The Object of Our Trust--August 15, 2025

The Object of Our Trust--August 15, 2025

"A king is not saved by his great army;
     a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
The war horse is a vain hope for victory,
     and by its great might it cannot save.
Truly the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him,
     on those who hope in his steadfast love,
to deliver their soul from death
     and to keep them alive in famine.
Our soul waits for the LORD;
     he is our help and shield.
Our heart is glad in him
     because we trust in his holy name.
Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us,
     even as we hope in you." (Psalm 33:16-22)

The Scripture force us to make a choice: you can put your trust in violence and intimidation, or you can put your trust in God--but you cannot do both.  You can attempt to pin your hopes on power and coercion, or you can build your life on the faithful love of God, but they are mutually exclusive.  You can try to make a name for yourself with saber-rattling and threats, or you can place your confidence in God's name and leave behind your braggadocio--but only one or the other can be the object of our trust.

And it is true both for individuals and whole nations. These words from the psalm that many would have heard or spoken in worship this past Sunday are repeatedly put in the plural--"our heart," "we trust," and "we hope." The whole poem is spoken to a corporate group--as if to the whole nation of ancient Israel and/or Judah. In fact, earlier in this same psalm we hear the words that have been misappropriated and ripped out of context to be slapped on countless bumper stickers, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD." In other words, the words of this psalm speak to how WE live together as a society, and about how we seek after the common good.  And it is precisely in that context, speaking to both individuals and whole nations, that God forces the choice on us: you can either trust God, or you can trust in violence and intimidation, but you cannot do both.

This is really important, especially if we have already made the mistake of taking that verse that begins "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord" out of context and treating it like a magic spell or a lucky charm.  Over the last twenty centuries, many nations, regimes, and governments have trotted out that verse like it meant that if you invoke the name "God" frequently enough or make a public display of piety to show off how "religious" you are, then the Almighty is legally bound to win wars for you, defeat your enemies, and guarantee victory every time.  We have lived through Crusades where armies were convinced they were fighting for God's honor, and battles where soldiers painted Christian-affiliated symbols on their shields as if that brought glory to God and guaranteed their success on the battlefield.  And even in the present moment, we have seen regimes invoke their belief in God as the proof their cause was righteous, and we have heard leaders declare that because God was on "their side" they were justified in using any means necessary to defeat their enemies, even if they were cruel and indiscriminate in killing civilians and children alongside enemy combatants. Churches in Russia have recently created religious icons glorifying the invasion of Ukraine, depicting the approving face of Jesus looking over the war.  We have heard and seen the language of "God on our side" used to justify the starvation of children in Gaza. And the memories of the Reich in Germany still linger in our minds, too, when it was claimed that God was on the side of the Panzer tanks and German Luftwaffe.  All of those--and surely many more throughout history--have followed from a distorted, out-of-context reading of the Bible that takes "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord" as a blank check to underwrite conquest for whichever country pretends to be the most devout, when the actual context turns us away from war and violence and toward the God of mercy.

All this summer in our "Life on the Edge" year, we have been looking at how discipleship will challenge us.  Following Jesus will take us beyond the usual expectations and comfortable routines of "the way everybody else thinks and acts" to a particular kind of life that is shaped by Christ.  And at least part of what that means is actually listening when the Scriptures tell us that we cannot put our trust both in the ways of violence and in the ways of God.  We cannot devote our attention to having bigger arsenals, larger armies, or more advanced weapons, and then pretend that we are trusting in God for our well-being, peace, and common good.  Throughout ancient Israel's history, every time they trusted in their own power, weapons, or military might, it led to disaster, sooner or later.  But in those moments when they abandoned the attempt to be "big and tough" or to "project power" or enforce "peace through strength," they found that God delivered them, in spite of the fact that they were disorganized, small in numbers, and lacked traditional power.  God told the enslaved Hebrews that they needed only to sit still and see how divine strength defeated Pharaoh and his chariots.  God brought the walls of Jericho down, not with the help of human weaponry, but working through the sound of trumpets.  God sent a ragtag band of unkempt and undisciplined Israelites up against the Midianite army during Gideon's time, and the text in Judges says that God brought confusion and fear to the Midianites so that they did themselves in, rather than needing the Israelites to trust in their own prowess and power.  And conversely, when the Israelites became arrogant about their own military might, God allowed them to see how futile such misplaced faith really was, and they were defeated.  Those stories all point in the same direction of this psalm, which is to say that following the God of the Scriptures will ultimately lead us away from violent conquest and military adventurism, and instead to put our trust in the faithfulness of God.

In a time when many today want to use God-language as a justification for killing people or pretend that if we claim to be religious then God "owes" us battlefield success, being disciples of Jesus will make us different.  It will make us stand out, and often will make us ripe for mockery.  They'll say we are weak, or that we look like losers. They'll say we must not be patriotic or pious if we don't condone invoking God to justify whatever we call "the national interest."  They'll say we are weird.  Maybe we need to be.  I am reminded of that brilliant insight of the late Walter Brueggemann who said, "People notice peacemakers because they dress funny. We know how the people who make war dress--in uniforms and medals, or in computers and clipboards, or in absoluteness, severity, greed, and cynicism. But the peacemaker is dressed in righteousness, justice, and faithfulness--dressed for the work that is to be done."  Part of being a disciple of Jesus is the willingness to look strange in the eyes of a world that is accustomed to treating God as a mascot for conquest and a tool for intimidation.  We will be the ones instead saying, "No--God does not bless our bombs, and God does not condone starvation. We will trust God's name rather than abusing that name to justify our cruelty."

We can't pretend that we can stop every nation or government in the world from using their weaponry and bluster to bully their neighbors, simply because we don't like it.  But we can at least refuse to be silent when they put the name of God on their lips to justify it.  We can--and we ought to--protest when the God who says, "Don't trust in your armies or arsenal" is invoked by people in power as being on "their side."  We do have a responsibility to say "NO!" when the Christ whose way of saving us was to lay down his life on a cross rather than crucify his adversaries is used as a mascot to endorse cruelty, violence, or domination.  Disciples of Jesus are called to speak up in that regard and to say, "This is not the way of Jesus.  So please do not pretend he gives his blessing on our bloodshed." And if that makes us get strange looks, so be it.  They did the same to Jesus.  We should be glad if people look at us and see him.

Lord Jesus, enable us to trust in you rather than in the tools of violence and intimidation, and give us the courage to stand out as your peaceable witnesses in world full of cruelty.