Psalm 146
To view a recording of this sermon, click here
“Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, for there is no help in them. When they breathe their last, they return to earth, and in that day their thoughts perish.” For generations, the people of God have prayed this line in Psalm 146 while doing exactly the opposite. We continuously put our trust in rulers and leaders, whether they be elected officials or celebrity pastors or self-help gurus or leaders of social movements. We choose our candidates, our favorite celebrities and role models, which social media influencers to follow and even which preachers to listen to based on the premise that there is help in them. We put our trust in people we don’t even know to fix what we perceive to be wrong with our lives and with the world. Often, these people become embroiled in controversy and we are forced to choose- do we defend them and ourselves for following them, or do we write them off as irredeemable and move on to the next ruler or leader? When we elevate human beings to the status of savior, we place idols between us and God, and those idols will always disappoint us.
Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, for there is no help in them. It feels like something that could be on a yard sign on the side of the road right now. On my way home from Grace these past months, I’ve driven past a sign that reads “DOGS 2024: Because Humans Suck.” Please don’t tell my dogs that candidacy is an option for them, they are too busy presiding as king and queen of our home. While I think I have more faith in humans than the person who put the sign out, I take their point. There seems to be a general sense of exhaustion, exasperation, and cynicism around this particular election cycle, and maybe a fluffy commander in chief with puppy dog eyes would solve that. Unfortunately, dogs do not have the language skills required to fill the high offices of our government, and so we’re stuck with humans for now.
The psalm points us very clearly to the fact that human rulers are fallible, fragile, and mortal. When they breathe their last, they return to earth, and in that day their thoughts perish. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, people die or fade from power and their places are taken by others just as frail and imperfect. On and on it goes, and yet we always think that the next up and coming person will solve everything. We keep looking for help, for salvation, in all the wrong places.
Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help! whose hope is in the Lord their God. That’s us, when we’re practicing what we preach. We have the God who made heaven and earth, the seas, and all that is in them for our help. Our hope is in our Lord who keeps his promise for ever; who gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger. Our God sets the prisoners free, opens the eyes of the blind, lifts up the lowly, loves the righteous, cares for the stranger, sustains the vulnerable. When we put our trust in our God, we are enlivened to do the same work in his name. First and foremost we must identify ourselves as citizens of the kingdom in which God reigns forever, members of the living Body and stewards of a good creation. This is the kind of salvation we will never find in earthly leaders. We must choose the ones who lead us as best we can, but we cannot forget that it is Jesus we are called to follow.
As I have spent the past few weeks listening to the quiet concerns, the enlivened hopes, the loud laments and the ubiquitous exhaustion that you have shared with me, I keep coming back to two truths on which I’ve staked my life.
- God is Good.
- Jesus is Lord.
I had a professor who began and ended every class with a call and response. She would walk in shouting “God is good!” and we would respond “All the time!” and on the way out she would say “All the time!” and we would answer “God is good!” We said it on good days and bad days, after hard tests and before exciting opportunities, we said it on election day and we said it the day after. I think we need that reminder right now, when so much in the world feels decidedly not good. God is good, all the time. God is good, even when people are not. God is good, and just, and merciful, and God loves us beyond our hatred and our anger and our fear. God is good today, and God will be good on Tuesday, and God will be good long after all of us have returned to the earth. All the time, God is good.
I heard a colleague say recently that “If the candidate I want to win wins, Jesus is Lord. If the candidate I want to win loses, Jesus is Lord.” I think that’s a nice modern way of saying “Put not your trust in rulers; Happy are they whose hope is in the Lord their God.” No candidate, no president, no elected official or hereditary monarch or conquering emperor nor any child of earth can save us. That position is already filled by Jesus. No matter what happens next, no matter who wins or loses, no matter what new ways we humans find to hurt and disappoint each other, Jesus is Lord, and the Lord shall reign for ever. Hallelujah!
Mother A Writes 