This Sunday, I was given Proverbs 3:5-6 and Isaiah 12:2 and asked to preach on trust. It is a timely topic in more ways than one. And I think at times, it is a word that we seem to have an especially difficult time with.
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Over the last few weeks, we have drawn inspiration from the hymn, Wonderful Words of Life. We have looked at several life-giving words that are a part of what it means for us to be followers of Christ, part of what it means for us to be Church. So far, we have explored love and mercy and grace. We have talked about how these words are not only words about what is expected of us, but also words about the nature of God. God loves us, shows us mercy, and extends to us grace. And we in turn extend each of those into the rest of the world.
This week, we turn to the idea of trust. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to trust is to believe in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something or to have faith or confidence in someone or something. To trust in someone is to put our fears to rest and to be assured that they will follow through. To place our trust in someone or something is to believe we will be kept safe. To trust in someone is to know that they will always be honest and true in their dealings with us.
As we can see, trust is intimately tied to faith. In fact, we sometimes use the two words interchangeably. We speak of having faith in another person’s honesty. We speak of faith that someone will follow through. We speak of faith in the system. We speak of our faith that everything will be okay. We use all of these as a way of speaking of trust.
And this is where the two-way nature of this comes in. One reason we can trust in God is because God is faithful. God has shown us faithfulness over and over again. Even when we fail to remain faithful, God remains true.
Our holy scriptures, the story of God’s relationship with us, are full of examples of God’s faithfulness. Our texts today are no exception.
The book of Proverbs is set up as a collection of teachings for a good life. It is presented as wisdom to be listened to and followed. In particular, it is written as if a parent were instructing a child in the ways of the world and trying to pass on all the wisdom the child will need in order to be ready for their own place in the world.
Here in the third chapter of Proverbs, we are told to trust in God rather than relying on our own insight. In this we are reminded of God’s faithfulness and perhaps reminded of our own fickleness. It is as if we are being asked to look back at our own history with the question “are you sure you want to trust in your own abilities and wisdom alone?” But when we turn to God, when we look to the history of God's relationship with us, we know that God remains faithful. We know that we can trust in God. When we acknowledge God, the way is made clear before us.
But we need to think a bit about that last point. What does it mean that if we acknowledge God, our paths will be made straight? I think that we are tempted at times to see this as some sort of transactional situation. If I keep God in front of me, God will reward me. At the same time, I’ve known very faithful people who pray multiple times a day that have the hardest lives of anyone I know. And I know people who have a rarely touched Bible on their shelf who float through life with ease. What do we make of this in light of our text today?
For me it comes back to trust and faith. As I was preparing this week, I couldn’t help thinking about Wednesday morning’s class with the Women’s Bible Study this week. Right now we are exploring some relatively simple spiritual practices that we can incorporate into our lives to give us structure and lead us deeper into love of God and neighbor. This week’s habit called us to read scripture first thing in the morning before picking up our phones to check notifications or emails, before engaging with the news, and before hopping onto social media. On the surface, this seems like a simple practice. But we pretty much all realized that it turned out not to be quite as simple as we thought it would be.
We live in a world that encourages both constant busyness and constant distraction. We get constant notifications, often right in our pockets, of something that needs to be done for work, some problem in the world, or how many likes our latest social media post is getting. When we let these notifications drive our lives, we are controlled by the narrative that they set for us. Or when we let ourselves mindlessly scroll through facebook or instagram, we allow distraction to set our agenda for us.
So as simple as it seems, turning to scripture first thing in the morning reminds us right at the start of the day that we are beloved. We are reminded of God’s grace, God’s mercy, God’s love, and God’s faithfulness. And then we are able to live the rest of our day trusting in that message and sharing that same love with the rest of the word through our words and through our deeds. Our way becomes straight because we are focused on loving the world as completely and as deeply as God loves us.
This is an act of trust. This is an act of faith. And just this slightest bit of structure to our day can guide us and lead us in more fulfilling directions. Our paths are made straight, not because God rewards us for our actions; but because God is always faithful and placing our trust in God’s love for us gives us purpose and direction.
The prophet Isaiah gives some support to this idea. When we look to our verse from Isaiah today, we are told that God is our salvation. It is not through our own actions, not through our own deeds that we are saved. God is our salvation. In other words, God remains faithful. And because of this we can trust in God and not be afraid.
As we read this, we must remember that we often read Isaiah in relation to Advent and Christmas. We read Isaiah because the prophet speaks of the messiah, the ideal version of Israel, that God is sending into the world. Isaiah knew the messiah was coming though he could not know when.
And so in this section of the prophet's writing, he has been speaking of the root of Jesse and all that this one will bring about for Israel and for the world. And so he starts this chapter with the phrase “on that day,” meaning the time when the messiah has come. He is saying here that on that day this is what we will say. We will say that surely God is our salvation. And so we will trust and not be afraid. On that day, we will realize that it is through no action of our own, not by our own abilities or strength or might, that we are saved. We are saved by God’s strength because God is the one who is faithful.
And so we can trust in God to deliver us. We can trust in God to save us. We can trust...and not be afraid.
But we also recognize that this is hard to do. We have all been hurt by others. Some of us are in pain because of the trust we have placed in others. Some of us have been treated wrongly by those we have trusted. Some of us have been treated violently by those we have trusted. Trust does not come easily to many of us.
How do we trust one we cannot see when those we can see are often so undeserving of our trust?
How can we trust in one we cannot see when what we see around us is pain and despair?
When we are surrounded by lies and mistruths, we can trust in God’s truth.
When we are unjustly attacked by those who want to destroy us, we can trust in God’s grace.
When we are surrounded by vipers with only hatred in their hearts, we can trust in God’s love for us.
We trust because God remains faithful. We trust because when we look to the Bible, we are reminded of God’s long relationship with humanity. We trust because even though we don’t always receive in the way we expect, God remains faithful to all that has been promised.
God’s strength and might hold us up when we fail on our own. This reminds me of the hobbits in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. In this story, a fellowship comes together to destroy a ring that can be used to enslave others and cause great pain and suffering. A single hobbit steps forward to volunteer to bear the ring to the place it needs to be destroyed. Frodo knows the task needs to be done. And he places his trust in those that choose to go with him on the journey.
Sadly, that trust is betrayed by one early in the journey, so Frodo decides he cannot trust anyone and must set out on his own. But his closest friend, Sam, refuses to leave his side. Sam remains faithful through everything that follows, never giving Frodo a reason to doubt him.
Near the end of the journey, Frodo admits that he does not have the strength to go on. He cannot complete the task on his own. Sam, ever faithful, tells Frodo that while he cannot complete the task for him, he can provide his strength to support Frodo to complete the task. Speaking of the ring and the completion of its destruction, Sam tells Frodo, “I can’t carry it for you...but I can carry you.”
Sam remained faithful to Frodo, offering him his strength, even as Frodo had pushed him away and tried to do it all on his own for much of the journey. But in the end it was Sam’s faithfulness and strength that allowed Frodo to succeed in destroying the ring. Sam’s support made clear the path before Frodo.
Hopefully, we can see the similarities here for our own relationship with God. We are the ones that push God away. We try to do everything on our own. We don't want to admit that we need anyone's help. Even so, God remains faithful to us. God’s strength and faithfulness allow us to succeed in our vocation as members of the body of Christ. God’s love and mercy and grace make straight the paths before us.
So let us trust in God’s faithfulness in the face of lies and gossip and baseless attacks.
Let us trust in God’s faithfulness in the face of uncertainty.
Let us trust in God’s faithfulness in the face of hatred and fear and the unknown.
For God is our strength and our salvation.
God is our support.
And God’s love never fails.