FROM WHERE WILL YOUR HELP COME?
(Preached on Sunday, February 17, 2008)
I lift up my eyes to the hills C from where will my help come? -Psalm 121:1
On Super Tuesday in Lafayette, Tennessee, James Kruger was watching the election results. Suddenly a warning appeared on his TV screen: a tornado was headed toward Lafayette, Tennessee. As soon as he read those words, the lights went out. He put on sweat pants, grabbed a flashlight, Aand then I heard this noise,@ Kruger said. He headed for a door, Aand all of a sudden I heard the glass breaking and it was sucking,@ he said. AWhen I tried to shut the door, [it] seemed like the door was lifting up. So I just dove and I lay flat on the floor.@ Lying there, time stood still as everything in the house flew over him, scraping and banging his back. Then the chaos stopped. AI was laying in the dirt. There was no floor. No nothing.@ The house was gone. But Kruger says he knows why he survived. AI think God was holding my leg, teaching me that I hadn=t been doing everything he wanted me to do.@
From where will your help come? When the bad times come, when the storms suddenly appear, when life throws you a curve, where will you look for your help? James Kruger expressed a faith in God. Not a perfect expression of faith by any means. Imperfect, as we are all imperfect, but an expression of trust that God was there for him and was getting him through.
AI lift up my eyes to the hills C from where will my help come?@ In a sermon years ago, a preacher said that when we recite this psalm there should be a long silence after verse one. This is one of the Songs of Ascent in the Hebrew song book. That means it was one of the Psalms used by the Jewish people when they made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Temple for any of the various religious festivals throughout the year. This song reflects the thoughts of the pilgrim as he travels to the holy city.
Even today, Israel is a very hilly, rocky, terrain, with lots of hiding places for those who wish to ambush an unsuspecting traveler. It is very desolate along many of the roads, even today. At the time it was written, pilgrimages were often dangerous journeys. It was not uncommon for pilgrims to be attacked or robbed along the road. One of the practices was for well-to-do pilgrims to be accompanied by sentries who would perch in the high ground and give warning of any approaching danger. Perhaps the pilgrim who wrote this psalm is looking up into the hills and sees one of the sentries, which prompts the questions, AFrom where will my help come?@ That is, even if I am warned of approaching danger, where will the protection, the security, my help come to face the danger?
Another reality for pilgrims making the journey to ancient Jerusalem was the number of Canaanite temples to Ba=al on every hilltop in Galilee and on the trek to Jerusalem. When they looked to the hills on their journey they saw the promises of other gods scraping the sky. Perhaps the pilgrim author of this psalm is also wondering whether any of these gods can fulfill his need for security, safety, protection.
As we make our pilgrimage, our journey through the world today we, too, are surrounded by competing gods offering safety, security, protection, help. Our government promises to protect us from terrorists. If we put our faith in them, in the might of our military, they will keep us safe. We might have to give up some personal freedoms, liberties, and protections of personal rights, but that is a small price to pay for protection. Wall Street promises security for the future, to be our help in retirement. Our medical establishment promises us health and long-life if we place our lives in their hands. But contrary to all their promises, ultimately we cannot be safeguarded by any human force or institution. In fact, not only can they not safeguard us, but they actually get in the way of our receiving the gift of God=s faith.
No, the Psalmist answers his own question with a resounding, AMy help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.@ Our ultimate confidence cannot be placed in what other human beings might do to help and protect us. Rather, our help comes from the God who Awill neither slumber or sleep,@ the God who stands in faithful vigil over our lives, watching over us in every circumstance.
As we reach for that faith, that trust in God C as we seek that certitude that empowers us to get up in the morning, to keep on with our pilgrimage through life, we need to be careful not to assume that trusting in God is equivalent to some kind of insurance policy. The Psalmist is not suggesting that if I believe in God then thus and such will or won=t take place. Not so. Life and death continue to flow forward bringing everything with it. Earthquakes, fires, wars, and disease will not take a holiday because of our trust in God.
What will evaporate, however, is the fear with which we confront life=s challenges. What will come is a confidence and sense of power that emanates from the sure feeling that God=s got your back. The rest of this Psalm is not so much a song of great certitude in God, but more a daring love song that is sung in the face of ongoing tests of faith and competing offers for our trust.
Look at the example of Abraham and Sarah. God tells them to go, only God knows where: ATo a land I will show you.@ There Ayou will be a blessing@ C or, rather, in the original Hebrew he=s given a command: ABe you a blessing.@ His example and influence are to be for the good of the whole world. And so Abraham and Sarah set out, not knowing where they are going C and not at all sure of themselves, or even of God. We have come to associate faith with self-confidence and a good sense of direction, as though it were a prayer-mounted GPS. Instead, it=s a way to go amid uncertainty and self-doubt when our direction is unclear and apprehension can run high. Faith is a choice we make. It is putting ourselves into the hands of God, willing to go on a journey into the unknown, wherever God will lead us. Faith is trusting God against the anxiety of uncertainty. God can=t steer a parked car. Moving ahead in faith doesn=t mean having a map and knowing the way. It means getting unstuck. Once we start moving, sometimes simply going out on our best hunch, we will be shown where we=re meant to go and how to be a blessing, to others and ourselves, too.
Look at the faith of Jesus. Jesus trusted God, looked to God for all his help, gave all his glory and honor to God, walked in all God=s ways. And they crucified him! Where was the help? Then again, even while on the cross, he did keep praying to God. Even when the worst of things happened tot he best of people, he did keep his faith in God. And in the end, Jesus was resurrected. Faith is refusing to lose hope in a hopeless situation. Maybe faith is about believing that life with God will be good in the end, even if life now isn=t. After all, just look at what happened to Jesus!
William Willimon, former Chaplain at Duke University, tells of a woman who, with her family had begun to attend his church. He says, AShe attended our church when her family vacationed at the coast. She said she had begun attending our church a number of years before because it was the only church on the beach where a black person could be welcomed. This pleased me. She=d had a difficult life and had experienced first hand oppression, tragedy, and hate. One summer she arrived with her family and, when I visited her, she told me the previous year had been tough. Her beloved husband of many years had died a terrible and painful death. Her only son had been incarcerated after a sleazy banking deal went bad. Now she had taken in her two little grandchildren as her sole responsibility, even though she was now getting on in years. Willimon tells how he visited her, feeling this overwhelming sense of futility. What would become of her now? How could she hope to overcome her difficulties? Yet she, expressing faith born no doubt out of years of struggle and pain, said to him, AI know God will make a way for us. I=ve found that when I=ve reached out, he=ll be there. Not always when I wanted him, but always when I absolutely needed him. He doesn=t always come on time, but he always comes. I=ll make it, with his help, yes I will.@
Without thinking Willimon exclaimed, AHow can this be? You=ve got these two children, huge financial problems, your health isn=t great. After all you=ve been through?@ How can this be? It was Willimon=s learned, ATish, tish, old lady. You=ve got to face facts, be realistic.@ But on further reflection he said, ABut how did I know? How could I be so sure that her calm, confident trust, trust affirmed in so many places in scriptures, was stupidity? Maybe she was right. Maybe God=s life-giving abilities can=t be contained in my little box labeled APOSSIBLE@ next to the big one called AIMPOSSIBLE@.@
Faith is going on a wonderful trip with God, not certain where it will lead us, but sure that in God=s company things will work together for good. If we stay put until we have all the answers, we will never have faith. If we refuse to move until we have constructed for ourselves a neat understanding of Jesus, or an adequate definition of God, then we will allow life to slip through our fingers without ever finding faith. It is by stepping out on the road with that little, scrappy, yet precious faith that we do possess, that we will find the greater faith for which we all long.