lives.

But this is not a passive process. It’s not just something God does to us. We are coworkers in this, however small our part, a part that is at times harder to play.

When David wrote the opening lines of the 146th Psalm, he described the fundamental posture of the human being: Praising the Lord. God has given us everything we have — our breath, our being, our very life — and we are called to return it to him with thanksgiving. With praise. 

But it’s really not hard to imagine that there were times for David and times for us when that doesn’t work out as we might wish. There are times when we can offer our whole selves with gladness unto the Lord, thankful to our bones for what he has given us. And then there are times when all we have are two copper coins — which are actually worth much, much more.

When we are thirsty and pour a cup of cold water for someone who thirsts; when we are hungry and buy someone else a meal; when we strive to look beyond our neighbor’s political affiliations in order to behold one who is also made in the Image of God, we will find God in his might, taking even the smallest gift offered in faith and with a pure heart and multiplying it. God takes copper and turns it into gold. He takes five loaves and two fish and makes them into a feast. He takes our most hard-fought, most infinitesimal spiritual victory and turns it into the beginning of total transformation, where are hearts become that much more like his heart and our hands that much more like his hands and our words that much more like God’s Word — until Christ is all in all. 

For he is our King. Christ is our king, and he is a king who helps. Who heals. Who alone can save. This is our hope, a hope that is not dependent on outward circumstances, a hope that teaches us to leave unknown futures unknown, knowing that God’s guiding hand is with us at all times and in all places (Henri Nouwen).

Happy are they who put their trust in him, our Lord who reigns forever, our God throughout all generations. Hallelujah! AMEN.
​