This is a strange summer as between an ecumenical outdoor service, a family camp weekend, retreats, mission trips, and a friend’s wedding, I’m basically on an every-other week preaching schedule, which is why I haven’t posted a sermon in a few weeks. But I did lead worship and preach this Sunday, focusing on the prayer that concludes Psalm 33: “Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.”
Our hope as people of God is rooted in God’s steadfast love. Even as the world around us changes, even as yet another story gives evidence of the brokenness and suffering around us, we trust that God is still faithful. God is still at work. God is still good.
In our Gospel reading, Jesus tells us, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” The hope we cling to as Christians is not based on how much we have in this world, but on the promise that we are God’s children for all eternity. Sometimes that hope can be hard to see, but it is ultimately a deeper foundation for life than anything this world has to offer.
Today’s Scripture readings are Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16; Psalm 33:12-22; and Luke 12:32-40. I found helpful Kristen Thomas Sancken’s ELCA World Hunger Sermon Starter email as I wrestled with this message.
Here’s the livestream from Living Hope and sermon podcast audio from Christ the King.
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Grace to you and peace from God our loving Father and our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen
Do you think the world is getting better or worse?
I know political surveys often ask, “Do you think the United States is headed in the right direction?” but I’m not here to talk about politics. I’m just curious—a quick poll—right now, this morning, do you think the world is getting better or worse?
Raise your hand if you feel like things are generally getting worse. Better?
A New York Times column this week with the headline, Why More People in the World Are Feeling Hopeful (Except Us) lifted up a Gallup survey “where the share of Americans who say they are ‘very satisfied’ with their lives has hit a new low,” and another report that claims “only 30 percent of Americans feel optimistic for the next generation.”
The world’s a complex place, and you might have good reasons for feeling things are getting better or getting worse. I think I go back and forth about how I’d answer, maybe depending on the day or season or what I ate for lunch. I hope the world is getting better. That column pointed out a lot of countries are actually seeing strong gains in well-being; things are going well.
I hope things are improving, I want people to flourish, I want my kids to have a good life, a better life than I’ve had, and I think I have a pretty good life. I want people all over the world to have the same freedoms and opportunities and prosperity you and I enjoy.
I’m pretty confident in our security here. Ozaukee County doesn’t worry much about wildfires or hurricanes. (To be clear, I had floods in that sentence when I wrote it yesterday!) Drinking water won’t be a problem – we have a lot of fresh water right by us in the lake—isn’t it great?
But a few days ago buying groceries at Meijer, I caught myself wondering what it’d be like to not have enough food. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a parent in Gaza, not able to feed your child.
I’ve thought a lot about those campers in Texas who were swept away by the flash floods last month. I’ve worked as a summer camp counselor—I can’t imagine the nightmare of trying to get your campers to higher ground in a storm and then not everyone makes it.
There is good reason to worry about increasing violence, disruption of political norms, climate change, what happens if there’s another pandemic, whose jobs are safe from AI, so much more.
Yet in today’s Gospel, Jesus has the audacity to say, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Do not be afraid.
Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
And “be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
Do not be afraid, but be ready, even in the middle of the night.
Are things getting better? Or are they getting worse? And either way, what do we do in the meantime, in the here and now?
Where do you find hope? Where do you look for security?
I’ve been thinking a lot this week about the last verse of our Psalm, verse 22. Read it with me: “Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.” It’s a prayer, an expression of faith.
I don’t know all the historical background, what’s happening when the Psalmist writes this Psalm, but I wonder if it’s written in a time of uncertainty, maybe even a time of crisis.
The section we read begins with a declaration of faith: “Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord.” It’s good to be favored by God, good to be blessed by God.
It’s a Psalm of praise, but I wonder if the Psalmist is actually as optimistic and confident in his faith as he sounds, because he almost sounds as if he’s trying to convince himself.
He declares that the nation with God as their lord is happy, then spends a few lines on how great God is. God looks down from heaven, see everything happening on earth. So far, so good.
But then he gets to verse 16: “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.”
That verse invites us to think about where we’re looking for security. And if your hope is rooted just in things of this world; as a nation if you’re looking for security in the strength of your army, or the capabilities of your weapons, you’re eventually going to be disappointed.
For us, if we’re looking to a bank account balance, if we’re relying on a job or title, if we’re putting our hope in earthly things, that’s not enough. That’s not going to last. That’s not enough to be ready for the future.
Some of you heard about that in last week’s Gospel reading, right? Jesus tells a story about a man who had so much stuff he had to build extra barns to hold it all, but all his possessions turned out to be temporary.
So maybe this Psalm is a warning to us about where we ground our hope, a call for us to look deeper, to explore our priorities.
But I also wonder if it’s the Psalmist facing a crisis, a situation greater than he can deal with on his own, desperately looking for some reason to be hopeful.
Many of the Psalms are attributed to King David, and although Psalm 33 doesn’t claim to be by David, it might well be. Others have suggested it might be from the time of the Maccabees, a group of outnumbered Jewish rebels fighting against a Greek empire.
Whenever it is, it sounds like the author is measuring the strength of a great army opposing him, looking at a huge obstacle, and in the face of this overwhelming opposition, he’s reminding himself, “Remember, no matter how great a king’s army is, no matter how strong a warrior might be, no matter how powerful a war horse is, earthly strength has no ultimate power. None of it will last forever.”
He could look at the difficulties he’s facing and give up, but instead, he chooses the path of faith.
Verse 20: “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.”
That’s our prayer this morning: “Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.”
I don’t know if you’re feeling optimistic or not this morning, but I know you’ve chosen to come to church today. You’ve chosen to come be part of this community, to come and sing together, to pray together, to listen to God’s word together, to hear yet again or for the first time the promise that God loves you, that in the midst of all the brokenness in the world around us, God is present. God is at work. God is faithful.
I know there are people around us, people in our neighborhoods, in our families who are looking for hope. We are looking for hope. And our hope is found in Jesus Christ. We have hope to share.
The reading from Hebrews tells us, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith is hope in the future. Faith is believing things can be better, that God will make things better. Faith is trusting God’s not done working, not yet.
It continues, “All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.”
We don’t always get to see the fulfillment of our faith in this world. Sometimes the enemy armies are bigger, and sometimes they win. But faith is not about earthly strength. Faith is about following God’s call, trusting in God, looking forward to a promise we can’t yet see clearly.
Faith is seeking a better world, even if we don’t see the path to get there.
We are strangers in this world, because our hope is not in this world.
Our mission, our work, our service is in this world; our call is to love our neighbors as ourselves, to follow the example of Jesus who laid down his life out of love for the world, but our hope is not in this world.
Our hope is not in full freezers or closets or 401k’s; our hope is in the God who created the heavens and the earth.
Our hope is not in weapons or armies or politicians; our hope is in the One who laid down his life and defeated death to rise again.
Our hope is not in diets or supplements or good health or any other temporary things in this world; our hope is in the One who gives us eternal life.
And because of Jesus, because our hope is eternal, you and I can dare to imagine a different world where no one goes hungry, where peace and justice reign.
Because we are set free from fear of death, free from hatred of neighbor, free from worrying about the future, we can get to work in this world. We can prepare for Jesus’ return by working for our neighbors’ good, for it to be more on earth as it is in heaven. We can risk loving our neighbors, standing up against injustice.
We can imagine a better future, and work for it to happen, knowing God is faithful, knowing God is good and loving, whether our efforts bear fruit or not.
With God’s help, we can persist in faith. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Amen