Trust

Readings for Epiphany 6B:
2 Kings 5:1-15 ab, Psalm 42 [1-17], 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Mark 1:40-45
February 12, 2006

The Rev. Robert J.Mayer

St. Jude the Apostle Episcopal Church, Cupertino, CA

Money is a means of exchange and a measure of value. By the way, this is not a stewardship sermon. Still, money is a means of exchange and a measure of value.

Money, a coin, or a piece of paper has two functions, a means of exchange and a measure of value. Money is more than just a way of keeping score. Money helps us to define what we value. On the money we use we state that we trust God. Unlike money, God trusts us as well. God trusts us as well. There is a thread about trust, two-way trust, in every one of our readings.

In Hebrew scripture, Naaman also trusted that he would be healed; and today’s Psalm repeats (in verses 7 and 15) “Put your trust in God; for I will yet give thanks to him, who is the help of my countenance, and my God.” And it is the leper who trusted Jesus to heal him.

The Epistle always seems to provide the ‘why’ to the other readings, the stories, and the poetry. Here the ‘why’ for trust is that we must know what we are doing and prepare for what we are doing. Run in such a way that you may win it writes Paul. Run in such a way that you may win it applies to how we live our lives: Live in such a way that you may be fully alive.

OK, so we have trust God and concurrently we have to let God trust us. This trust, it has to go both ways. (We must have full duplex communication.)

• If we just trust God and do not do anything about it, then God becomes our hood-ornament. God just becomes a decoration, nothing more. (When I was a kid I remember we had a Pictorial History of World War I. Both the front and back inside covers contained the two photographs of soldiers singing at worship. The left photograph was of Allied troops and contained the lyric, A Mighty Fortress is Our God. The right photograph was of German troops and contained the lyric, Ein Feste Burg ist Unser Gott. [The same lyrics in German.])
• •Likewise, if we fail to acknowledge that God trusts us, then we are a cast of puppets. We do not live. Instead, we are lived. As t. s. eliot wrote*,

  We are the hollow men
  We are the stuffed men
  Leaning together
  Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
  Our dried voices, when
  We whisper together
  Are quiet and meaningless
  As wind in dry grass
  Or rats' feet over broken glass
  In our dry cellar.

What kind of a God would we have if we worshipped a rabbit’s foot? What kind of a life would we have if we were passive, utterly passive, manipulated, dis-involved? We would be hollow.

Water references occur throughout Holy Scripture. You may even think about Holy Baptism sometimes when you hear ‘water.’ The water in the stories and poetry for today are important. Water is always important.

• In Kings Naaman, after much back and forth, finally gets around to washing up.
• Psalm 42 leads off with water references in the first three verses and describes how its author feels about God.

Water is always important.

So, let us couple the concept trust and water:

• Water is basic for us. We need water to stay alive. We need to trust to stay alive.
• Water is cleansing. We purify ourselves with water. We reveal ourselves. We trust that we are acceptable.
• We infer water is life transforming here at St. Jude’s because identify ourselves as a spiritual oasis.

You may often find water in a tiny basin when you enter some churches. There some people dip their finger into it and make the sign of the cross + on themselves. Some do so to remind themselves of their baptism, that trust.

Our prayers, as well as our worship, show how we trust God. All of the various kinds of prayer, adoration, praise, petition, intercession and so on, demonstrate our part, what we do. The remaining kind of prayer, thanksgiving, is our identification of what God does. Well, that first set is our way of telling God what we want. We trust that God will grant our request. Sometimes giving thanks can be difficult, particularly when God does not do exactly what we want. The Students’ Prayer, which we all have prayed, is an example. By the way, the Students’ Prayer is “O God, help me pass this test.” We never stop saying that one. When was the last time you renewed your driver’s license?

God fills our lives with tests. What is extraordinary is that our lives are an ‘open book’ test. Our lives are an ‘open book’ test because God gives us everything we need. God keeps on giving us the means and the method to do more than to make it through the day and to do more than to make it through our lives.

Before there was time and before there was eternity, there was God. Before there was heaven and before there was earth, there was God. God keeps trying to get through to us. God never stops. God never gives up. In God’s most gracious way we hear stories about the outcasts of society: the longing of a poet, mighty warriors and ordinary lepers made whole.

By way of a conclusion, hear some lyrics from James Seals *,

“Life, so they say, is but a game and we let it slip away.
Love, like the Autumn sun, should be dyin' but it's only just begun.
Like the twilight in the road up ahead, they don't see just where we're goin'.
And all the secrets in the Universe, whisper in our ears
And all the years will come and go, take us up, always up.
We may never pass this way again. We may never pass this way again.
We may never pass this way again.”.

Updated 2/16/06

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