Psalm 62:5-12
From time to time as a preacher, you
come across one of those stories that other preachers love to tell. Maybe they
heard a popular preacher tell it on the radio or a professor share it in a
chapel sermon in seminary or maybe (these days) they found it online; whatever
the case, there are those stories that preachers love to tell and retell, and
one that comes to my mind this morning is a story that is attributed to the
late Dr. Haddon Robinson, who was professor of preaching at Gordon-Conwell Theological
Seminary in Massachusetts.
Dr. Robinson was born in New York
City, but he tells the story of a Baptist evangelist from Alabama, a preacher
by the name of Monroe Parker. The story goes that Rev. Parker was traveling
through South Alabama—the real South
Alabama—on one of those days, late in the summer, that folks down there refer
to as “the dog days of summer.” It was one of those hot, sticky days—the kind
of day where you couldn’t even walk out of the house to check the mail without
your shirt sticking to your back—and Rev. Parker was parched. Well, as he went
on down the road, he came across a man selling watermelons on the side of the
road. Now, this isn’t an unusual site in South Alabama; I knew quite a few
folks who would have a little watermelon patch, and when they picked them
(which, by the way, may be the hottest job in the world next to volcanic
scientist), they’d load them in a wagon, a trailer, or the bed of a pickup, and
park alongside the highway, usually somewhere close to a service station, and
sell their wares. Well, the story goes, Parker strolled up to the man selling
watermelons and asked how much would it take to buy one.
“They’re a dollar and ten cents
apiece,” the man said. So, Rev. Parker got to feeling around in his pockets,
trying to come up with one dollar bill and one dime, but all he could come up
with was a dollar. He held out his hand to the man and said, “All I have is a
dollar,” to which the man replied, “That’s ok. I’ll trust you for it.” Then, as
the story goes, Rev. Parker put the dollar back in his pocket and proceeded to
pick out a watermelon, which he started to carry off to eat and get a little
refreshment from the heat of the day, when the man hollered at him, “Hey! Where
do you think you’re going with that?!” Rev. Parker said something to the effect
that he was going to go sit down and eat his watermelon, to which the man said,
“But you forgot to give me the dollar!” "You said you would trust me for
it," Rev. Parker said to him.
"Yeah,” he said, “but I meant I would trust you for the dime!"
Now, according to Dr. Robinson’s retelling, Rev. Parker replied, "Mack, you
weren't going to trust me at all. You were just going to take a ten-cent gamble
on my integrity!"[1]
Today, that story is probably close to a hundred years old, but it
testifies to a reality of the human experience that is more real in our current
culture than perhaps at any other time in recent human history. You see, we
live in a world in which trust is becoming a very rare commodity, a world in
which we are less likely to trust someone for a dime, never mind a dollar. It’s
difficult to have trust in much of anything lately: we’re living in a time when
a day can’t go by without hearing about some celebrity, athlete, or politician
who has been unfaithful, committed a crime, or has been hiding something from
the public for years. We live in an era when the very people we are supposed to
be able to trust—doctors, ministers, elected officials—constantly and
consistently let us down as we hear story after story that erodes our
culturally created confidence in these authorities.
Just this week, former USA Olympic gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar
pleaded guilty to federal child pornography charges, and more than 125 women
have accused him of sexual misconduct, many USA Olympic gymnasts among them.[2] He
was supposed to be a medical miracle worker, a trusted doctor who would help
injured athletes recover quickly and get back to doing what they loved to do,
but instead, he used his position of power, influence, and authority to abuse
young girls and women who were simply trying to live out their dreams through
their hard work and God-given talents. We’re supposed to be able to trust our
doctors, but can we? Anymore? Always?
Then there are the countless stories of young boys and girls who have
been taken advantage of by those who wear clerical collars or stand behind
pulpits to preach. Just this month, a pastor at a megachurch in Memphis
confessed to the congregation there that he had a “sexual incident” with a seventeen
year old girl when he was a youth minister at a different church in Texas.[3]
The congregation gave him a standing ovation…but for the rest of us outside of
that room that morning, it was just another reason to withhold our trust from
another person in whom we should be able to confide.
Of course, it would take years to just list the number of ways various
politicians, elected officials, and leaders in our various forms of government
have corroded our trust. Whether it’s an overwhelming number of denied
allegations, audio tapes, emails, or their own words, far too many of our
leader have a consistent track record of malicious misdirection when it comes
to our trust and confidence in them to lead.
We’re supposed to be able to trust these people and the institutions they
represent. We’re supposed to be able to feel safe in their care, under their
direction and leadership. We’re supposed to be able to place our trust in those
whose expertise, experience, and vocation have given them the authority and
opportunity to serve in roles of service and stewardship. But time and time
again, we are let down, let down by their faults, let down by their egos, let
down by their ignorance, let down by their own sense of self-preservation. Will
there ever be a time again when we can place our trust in those occupy
positions of influence, power, and authority? Was there ever really a time when
we could trust them fully?
Of course, there are those who were born skeptical, those among us who
place their trust—not in the given
authority of individuals—but in the earn outcomes of their own hard work,
determination, and abilities. They place their trust in their ability to
persevere, their own self-perception as one who can overcome any challenge
without even the slightest bit of assistance. They trust in their own physical
strength, their own work ethic, their own skills, and they believe fully that
those are enough to get them over any challenge, that those are enough to get
them by in this world—that is until reality proves otherwise. I have lived a
great deal of my life around these sorts of folks; they share my last name and
a great deal of the genes that make up my DNA. What I have witnessed through
them is that often our own strengths, our own determination to persevere, can
be overcome by the relentless hardships of reality and the never-ending (and
always rising) costs of life. What I have learned is that all the hard work,
skill, and grit in the world cannot stay the hand of time nor ward off the
inevitability of cancer. What I have learned is that to put one’s trust in his
or her own strengths is to put our trust in a bucket with a rusted bottom.
So where do we place our trust? If it seems we cannot trust those who
occupy the places and positions of power, if we cannot trust the institutions
we’ve created, if we cannot trust our own power and abilities, then who or what
can we trust? Who or what has the ultimate power? In whom or what do we find an
ultimate purpose, our “ground of being?”[4]
If we listen to the voice of the psalmist this morning, we will find our
answer: “For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him.”
The psalmist places his trust in God—not in the personalities posturing for
political power, not in the insular institutions insisting on protecting the
status quo, not even in the psalmists own personal resolve to endure whatever
hardship through which he finds himself going. The only one worthy of the
psalmist’s trust is the one who is beyond all comprehension and understanding.
The one next to whom “Those of low estate are but a breath, those
of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together
lighter than a breath.” The psalmist sings, “On God rests my deliverance and
my honor; my mighty rock, my refuge is in God. Trust in him at all times, O
people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us…Put no
confidence in extortion, and set no vain hopes on robbery; if riches increase,
do not set your heart on them.” The exhortation it to rest fully and completely
on God, to trust God at all times—no matter what those times may bring, to not
place our trust even in those things that seem themselves to be evidence of
their trustworthiness. In other words, even if placing your trust in others, in
institutions, in yourself has led you to a life of comfort and ease, it does
not warrant your trust to be placed in anything outside of God God’s self.
Now, I suppose, at first hearing that sounds like church business as
usual: of course we aren’t to place our trust in anything except for God. But
the truth is, when it comes down to it—I mean really comes down to it—trusting God just doesn’t make a hole lot
of sense. After all, I can see the work of my own hands; I can sit across the
table from another human being (or at least get an email from someone in his or
her office); I can hold money in my hands, possess the deed to my home or the
title to my car; I have the skill and knowledge to earn a paycheck in any
number of ways should the need present itself. I can verify and authenticate
references, run background checks, do a Google search, and simply look someone
in the eye when I ask them a question, so why in the world would I put my trust
in a God I cannot see, whose voice I’ve never audibly heard, and whose email address
is not listed in my contacts?
Why should I place my trust in God? Because when everything else
fails—and it will fail—when everything else fails, God won’t. Because there
will come those times in my life (and in yours) when nothing will pull our lives
out of the tailspin, when nothing else will bring us up from rock bottom…God
spins right along with us…all…the way…down. Why trust God? Because God is there
with you (and there’s nothing you can do about it), riding the waves of life’s
reckless rhythms with you. When you look to put your trust in those things that
you hope will deliver you, God is in the midst of the very thing from which you
hope to be delivered! That’s the whole point of the cross! The cross tells us
that God has left the power of heaven to dwell in the dirt of the earth, the
bear the pains, frustrations, heartaches, and joys of life that we all
experience. The cross tells us that God deserves our trust because God doesn’t
just free us from our difficulties—God bears them with us!
Sure, the psalmist may sing, “Once God has spoken; twice have I heard
this: that power belongs to God,” and the psalmist may mean that he has
heard of the power of God to shake the mountains and crush enemies, but there
is a greater power, a greater power that alone is worthy of our trust, and the
psalmist testifies even to that power when he sings, “and steadfast love belongs to
you, O Lord.” The greatest power, the power of God, the power that
alone is worthy of our trust, if the power of God’s chesed, the power of God’s unfailing, limitless, reckless love, the
sort of love that follows us through all of life’s peaks and valleys, the sort
of love that walks alongside us in the present pace of life’s predicaments, the
sort of love that goes on ahead of into the unseen future, the sort of love
that proves its trustworthiness in the image of Christ on the cross, broken and
dying—just like us. Amen.
[1]
You can find one version of this story here: http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/t/trust.htm
(accessed 1/19/2018).
[2]
One of many stories about Nassar and his victims can be found here: http://abcnews.go.com/US/sexual-assault-victims-confront-olympic-doctor-larry-nassar/story?id=52378336
(accessed 1/19/2018).
[3]
Find Baptist News Global’s story on Andy Savage here: https://baptistnews.com/article/metoo-spotlight-turns-southern-baptist-megachurch/#.WmLUZqinHIU
(accessed 1/19/2018).
[4] To
borrow a phrase from Paul Tilich’s Systematic
Theology (1951).
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