Psalm 146 "A Post Election Reminder"

So, this morning I am going to spend some time talking politics. As all of you do, I have good friends, good Christian friends, on both sides of the aisle. I have friends who love the Lord and put his kingdom first who were celebrating on Tuesday night, and I have friends who love the Lord and put his kingdom first who were wondering how things could get any worse on Tuesday night.

I also mentioned last week that there are a number of churches around the country that came together Tuesday night, not to watch the poll numbers, not to wait for the returns to come in, but to join together in Holy Communion, reminding themselves and making a statement to the world that what unites us as Christians is greater than that which divides us politically. I believe that our annual soup and pie supper on election night at this church is kind of a similar event. No, we aren’t celebrating Communion together. But we are coming together in God’s house and leaving our politics at the door as we fellowship with one another and share meal together. And we don’t limit this to ourselves. We invite the whole community in to this fellowship, into this meal. We are taking a stand and reminding ourselves that we are united by Christ and not divided as it sometimes feels we are.

So today we read Psalm 146. It is a psalm of praise. But more than that, it is a reminder of where our trust lies, where our hope can be placed. This psalm is a word of comfort and hope to my conservative friends as they are reminded that it is God who is in control and it is he to whom we place our fealty. It is a word of caution to my liberal or progressive friends as they are reminded that we aren’t to put our hope and trust in earthly saviors.

Let us open in prayer…

1. Trust Not in Princes

So, today’s scripture spends some time telling us where to put our trust. Actually, before it gets there it starts by telling us where not to put our trust. It starts out pretty strong, also. Don’t put your trust in princes or in men. It is easy to see the political message here. It is easy to see this as a reminder that our hope is not in people. But this is something that is much harder to live into. After being told over and over again that this election that we just had was the most important decision that we as a country would make in our whole lifetime. After being told by both parties that if we chose the “wrong” candidate, everything we believed in, everything we held as important, would be taken from us. We’ve basically been living in a world, politically, where we have been told that we are to put our trust in princes. And the truth is that this isn’t only a political thing. The same is true in so many areas of our lives. We are always looking for people to save us. We are always being told that we need to rely on someone else or something else to save us. Better clothes will make us feel more comfortable about ourselves. A nicer car will help us find happiness and joy. Medicines that they advertise on TV will allow us to feel younger and healthier and able to do more than we thought we were capable of. Advertisement, both political and otherwise is all about selling us on our need for a savior. But the advertisements all point us to the wrong saviors.

I remember being a teen. I don’t know about all of you, it may have been a while ago for you, but some of the feelings of the teenage life are still fresh in my mind a quarter century later. I remember being very self-conscious. I remember being socially awkward and not having much self-confidence. And I remember watching commercials that told me that if I wore the right cologne the girls would like me. And so, I found myself buying this horrible stuff that I thought would save me, would cure me of my social awkwardness. Of course it did no such thing. Cologne could not be my savior.

Looking back, I laugh. Cause it seems absolutely ridiculous to me today to think that cologne could save me from myself. Yet I did. But the same thing is true today. We expect things and people to save us, to save this world, to save this country and they can’t. So the psalmist tells us that we should not look to princes for our salvation. We shouldn’t look to people. The mighty fall. Those who we think are invulnerable show their vulnerability. Those who seem undefeatable end up being defeated. Good is not always the strongest.

I’ve talked about this scripture in the context of politicians and advertisements, but there is someone else that you need to realize cannot save you as well. And that is yourself.

The psalmist reminds us why this is. “When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.” The things of this world are temporary. The greatest plans made by the greatest people in this world will not last. Plus, there is just so much that is outside the control of us and our would-be saviors. A sports star who seems undefeatable ends up getting injured and their career is never the same.

When I was a kid the Seattle Seahawks were starting to try to build a new team, trying to make a name for themselves. They’d had two years without making it to the playoffs and they knew they needed something bold. They hired a loud-mouthed rookie linebacker, Brian Bozworth: “The Boz”. He flew into his first practice with the team on a helicopter. He had the biggest contract that Seattle had ever given up to that point. His trash talking and over-the-top personality rubbed a lot of fans the wrong way. But, I’ve gotta say, he was smart about it. He at one point had shirts made up that said “Ban the Boz” and when Seattle was playing Denver these shirts were sold to Denver fans and the stadium was full of them. The fans had no idea that Boz was actually making money off of them. But the Seahawks had put their trust in the Boz and discovered that he didn’t do much for them. His second year he had a shoulder injury that pretty much ended his career, though he made it into the second game of his third season before he fully retired from the sport. As we look back at the Boz, though, he became more of a joke to us Seattle fans than anything else.

But the fact is that our human heroes will never live up to our hopes and dreams. Their plans will die with them, or often long before them. The mighty will fall and we cannot allow ourselves to put our trust in them, even though everything in our world tells us that we should.

2. Hope in the Lord

So, if we’re not putting our trust in people, if we’re not expecting a politician or a movie star, a sports player or even ourselves to save us; then what do we put our trust in? Someone whose plans are greater than ours. Someone who will never fail. Someone who cannot be surprised by events outside his control: “Blessed are those whose help is in the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.” When we look for someone to help us, the one we can look to with absolute trust, with absolute hope, is God.

The psalm then explains to us why it is that we can look to him. It explains what it is about his character that makes it possible to trust in him, what it is that allows us to rely on him. And the psalm does it in a way that is very poetic, that is very powerful. It is almost a shame to analyze it, it’s almost a shame to take it apart and look at it closely, because it takes away the beauty of the psalm, the poetry found there. But at the same time this is a list of attributes of God that helps us to understand why we can put our trust in him. It’s a good list to have before us.

First, God is the creator of this world. He is the creator of heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them. Think about this for a minute. As you look at the world around you. Everything you see on this world, everything you see in the heavens, everything was created by God. Even the sea, which in the day of the psalmist was seen as chaos and destruction. Even the sea was created by God and everything in it. So, God can be trusted because he has made this world.

But the psalmist goes on to tell us that God remains faithful forever. He created this world and he has promised to be faithful to this world. He made this promise not to give up on this world he created after the flood, when he gave us the rainbow to remind us of this faithfulness, to remind us of this promise.

The psalmist continues. He upholds the cause of the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, sets the prisoners free, gives sight to the blind, lifts up those who are bowed down, loves the righteous, watches over the foreigner, the immigrant, the outsider, sustains the orphan and the widow and frustrates the plans and the ways of the wicked.

We see here an active God. We see here a God who didn’t just start up this world, create it and wind it up like a clock and walk away to gaze from a distance at the world he created. Instead we see a God who actively works for the good of his people. We see a God who takes an interest in the things of this world, a God who wants justice and peace in a world bent against these things.

When things seem hopeless, when the problems faced by you or those around you seem to be beyond your ability, don’t trust the people who say they can fix them. They can try, but they don’t have what it takes. Instead turn to God. Allow God to work, put your hope in him. Allow him to be your help and the receiver of your trust. Our allegiance is first and foremost to God’s kingdom, and he is the one that will bring us salvation.