October 21, 2001
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco.
There’s a story of a crazy tightrope artist who strung a wire across Niagara Falls. After drumming up a lot of publicity, he had a large crowd. The first thing he did was to skip and run across the wire. He followed this by standing on a chair precariously balanced over the most turbulent part of the falls. Next he pushed a wheel barrel full of water across the steep cliff—acting as if he was in the middle of a wide country road. Finally, he turned to the crowd and asked, “Do you believe that I can push this wheel barrel across the wire with a person in it—and arrive safely on the other side? The crowd roared, “Yes, we believe!” “Okay,” the nimble fellow said, “then who will be that person?” The roar of the crowd turned to utter silence.
Believing someone—and trusting someone—are two different realities.
Our psalm lesson for this morning is about trusting in God not just believing in God. It is about trusting God to carry us over and through all the high cliffs, deep valleys, and turbulent waters of our lives. It is about trusting God to love us when we are unlovable—to save us when we are rebellious fools.
Psalm 121
Psalm 121 is a part of a fifteen-psalm anthology called the Psalms of Ascent. Psalm 121 is a benediction spoken by a priest over pilgrims as they departed from Jerusalem to return to their homes. The pilgrims would speak the opening verses,
“I lift up my eyes to the hills—
from where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.”
In response the priest would say the blessing,
“He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
He who keeps Israel will neither slumber or sleep.”
These psalms were sung by pilgrims on a journey—those traveling in anticipation and with great spiritual hunger to Mt. Zion in Jerusalem—the place where God’s majesty was thought to be. So these psalms begin with the need and the weakness and the courage of the pilgrims—and the songs are filled with the yearning of hope.
The pilgrims would say, “I lift up my eyes to the hills—from whence will my help come?” When we first hear this, we think about the times when we have climbed up to the pinnacle of a mountaintop and say, “Oh, my God, it feels like I am touching the hem of God!”
But this was not Yosemite’s El Capitan or even Mt. Tam. For these pilgrims traveling through the forbidding hills and deserts of Palestine, the mountains were not a place of safety or beauty. Instead they were the hiding places of robbers and murderers—the bin Ladens who attacked travelers in the middle of the night and tormented them with fear.
These hills were also places where pagan gods were worshipped with statues and rituals. So, for the psalmist to “lift up his eyes to the hills” was to face danger and uncertainty, worry and fear. In the midst of this threatening terrain, where will his help come from? Where will our help come from?
What Are You Worrying About?
Like there were robbers and murderers in the hills of Palestine, what is lurking behind the forbidding hills of your life? When the mountains cast dark shadows of the unknown in your life, where can you find help?
Are you worry about your health—a disease that is out of control—a body that is forsaking you?
Are you worry about death—about the inevitability of life—of the pain and suffering that may precede the end?
Are you worry about your children—to make bad and wrong choices—destroying all that you have valiantly tried to give to them and teach them?
Are you worry about a world that is out of control—the nightmare of September 11 and now the flashes of light that make nighttime over Afghanistan daytime—that hate and revenge has won the battle of good and evil?
Are you worrying about opening your mail because of anthrax?
Are you worried that your life has made little difference—despite your workaholic pace of life?
Are you worried that your childhood belief in God will evaporate when life is more like trusting a crazy tightrope artist wheel barreling you across the Niagara Falls?
After a number of years have lapsed since I had a complete physical, I grudgingly and sheepishly saw Dr. Noble. Joy was worried about me and made me start worrying about me too. Everything is fine. But this past week, I had a colonoscopy! Now, I was told that pregnancy and childbirth is worst. But if you have ever had to drink four liters of Colyte, it was bad! I never knew that getting older could be so hard! I am beginning to understand what is mortality!
When I was in my teens, I worried about getting good grades so that I wouldn’t disappoint my parents who worked long hours to make a living. In my twenties, I worried about being successful at FCBC and then it was my time to work long hours in order to make a living. In my thirties and forties, I worried about Greg and Lauren getting into college, getting through college, getting jobs, and finding spouses who would love them as much as we do. But in my fifties, anxiety and worry speak to me in the middle of the night—when I wake up from a deep sleep and stare at the ceiling—my mind thinking about all the things I need to do.
Never Slumbers or Sleeps
In today’s Psalm lesson, I was struck by the comfort of a God who never slumbers and never sleeps. To stay awake is God’s job. And God does it willingly and well. So, how come I think I need to play God—waking up in the middle of the night—getting up way before the sun rises—thinking that somehow I don’t need to slumber—that I am the only one who needs to be in control of the world? Do I think that waking up at night would make the world safer?
Yes, friends, our sleeping habits sometimes tell us something about our trust habits—about how much we trust the promise of a God who watches over us—a God who neither slumbers nor sleeps.
If we don’t trust God, then who is it or what is it that we do trust?
Is it our parents? But experience shows that parents do die and leave us.
Is it our spouse? But spouses do let us down.
Is it our work? But work burns us out.
Is it our friends? But friends betray us.
Is it our pastor? But pastors disappoint us—even this one!
Is it our beauty or talent or fame? But beauty fades, reputations are forgotten.
Is it our security, power or technology? But the Twin Towers collapsed, anthrax is
found, and the stock markets are down.
Who or what is it that we can trust? Is there no one, is there nothing that is ultimately trustworthy? The Psalmist says, “Our help—the God whom we can trust—is the Lord who made the heaven and the earth.”
Shade from the Sun
As human beings, we too frequently fall asleep especially during my sermons! God never sleeps, but is awake both day and night, keeping watch over us. God is described as our shade or shadow.
The Psalmist says,
“The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will protect us from the danger of too much sun. Sunstroke was a serious problem for those living in biblical times. Elisha once treated a young man who had been struck down by the sun (2 Kings 4:18ff).
And exposure to moonlight was thought to cause mental disturbances. The word lunatic comes from the Latin word, luna, “moon,” still reflects this idea. Maybe that’s why it’s been crazy around here because of the Chinese Moon Festival! The point here is that the Lord will protect the pilgrims in the daytime as well as through the night. Our help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth!
There’s story of a young boy who recalled a time when he and his father was flying a small plane over the farms surrounding his hometown. In a field below they saw a farmer they knew. He was sitting on a tractor, plowing the field, in the middle of a hot July day. There was not a cloud in the sky, and these were the days before there were air-conditioned cabs on tractors. The boy’s father maneuvered the plane until the shadow was over their friend’s tractor. They watched as the farmer looked around. When he saw the plane, the farmer took off his straw hat and waved to them!
When we think about “the Lord is your shade,” we understand that against the scorching heat of the sun or the mysteries of the moon, God will cast this shade over you and protect you.
The Lord Will Keep You
Our psalm has only eight verses. Yet six times, the word, “keep” or “keeper” appears.
“The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in
from this time on and forevermore.”
No matter what, we can trust God to be with us—our God who neither slumbers nor sleeps, who shades us and watches over us—this God is with us and for us. This God keeps us from this time on and forevermore.
No sun is too hot, no death is too scary, no life is too insignificant, no failure is too devastating, no illness is to destructive to prevent God from being alert and alive by our side. Is this what we trust? Is this who we trust?
During World War II, Adele St. Johns was one of the first well-known reporters. She was also a mother and a wife. One bleak winter morning, she received a telegram. It read “Pilot Officer William St. Johns—Killed in Action.” Adele’s daughter reports what happened next.
“Mom retired quietly to the sanctuary of her study to mourn the lost of her
laughing, loving son. When she emerged at twilight she said succinctly, ‘The
rope held.’”
Years later Adele St. Johns discussed “the rope.” It was her faith and trust in God. Adele said,
“When Bill died, I felt like a lone mountain climber stranded on the verge of an
abyss with nothing but the rope coiled on my shoulder. When the unthinkable
happens, you have to wonder…Well, somehow I threw that rope into the void,
and the rope held. The inner voice we all so long to hear said gently, ‘All is
well with the child.’ And I knew it was so.”
My friends, to trust is to believe with one’s heart and not with one’s head. It is to venture forth into the hot sun, up those dangerous hills, down into the turbulent waters of the Niagara Falls counting on God who neither slumbers nor sleeps.
Trust means to hold onto the rope that is tightly grasped in God’s hands—jumping into the void of the unknown and trusting that the rope will hold.
Trust means that when you and I go for our physical exams and find out the unthinkable—that God will not let your foot be moved, that God will be your shade at your right hand, and God will keep watch over your soul at every point of your journey from this time forward and forevermore.
Trust means counting on God to keep us and watch over us during these days of terrorism and war—that terrible things may occur that are devastating to our physical bodies and our nation, but God promises that he will keep us when we are going out and coming in.
And if we are able to trust in a trustworthy God, then we may well become trustworthy—trustworthy enough for others to trust. The significant and valuable ministry that the Care Ministry Partners provide is based on their trust in God. As the result of their trust in God to watch over us, they are caring for you.
You and I don’t have to worry when there is the Lord! The Apostle Paul said it this way,
“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God
in Christ Jesus or Lord.” (Romans 8: 35, 37-39)
One of my most favorite prayers is St. Patrick’s. When I think about where is God in relation to our lives, I read in Scripture that God is above us, God is beneath us, God is within us, God is out ahead of us. God is all around us. This means that nothing can reach the core of our being without first passing under God’s loving care and keeping.
This wall of protection guarantees that nothing will ever happen to us that is totally destructive of that image of God that makes us who we are—God’s sons and daughters.
Listen to St. Patrick’s prayer:
I arise today
Through God’s strength to pilot me;
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s way to lie before me,
God’s shield to protect me.
Christ be with me, Christ before me.
Christ behind me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
There is nothing for you and for me to worry about when we have the Lord.
Let us pray.
Gracious and loving Lord, we praise your name when we realized that we have nothing to worry about when you never slumber or sleep always keeping watch over us. Thank you, Lord, for your mighty presence in bringing peace, reconciliation, and justice in your world. May we cast all of our cares to you. Amen.