Do You Put Your Whole Trust?

Believe it or not, today’s Gospel reading is meant to be reassuring. This happens every year. We get this wonderful collect, written over 450 years ago in the earliest days of the Protestant Reformation in England, about Scripture. Powerful in what it says and it what it does not say about the authority of Scripture in our lives. God has caused all Scriptures to be written for our learning. And through the process of reading, noting, learning and inwardly digesting those Scriptures we come to God. Every year we get this collect on this next to last Sunday of the church year. It speaks of the blessed resource that Scripture is to us, and then we have these harsh, dire, threatening readings. In these last two weeks of the church year, the readings are always apocalyptic, reminding us of the end before we turn to Advent’s new beginning.

In this morning’s passage from Luke, Jesus speaks of the destruction of the temple, the very core of Israel’s corporate worship life. "Not one stone will be left upon another." Jesus speaks of wars and insurrections, great earthquakes, famines and plagues, dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. Persecution will be rampant and the faithful will be betrayed unto death by parents and brothers, relatives and friends. Really, these words are meant to be reassuring.

They are meant to be reassuring because, when Luke’s gospel was written, probably a generation or two after Jesus’ death, these things were actually taking place. For Luke’s readers these words are not a prediction of the future; they are a description of the present. The great temple of Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in the year A.D. 70. Stone was indeed torn from stone, and the temple’s beautiful adornments were stolen and debased. Christians were violently persecuted and brutally put to death. Spawned by fear, bitterness and betrayal undoubtedly spread like the plague amongst the Christian community. Fear so often seems to bring out the evil in us…

Luke is speaking to people who find themselves in the midst of events they cannot control, in the midst of a world that seems to be falling apart around them. And to those people, Luke says, God has not abandoned us. These events are not signs of God’s absence from our lives. Do not think these things prove God’s displeasure or indifference. God is present even in the very midst of this.

In the midst of uncertain times and fearful events, God is still near. God is a source of guidance and hope for those who are faithful. Trust in God. A timely message.

Trust in God. Not the temple. Not the state. Maybe not your family. Certainly not false prophets who appear with tantalizing offers of security or success to be won or bought. Trust in God. Luke is reassuring his readers that God is always trust-worthy, and exhorting them to place their trust in God and God alone.

Years ago I had the opportunity to attend a national conference on liturgy. One of the presentations was on intercessory prayer. Intercessory prayer—those prayers in which we call upon God to intercede in the world, in our lives. We call upon God to step in and do something. Those are probably the sorts of prayers most of us pray most often, although it might do us good to remember to also say more prayers of adoration or thanksgiving. Intercessory prayer is one of the elements in our Sunday Eucharistic celebration—the prayers of the people, the prayers for the whole state of Christ’s church and the world.

The speaker at this conference made a point that may seem obvious, but that bears affirming and reaffirming. The underlying premise for intercessory prayer is trust in God. And trust, not just in God’s power, but in God’s purpose. Intercessory prayer is based upon trust in God’s presence and purpose. To pray is to offer into God’s care those for whom we pray, entrusting to God those people and those concerns for which we pray. Intercessory prayer is not about getting our needs met or our hopes fulfilled; it is about entrusting our needs and our hopes to God.

It isn’t easy to trust God, to entrust our world to God’s care. It’s especially difficult in uncertain times. It could not have been easy for the people in Luke’s day to hang onto their faith and trust in God, especially when that very faith was getting them killed. But, thank God, they did and by their witness and proclamation passed on the faith to generation after generation after generation to us. God was with them.

It isn’t easy for us to trust God, to really turn over to God all that is important to us, all that which we cherish. Our intercessory prayers often are more demanding than trusting. We tend to address God as though God were some sort of celestial handy man who works for us. And what a handy man! All powerful and on call 24/7. God, I need your help here. Help me achieve my goals here. I just need another hand. Help me get to where I want to be. Help me resolve this problem. Give me what I know I need. Or, even better, give the world what I know the world needs.

All prayer is good prayer. To think about God is better than not to think about God. And to acknowledge that we need God is hugely important. To acknowledge, as another of our collects says, that we "have no power of ourselves to help ourselves"… that is an essential beginning point for intercessory prayer. Yet, it is just a beginning. The next step, harder perhaps, is to trust, to really trust God with our needs, our concerns, our lives. To pray, "thy kingdom come, thy will be done" as though we really meant it.  Tempting as it is, we can’t have it both ways. We can’t call upon the aid of God’s power that is beyond human understanding without also accepting God’s purpose that is beyond human understanding. Trust. Trust that God is present. Trust that God’s purpose is good. And that God is working out that purpose in love and mercy. Trust.

Last Sunday, as we celebrated All Saints’ Day, we baptized two young children into the Body of Christ. In intercessory prayer, we are called to entrust our hopes, our concerns, our needs into God’s gracious care. In baptism, we entrust our lives… all that we are, all that we might be or become, our hearts and souls and bodies… we entrust our lives to God. Baptism is a profound action of trust. Have you thought of it that way? In the baptismal covenant, we speak of the affirmation of faith we make at baptism, we proclaim our commitment to the Christian life. But baptism is not just about what we choose to take on or affirm. It is very powerfully about letting go, giving up. In baptism we place ourselves in God’s hands, we abandon ourselves to God’s purpose, we put our "whole trust in Christ’s grace and love."

Water is the primary image for baptism. Water is the form or vehicle for the conveyance of the sacrament of baptism. And although the church over the centuries has stylized the rituals of baptism to a particular role within our liturgy and community life—the pouring of water from a font—it is helpful to remember that the primary symbol of baptism is immersion in living water. Immersion. Passing through, into, under water that is bigger than we are. Water that flows with the power of life and death. "We thank you, Father, for the water of baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit."

The currents of the waters of baptism are much more powerful than we are. In baptism we abandon our own strength and entrust ourselves to those currents. We may find as we enter such a powerful stream that some of the adornments of our personal temples are swept away. We may find familiar places of security no longer hold fast. We may find ourselves estranged from people or things in the world around us.

Yet in the currents of the waters of baptism we will find ourselves buoyed up by the very waters of creation. We will find ourselves given a share in God’s own creative wonder and power. We will find ourselves in a life-giving stream stronger than even death itself. We will be carried to the promised land, in this world and the next, a land rich beyond our most extravagant imagining. We will be cleansed from every stain of sin. The waters of baptism have the power to wash away all evil. Within the currents of the waters of baptism, we will be carried through the apocalypse to the new dawn of Advent.

And as we emerge from the waters of baptism, we will hear the voice of God, as Christians have from Luke’s day up through our day… we will hear the voice of God say:  "You are my beloved, you are my child, with you I am well pleased."

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