A Resource Worth Cultivating
November 10th 2024 Twenty-Fifth Sunday After Pentecost
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Psalm 20 and Psalm 91:1-6
“A Resource Worth Cultivating”
Douglas T. King
We have a dwindling resource in this country that is most vital to our survival. It is not oil, not water, not some mineral critical to build batteries for electric cars. Our most vital resource that is dwindling is trust. We have a dwindling trust in a variety of our institutions. We have dwindling trust in society as a whole. And we often have dwindling trust in each other. I am not wise enough to have an answer as to how to build back our trust in the world but I do know where we need to build trust first before it can find itself in other areas of our lives.
Both of our scripture texts this morning speak to us of trust. Our first reading, the twentieth psalm, is often referred to as a prayer for the king which might put our focus on the importance of a king. But this psalm reminds us where all ultimate power truly lies. “Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses, but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God.” We are told that our ultimate confidence, our ultimate trust needs to be with the one who creates, redeems, and sustains us. And the ninety-first psalm is a vivid depiction of our ultimate trust. It reminds us of who alone can provide our shelter, our refuge, our fortress in all ultimate outcomes.
As we suffer from a deficit of trust these days we particularly and urgently need to turn to the source of our ultimate trust. But it is not always that easy to even put our ultimate faith, our ultimate trust in God.
My friend Tom Are has a vivid way of thinking about this. He writes,
“Trust is a better word than belief. Belief so often never gets out of our heads; trust shows up in how we live…We took a family trip to the Grand Canyon several summers ago. I had never been. It is amazing. The views are breath-taking. Even more than the views, there was one thing that completely took me by surprise. Did you know they have no guard rails on the Grand Canyon? You can walk right up to the edge and look hundreds of feet straight down. Just hang your toes over the edge, if you are that type. Turns out, I am not that type. It turns out that I trust gravity. I don’t believe in gravity; I trust gravity… What we trust shows up in how we live. I trust Jesus, except when I don’t. I walk where he walks, except when I notice the winds. I follow, but I prefer some distance.”
Deep trust is not an easy task. Trust requires effort and relationship building. It needs to be cultivated and cared for carefully. Trust involves being willing to honestly reveal yourself before another. Trust involves vulnerability. And trust involves listening intently to what the other is saying, sometimes in the most subtle of ways. Deep Trust in God involves no less than all of these efforts.
In our quest to grow in our faith, to deepen our trust in the divine, role models can be remarkably helpful in providing us guideposts along the way. The psalmists are a great gift in this regard. The psalms run the entire gamut of human experience and emotion. They contain multitudes. We hear joy and regret, praise and complaint, anger and sadness, questions and proclamations.
The psalmists approach God with themselves laid completely bare. They bring a radical honesty to their quest to be in relationship with God. When we begin to step into deeply trusting God we must be willing to be vulnerable enough to reveal ourselves in all of our vastly imperfect glory. Trust always involves risk. The psalmists are not afraid to risk putting all of their failures before the Lord. And they do this by putting all of themselves before the Lord. They express their hunger to ever be in the presence of the divine. They name their need for connection. They make it an urgent priority. The forty-second Psalm opens with line, “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” And they recognize they cannot be fully in the presence of the divine without fully revealing themselves before the divine.
We are currently in the midst of a significant cultural shift in our society. A recent New York Times article states “that time spent at home increased by one hour and 39 minutes a day, or 10 percent, from 2003 through 2022…As of 2022, time that Americans had once spent outside the home participating in activities like education, eating and drinking, had to some extent moved into the home. The largest shift occurred with religious activities: 59 percent occurred at home in 2022, up from 24 percent in 2003.” (Kaysen and Parlapiano, NYT, October 6, 2024)
We are living in a time of increased isolation from one another. As a society we have de-emphasized the importance of being present with one another. And I believe that loss of being physically present with one another has contributed to the dwindling trust we are experiencing. As we have isolated ourselves within the walls of our homes we have also built some strong armor around ourselves. We have become less and less willing to be vulnerable; less and less likely to listen to those with whom we disagree; less and less likely to admit our imperfections before others.
Granted, the twentieth psalm spoke of not prioritizing our trust in human efforts over those of the divine but by no means is it calling for a world without trust. My fear is that these trends leading us toward isolation and lack of trust in each other, are leading us, as well, toward isolation and lack of trust in the divine.
As Presbyterians we believe there is a real link between these two areas of trust. One of the principles of our Reformed Faith of which we are most proud is that we believe that God speaks through all of us. We are most likely to understand God’s will by gathering in community and worshiping, learning, and serving together. When we fail to be present with each other; to risk being vulnerable and honest with each other; to making community a priority in our lives; how can we trust each other enough to hear how God is speaking through each other? And if we cannot hear God speaking through each other, how can we place our ultimate trust in God?
It appears I have fashioned a bit of a catch 22 in this sermon. I have proclaimed that we must put our ultimate and primary trust in God as the starting point. And now I have said we cannot place that ultimate trust in God without finding a way to trust in how God is present in those around us. So where exactly does the circle of trust begin?
I am not sure I have a great answer to solve this conundrum. But I will return to the gift of our book of Psalms. It is sometimes referred to as the worship songbook of the people of God. For innumerable generations the faithful have gathered with this songbook before them, to praise and lament, to glorify and complain, to express every emotion under the sun to their God. When we worship together we take another step toward trusting more deeply in our God and in each other.
In a world where trust is in such short supply, perhaps there is no more important place for us to be than gathered before the divine in worship. Catch twenty-two or not; dwindling trust in our world or not; our ability to always place our ultimate trust in God or not; I stand before you utterly convinced that the author of the ninety-first psalm has got it just right.
When the winds blow; when we find ourselves in proximity to life’s precipices; as we all will in one time or another, our trust may at times waver in each other and even in our God. But I have not an iota of doubt that the one who shelters and delivers us, the one who is our refuge and fortress will always lead us back into the fold of the divine’s arms where our trust will bloom. Let us continue to gather together and worship our God. And in that blessing we are offered a way forward to finding trust in one another.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Psalm 20 and Psalm 91:1-6
“A Resource Worth Cultivating”
Douglas T. King
We have a dwindling resource in this country that is most vital to our survival. It is not oil, not water, not some mineral critical to build batteries for electric cars. Our most vital resource that is dwindling is trust. We have a dwindling trust in a variety of our institutions. We have dwindling trust in society as a whole. And we often have dwindling trust in each other. I am not wise enough to have an answer as to how to build back our trust in the world but I do know where we need to build trust first before it can find itself in other areas of our lives.
Both of our scripture texts this morning speak to us of trust. Our first reading, the twentieth psalm, is often referred to as a prayer for the king which might put our focus on the importance of a king. But this psalm reminds us where all ultimate power truly lies. “Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses, but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God.” We are told that our ultimate confidence, our ultimate trust needs to be with the one who creates, redeems, and sustains us. And the ninety-first psalm is a vivid depiction of our ultimate trust. It reminds us of who alone can provide our shelter, our refuge, our fortress in all ultimate outcomes.
As we suffer from a deficit of trust these days we particularly and urgently need to turn to the source of our ultimate trust. But it is not always that easy to even put our ultimate faith, our ultimate trust in God.
My friend Tom Are has a vivid way of thinking about this. He writes,
“Trust is a better word than belief. Belief so often never gets out of our heads; trust shows up in how we live…We took a family trip to the Grand Canyon several summers ago. I had never been. It is amazing. The views are breath-taking. Even more than the views, there was one thing that completely took me by surprise. Did you know they have no guard rails on the Grand Canyon? You can walk right up to the edge and look hundreds of feet straight down. Just hang your toes over the edge, if you are that type. Turns out, I am not that type. It turns out that I trust gravity. I don’t believe in gravity; I trust gravity… What we trust shows up in how we live. I trust Jesus, except when I don’t. I walk where he walks, except when I notice the winds. I follow, but I prefer some distance.”
Deep trust is not an easy task. Trust requires effort and relationship building. It needs to be cultivated and cared for carefully. Trust involves being willing to honestly reveal yourself before another. Trust involves vulnerability. And trust involves listening intently to what the other is saying, sometimes in the most subtle of ways. Deep Trust in God involves no less than all of these efforts.
In our quest to grow in our faith, to deepen our trust in the divine, role models can be remarkably helpful in providing us guideposts along the way. The psalmists are a great gift in this regard. The psalms run the entire gamut of human experience and emotion. They contain multitudes. We hear joy and regret, praise and complaint, anger and sadness, questions and proclamations.
The psalmists approach God with themselves laid completely bare. They bring a radical honesty to their quest to be in relationship with God. When we begin to step into deeply trusting God we must be willing to be vulnerable enough to reveal ourselves in all of our vastly imperfect glory. Trust always involves risk. The psalmists are not afraid to risk putting all of their failures before the Lord. And they do this by putting all of themselves before the Lord. They express their hunger to ever be in the presence of the divine. They name their need for connection. They make it an urgent priority. The forty-second Psalm opens with line, “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” And they recognize they cannot be fully in the presence of the divine without fully revealing themselves before the divine.
We are currently in the midst of a significant cultural shift in our society. A recent New York Times article states “that time spent at home increased by one hour and 39 minutes a day, or 10 percent, from 2003 through 2022…As of 2022, time that Americans had once spent outside the home participating in activities like education, eating and drinking, had to some extent moved into the home. The largest shift occurred with religious activities: 59 percent occurred at home in 2022, up from 24 percent in 2003.” (Kaysen and Parlapiano, NYT, October 6, 2024)
We are living in a time of increased isolation from one another. As a society we have de-emphasized the importance of being present with one another. And I believe that loss of being physically present with one another has contributed to the dwindling trust we are experiencing. As we have isolated ourselves within the walls of our homes we have also built some strong armor around ourselves. We have become less and less willing to be vulnerable; less and less likely to listen to those with whom we disagree; less and less likely to admit our imperfections before others.
Granted, the twentieth psalm spoke of not prioritizing our trust in human efforts over those of the divine but by no means is it calling for a world without trust. My fear is that these trends leading us toward isolation and lack of trust in each other, are leading us, as well, toward isolation and lack of trust in the divine.
As Presbyterians we believe there is a real link between these two areas of trust. One of the principles of our Reformed Faith of which we are most proud is that we believe that God speaks through all of us. We are most likely to understand God’s will by gathering in community and worshiping, learning, and serving together. When we fail to be present with each other; to risk being vulnerable and honest with each other; to making community a priority in our lives; how can we trust each other enough to hear how God is speaking through each other? And if we cannot hear God speaking through each other, how can we place our ultimate trust in God?
It appears I have fashioned a bit of a catch 22 in this sermon. I have proclaimed that we must put our ultimate and primary trust in God as the starting point. And now I have said we cannot place that ultimate trust in God without finding a way to trust in how God is present in those around us. So where exactly does the circle of trust begin?
I am not sure I have a great answer to solve this conundrum. But I will return to the gift of our book of Psalms. It is sometimes referred to as the worship songbook of the people of God. For innumerable generations the faithful have gathered with this songbook before them, to praise and lament, to glorify and complain, to express every emotion under the sun to their God. When we worship together we take another step toward trusting more deeply in our God and in each other.
In a world where trust is in such short supply, perhaps there is no more important place for us to be than gathered before the divine in worship. Catch twenty-two or not; dwindling trust in our world or not; our ability to always place our ultimate trust in God or not; I stand before you utterly convinced that the author of the ninety-first psalm has got it just right.
When the winds blow; when we find ourselves in proximity to life’s precipices; as we all will in one time or another, our trust may at times waver in each other and even in our God. But I have not an iota of doubt that the one who shelters and delivers us, the one who is our refuge and fortress will always lead us back into the fold of the divine’s arms where our trust will bloom. Let us continue to gather together and worship our God. And in that blessing we are offered a way forward to finding trust in one another.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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