I am not sure that I have many answers for you today, but I have plenty of questions. As we stare out to the hills and beyond, staring at a world destroyed by an untamed ocean of tsunami waters that wash away cars, buildings, and lives; staring at a world where dictators gun you down for disagreeing; staring at a world where loved ones can be taken away in seconds; staring at a world where all you have worked for (house, job, car, etc.) can be taken away in seconds either by a flood or by the complete breakdown of your relationships; as we stare at such a world we wonder with the Psalmist, “where is my help to come.”
Of course, the Psalmist has the answer; “my help comes from the Lord,” and that is supposed to be the end of it, I guess. Every Sunday School student knows that either “God” or “Jesus” will stop the incessant questions from the teacher and allow you to go back to eating your crayons. But, it is one thing to say, “my help come from the Lord” in order to answer the question correctly, it is another thing to actually believe it.
The world, has all the answers, of course. When life has destroyed all you have, the world answers, “Maybe you deserved it. Maybe you did something wrong and you are being punished? Why don’t you just work a little harder?”
That is always the world’s answer, is it not? Work a little harder. Trust in yourself, and you will get through it all. Trust in your abilities, and you will be fine. Dig deep down! Find your hidden potential. Your grandfather overcame the greatest of obstacles. This implies at best that you also will overcome the greatest of obstacles and at worst, you are not worthy of your grandfather’s name if you do not.
Sometimes the world’s ideas leak into the church and we say, “God will never give you more than you can handle.” The typical misunderstanding of these words from Paul are not a call to trust in the Lord who comes to your help or a call to trust in your community who, together, can surely overcome anything, as Paul actually meant when he said “God will not let y’all be tested beyond y’all's strength." Rather, we hear it as a call to trust in yourself. God will never give you more than you can handle. So, try harder. The words wreak of failure when you indeed have more than you can handle. Sometimes, the church of grace sounds an awful lot like the world: your works will save you. What if my works cannot save me? Where is my help to come?
Surely, there is something to buy that can save you: a book of wise answers maybe; some chocolate cannot hurt; some more clothes will always help. What if you do not have the money to buy these cheap gods? Where is my help to come?
You know where all of this is going, of course. The end of the sermon will surely follow along with Psalm 121 and say, “my help comes from the Lord, who made the heavens and earth.” Then there will be some sort of exhortation to just trust in God. "Trust," another work to be done if you can swing it. Surely that is where the sermon is going.
But, what if you cannot just trust? What if life has beat you down so much that you just are not sure that there is a God to trust. The sermon cannot end there and be considered a helpful Lutheran sermon. I cannot tell you to trust. Luther himself in the small catechism (you know, that little book that you were forced to memorize but don’t actually remember…it actually says some pretty profound and amazing stuff) it says in the explanation of the third article of the creed that, “I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to him.” A good Lutheran sermon cannot end with, “just trust in Jesus and things will be fine,” because we actually believe that we are incapable of trusting God. Luther goes on to say that faith is a gift given by the Holy Spirit. You cannot go out and collect it off of the lawn or gather it up from the store shelves of your soul. Those shelves are bare.
So now what? If I cannot even get faith, then what?
I guess we wait and hope that Holy Spirit will come to our help. I think that hope is really underestimated in its power. Hope allows you to remember that God created the heavens and the earth. If God can do that, maybe God will create a new life for you also. This is not trust in what is certain, but hope that God may make it happen. Hope allows you to remember that God saved the Israelites from Pharaoh, and brought the exiled back from foreign lands, and raised Jesus up on the third day, and actually helped you through the death of your grandfather. Hope is not certain, but, if God delivered us in the past, maybe God will deliver us again. We do not know for sure, but we have hope.
It was in hope that Abraham set out from where he lived to journey to unknown places with God. Did he know for certain that God would take him somewhere where God would make of Abraham a new nation? Of course not. Just as a newly dating couple has no idea where the relationship will go, Abraham sets out in hope. Nothing more. Just hope. He hopes that God will bring him to someplace good.
I guess, sometimes, there is not much more that we can do either. We can just hope that God has not fallen asleep; we can just hope that God will deliver us from evil; we can just hope that God will give us something to trust; we can just hope that Jesus’ death and resurrection means new life for us also; when all else has failed, at the bottom of life we still have the gift of hope. And sometimes, hope is enough. When we stare out at the hills, we imagine that God will come and deliver us in some unexpected way. But, until we see God crest the hill, we lift our eyes to the hills and hope. Maybe, this sort of hope is actually what faith is all about.
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