Readings

Alleluia. Christ is Risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Today’s psalm, Psalm 16, is about trust. Various psalms focus on trust—Psalm 23 is the best known—not because trust is easy, but because it doesn’t come easily. Fear narrows our focus, produces a sort of amnesia. Trust often demands attention, mindfulness.

“Protect me.” The danger is unspecified, which is fine: there are so many situations in which we need this psalm. The psalmist nurtures trust by recalling God’s past actions: “My boundaries enclose a pleasant land; / indeed, I have a goodly heritage.” A few years back I put together a list of people, events, places—mostly people—evidence for God’s trustworthiness. I return to it periodically, add to it periodically. If you don’t already have something like it, I’d encourage you to try it in whatever form (pictures, songs, etc.). The psalmist has it right: “Bless the Lord, O my soul / and forget not all his benefits” (103:2).

Because God’s proved trustworthy in the past the psalmist can entrust to God their future:

My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices;
my body also shall rest in hope.

For you will not abandon me to the grave,
nor let your holy one see the Pit.

You will show me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy,
and in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.

In contrast to Peter’s reading in our first lesson—we’ll come back to it—the psalmist isn’t talking about what happens after death. “The path of life, fullness of joy:” that’s for this life.

Now, just before Lent we were hearing Matthew 5, the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. We rarely hear most of Matthew 6, which focuses on God’s generosity and our trust, ending with “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Mt6:31-33). If we ask where Jesus is getting this, psalms like Psalm 16 are surely part of the answer.

In today’s Collect we prayed “Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith.” That’s—appropriately—a pretty general petition. Psalm 16 encourages me to notice the substantial overlap between faith and trust, to hear “show forth in their lives” echoing Jesus’ teaching back in the Sermon on the Mount. Because God is reliably generous and has our back (Matthew 6, echoing Psalm 16), we can trust and leave anger, lust, revenge, and hatred of the enemy to the gentiles (Matthew 5).

Peter at Pentecost, of course, reads Psalm 16 differently, a reminder—in case we needed it—that Scripture, the word of the living God, can speak to us in different ways. God’s Easter action broke open David’s words spectacularly, like one of those geodes on display at the Cave of the Mounds. “’He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh experience corruption.’ This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.” Alleluia? Alleluia!

But, we might wonder, the psalm’s “Protect me” followed by flogging, beating, crucifixion? So Matthew’s account of Jesus’ Gethsemane prayer is important: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want” (Mt26:39). “Protect me” is still there, but it’s one of those situations in which trust means it’s not the only petition that’s there.

And this, in turn, means that we don’t know how God will answer our “Protect me” prayers. God bats last: that we know. Will it look more like the psalmist’s “My boundaries enclose a pleasant land; /
indeed, I have a goodly heritage” or Jesus’ cross and resurrection? That’s actually familiar territory for God’s people. Recall Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego facing Nebuchadnezzar with his idol and fiery furnace: our God may or may not deliver us; we’re not bowing down to your idol (Dan 3:17-18). Mark remembers Jesus promising a combination: “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age– houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions– and in the age to come eternal life” (Mar 10:29-30).

Our second reading from 1 Peter lets us watch one way this can play out. Peter’s hearers are suffering “various trials.” And Peter celebrates that they “are being protected by the power of God” so that the trials will prove their faith genuine.

We’d need a number of sermons to begin to do justice to today’s Gospel, and, having focused on Psalm 16, I’m not going to try. Nevertheless, a couple notes on John’s closing (“But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”).

We watch that “through believing you may have life in his name” play out in the Gospel itself. Imagine: a whole week between the two narrated Sundays with most of the disciples all “Alleluia” and Thomas “Some evidence, please!” And after a week of that they’re still together. Just before the Passion, Jesus to these disciples: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (Joh 15:12). And, however imperfectly, they’d done it. They’re still together, and that’s life.

Let’s pull back the camera. “Through believing you may have life in his name.” Jesus’ resurrection: God’s verdict that the guy who proclaimed “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt5:3) was not certifiable. Anger, lust, hatred: that’s death. Giving anger, lust, etc. a pass, loving one’s enemy: that’s life. The New Testament, in other words, leaves no space between believing that Jesus is the Messiah and trusting, putting our weight, on his teaching.

“Protect me, O God, for I take refuge in you.” I would invite us to do two things this week. Look for ways to nurture our capacity to trust this God. Remember our Christian brothers and sisters throughout the world—including, these days, the Middle East—who are also praying this prayer. What does Jesus’ “love one another” mean?

Alleluia. Christ is Risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.