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Last updated on
Aug. 6, 2005
Keeping the Faith
Delivered May 22, 2005
by Pastor Werner De Jong
Text: Psalm 37:1-9
Main Idea: Evil people and wicked ways sometimes appear to have the upper hand over those who seek to be faithful to God, as in Colombia, where our sister church is located. But God promises to vindicate the righteous and to judge the wicked, in his time.
Purpose: To challenge those who walk in difficult or oppressive circumstances to trust in the Lord and to continue to do good, to choose to rest in the promise of God's future rather than give in to the pressures of the present. To encourage those who do so that God will vindicate their faith.
Introduction: Our Trip to Colombia: Buenos Dias! Good Morning! It's good to be back with you again after an excellent trip to Colombia. This morning I want to reflect on Psalm 37, which is the Psalm that Peter Stucky, the President of the Mennonite Church in Colombia, shared with our delegation during our visit. But before I do that, I'd like to take some time to make some general comments about our trip. Our delegation will share more in detail about the trip at a later date, but we want to say right away how much we appreciate the experience we had. It was the visit of a lifetime, and it has certainly resulted in a great strengthening of our relationship with our sister church in Bogota, Colombia, both the Sinai congregation and La Victoria. I was very proud of the way in which the members of our delegation represented our church–they were all excellent representatives, and it was beautiful to see the way in which our two churches interacted and embraced one another.
It is no exaggeration to say that our time with our sister church was full of love and laughter. We were not only welcomed with wide open arms, we were also loved and accepted and cherished as brothers and sisters in Christ. And from the moment we arrived, we were also teased and kidded as members of the family. During our stay numerous people paid our delegation a significant compliment, saying, "We are surprised how simple you are." By that they meant that we were down-to-earth, that we did not think we were better than our Colombian brothers and sisters, which of course we are not, but that we came with humble spirits and a willingness to learn. And we had so much fun together, laughing and joking, which makes for very special memories. And on a few occasions we also shed some tears together, for example, when we went to visit the parents of Pastor Javier, who died in the bomb explosion. It was a sacred and an intimate moment when his mother opened up to us and shared through her tears stories of her son and of how his tragic loss has impacted her life. All we could do was listen and pray with the family, but our simple presence was a strong source of encouragement.
During our trip the words of the apostle Paul took on new meaning for us, when he wrote, "If one member (of the body of Christ) suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it." We are one body, and we share each other's joys and sorrows. This verse helps to explain our ability to travel to another continent and to form friendships and to share meaningful moments in a brief period of time. For we recognized Christ in each other. As members of the global body of Christ we share an intimate bond. We share the common bond of Jesus' love and forgiveness, and the common call to bring healing and hope to others in his name. Because of this we truly are brothers and sisters of one another. At one point during our visit I remember talking to Irma, and we said how from our very arrival it already felt like we were friends, as if we knew one another.
One of the most special moments of our visit occurred during the worship service on the first Sunday we were there. To our surprise, the congregation at Sinai had waited until this moment to commission Lilliana as the new pastor for the La Victoria church. You may recall that she was engaged to marry Javier, who was pastoring the church before he died in the bomb blast. The church then encouraged her to take his place, and even though her heart was broken, she felt God calling her and obeyed the call. It was obvious how deeply the people of the church love her. I wish you could all meet Lilliana. She is young to have experienced such a tragedy, but she has so much love for others. Her eyes simply radiate kindness. It was a great honour for me to be called forward on behalf of our church, together with the local church leadership, in order to lay our hands on her and to pray for her and to set her apart for this ministry. It was a beautiful and a very moving ceremony, and there wasn't a dry eye among those laying hands on Lilliana. Pastor Losada put it so well when he said: "Our brothers and sisters in Petitcodiac shared our sorrow when Javier died; now we also want them to share in our joy." It was very generous and thoughtful of our sister church to include us, even as everyone was so generous to us throughout our entire stay, and overwhelmed us with gifts when we left.
The Situation in Colombia: We had such a good experience that we might easily have forgotten about the very complex problems facing the people of Colombia. But the organizers of our delegation, Micah and Charlotte Shristi, Americans who are working in Colombia with Justapaz, did a good job making sure that our trip had a strong learning component. We had many meetings, some of us said too many meetings, with groups and individuals for whom the injustice and violence and poverty facing the country are a daily reality, or with groups and individuals trying to help alleviate these problems. We heard many stories of pain and heartache. We learned about the history of the conflict in Colombia. We discovered that the situation in Colombia is so complex and tangled that no one fully understands it. Economic injustice and unfair land distribution seem to lie at the heart of the matter. Some 200 Colombians control 85% of the land, while the other 44 million have to divide the remaining 15% between them. These wealthy landowners are also in control of the government, and write the rules for the country, which of course seek to protect their own interests. Frustration with this situation gave rise in the 1950's and 60's to the guerrilla movement, which looked to armed revolt as a means to topple the government. Their movement was then countered by the formation of paramilitary groups, who have sometimes been supported by the official Colombian army, but not always. After 50 years of civil war, many of the armed actors in Colombia don't even know quite what they are fighting for anymore. It is the only life they have known, and it provides an income. Another layer on top of this is the production of narcotics like cocaine, and the siphoning off of oil from Colombia's many pipelines, which provide money for these armed groups. Or, if you can't control the oil or the coca production, you try to destroy it, so the other side can't profit from them. In the midst of this tangled web are western governments who desire Colombia's vast oil resources, and also multinational companies, both of whom give money to the various armed groups to protect their own interests. And of course, caught in the crossfire, as is so often the case around the world, are innocent civilians. There are some 30,000 violent deaths a year in Colombia. Displaced peoples are fleeing the conflict zones by the hundreds of thousands every year and moving to the larger cities, which creates social and economic chaos. Especially singled out as targets are those who are working to make their country better, including the churches. For they stand out, and if their policies don't line up closely with the policies of one of the armed groups, they are considered to be helping the other side, and are therefore seen as a threat and a legitimate target.
Psalm 37: After reading about this mess even before we left and after hearing about it in our various meetings, I was so glad when we met with Peter Stucky, the President of the Colombian Mennonite Church. For he started by asking the question that was constantly at the back of my mind: "What can we as a church do about this situation?," he said. He began to answer by reading Psalm 37. This Psalm appears to describe a Utopia, in which the righteous flourish, and the wicked or the wrongdoers receive their just desserts. For example, the Psalm writer says: "Do not fret because of the wicked; do not be envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass, and wither like the green herb....For the wicked shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land" (vv. 1, 9). But as Stucky was quick to point out, that is not the reality on the ground in Colombia. The wrongdoers are prospering. They commit their evil acts with impunity. They are growing richer while the suffering of the poor increases. And the righteous are suffering. Those who stand up in the name of Christ for peace and justice are sometimes gunned down. They sometimes die in bomb blasts. Sometimes they are kidnapped. And very often they are intimidated by death threats.
So what are we to make of a Psalm like Psalm 37? A proper understanding of the Psalm actually reveals that it is addressed to people who walk in difficult circumstances just like the one in Colombia. The Psalm reaches out to offer nurture and hope to such people. It therefore addresses a specific spiritual predicament–how to maintain faith in a just and loving God when you find yourself surrounded by injustice and oppression, when you find yourself facing problems and forces that are much bigger than you are. That is a question which not only applies to the Colombian context. As the Psalm suggests, the ancient Hebrews certainly experienced it. As have countless people around the world. It can also be applied to our own lives here in New Brunswick–when we are overwhelmed by difficulties, when we try to do right and see that those who do wrong advance much faster than we do, when we struggle against injustices in our own context and find ourselves coming face to face with strong and powerful forces bent on maintaining the status quo.
Whenever we or others face such a circumstance, there are two options available to us. First of all, we can throw up our hands in despair and say, "the situation is hopeless, those who lie and cheat and hurt others are the ones who are getting ahead, it is better to join them than to be a victim. Why follow God when the wicked are prospering? Or at the very least, it is better just to live a quiet self-centred life, it is better to ignore the cries and pleas of others, and not to do anything to rock the boat."
Trust in the Lord and do Good: But there is a second option, and it is the one the psalmist urges us to choose. This option is expressed simply and clearly in verse three of our text when the author writes: "trust in the Lord and do good." Those are the very words Peter Stucky used to describe how the Colombian Mennonite Church is choosing to respond to the crisis. "What can we do?" he asked. "We can trust in the Lord and do good." He didn't speak these words in any naive sort of way. His answer was forged in the heat and pressure of the Colombian conflict. In that conflict he and our brothers and sisters in Colombia have come to know and rely upon the loving God who created us. "To trust in the Lord and do good" is an answer based entirely on faith in the ultimate goodness and greatness of God. All the members of our delegation can readily testify that such faith is strong and alive among the members of our sister church. They are full of courage and often put themselves at risk in order to reach out to the hurting, needy people around them. And they love nothing better than to come together and to worship God, to sing of his love and power. One of the songs they love to sing has a chorus which when translated into English goes like this: "God you are all powerful. You are great and majestic. You are mighty and invincible. And there is no one like you." They know the God of Psalm 37, the God who promises many times and in many places in the Bible that one day good will ultimately triumph over evil. Their confidence can be our confidence, for God's power is not put in question by those who go their own way. God is faithful to the faithful. The God we worship is also the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who laid down his life for us in love, and who knows what it is to suffer, and who is therefore able to comfort us in our own times of suffering.
The challenge of the Bible to those who walk in difficult or oppressive circumstances is therefore to trust in God and to continue to do good, it is to choose to rest in the promise of God's future rather than to give in to the pressures of the present. That of course is the constant temptation we all face, the temptation to lose faith because our experiences in life do not yet measure up to the fullness of God's promises. The choice is constantly before us: will we choose to trust God and do good, or will we choose to give in to fear or despair, and to abandon the call of our Lord to love others?
The story of Jesus calling Peter to walk on the water in the midst of a stormy wind is a good illustration of the faith that God hopes to see in us. When Peter saw Jesus walking on the water toward his disciples' boat in the middle of a churning sea, he impulsively called out, "Lord, if it is really you, command me to come to you on the water." Jesus didn't rebuke him for making such a foolish request. Rather, he seized the opportunity to illustrate the level of trust he hopes to find in his followers and said, "Okay, Peter, come." Like Peter, Jesus asks us to step out in faith and to take risks. In Colombia, that risk is to love others and to seek peace even when it means putting yourself in harm's way. To his credit, Peter stepped out of the boat and took a few tentative steps. He was doing it. But then he noticed the strong wind and the high waves, and became frightened, and began to sink. But Jesus didn't let him perish. He immediately reached out his hand and caught him, and encouraged him to an even greater faith. There are many Peters in Colombia. I think of Mercedes, a woman we met in Bogota, and her husband. (Note: for the sake of her safety, I cannot include their story in the Internet version of this sermon). This is the kind of faith God calls all of us to, a faith that refuses to quit even when things appear hopeless. Will we choose to trust in God and do good, or will we choose to give in to fear and despair?
Peter Stucky spoke some significant words when he said to our delegation that there were two reasons not to give in to feelings of hopelessness, but rather to trust God as w do all we can to combat evil. First of all, he said we must do good and oppose evil in order to change things. We can't change everything at once, of course, and we can only do what we are capable of doing-- but we must do what we are capable of doing. The love of God requires us to take action. It has often been said that the problem with the world lies not so much the wrong-doers, but with good people who stand by and do nothing. There is a lot of truth in that. "Trust in the Lord and do good," is what we are admonished to do. Even, and perhaps especially, when circumstances appear hopeless. This will require a great deal of patience and faith, but it is solid advice no matter what circumstance we find ourselves in. By very definition the biblical understanding of love is not mere sentiment, but reaching out beyond ourselves in order to help others. Just like Jesus did for us. The Mennonite Church in Colombia seeks to do this by planting churches, by proclaiming God's love for all people in Christ, by taking public stands against injustice and violence, by doing what they can with their limited resources to care for the flood of displaced peoples who come to them for help, by supporting one another through good and bad times, and by declaring their churches as sanctuaries of peace, sanctuaries where disillusioned armed actors can go if they are willing to lay aside their weapons and seek a new way of life. They have been doing this many years with a wonderful spirt of patience and trust. The Mennonite Church in Colombia is actually very small, with little over a thousand total members in 18 churches, but the church is certainly striving to do what it can do. How about us? It is good to examine ourselves periodically and to ask the question, both about our church collectively, and about ourselves as individual members of it: "What good can we do both at home and abroad, and are we doing it?" We can't do everything, of course, and we shouldn't kick ourselves because we can't solve every problem. But we are called to do everything that we can. This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, to lay down our lives for others in a spirit of love. As we depend on God's Spirit for help, we can certainly be agents for good in this world.
Finally, the second reason Stucky gave to combat evil is so that it doesn't change us. In the first place we oppose evil in order to transform it with the power of our risen Lord. But we also oppose evil because if we sit on our hands and do nothing, then we ourselves will be changed, for the worse. God calls us to be faithful and to maintain the course, to continue in the way of Jesus, not only for the sake of others, but also for the sake of the body of Christ. For if we do not do what we can when others around us are suffering, if we give in to despair when we consider the overwhelming needs around us, then the love God places within us gradually shrivels up and dies. The only way to maintain a loving spirit is to continue to practice love. Or once again, as the Psalmist put it to those who were tempted to throw in the towel when they observed the prosperity of the wrongdoers, "trust in the Lord, and do good." Conclusion: The great promise of the Psalm, and indeed of the whole Bible, is that God will ultimately vindicate the faith of his faithful people. At times it may appear that evil is gaining the upper hand, as it does in Colombia, and as it surely did on the day when Jesus when crucified. But he rose again, and defeated evil and death, so that we can the sure, everlasting hope that love is stronger than hatred, and life is stronger than death. So let us choose to rest in the promise of God's future, and let us not give in to the pressures of the present. May we always trust in the Lord, and do good. For the promise of Jesus is sure: "the meek shall inherit the land," and "those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled." Amen.