The Hunt for Trust
June 17, 2012 | Patrick Preheim | 2nd Kings 18:19 - 19:2                      

Trust in the midst of transition was the theme of last Sunday’s worship service.  Through illustrations and a quick treatment of 1st Samuel 8 I tried to highlight a couple of points.  First, that both a surprising number of individuals from this congregation and the institutional church are facing a significant transition right now.  Secondly, I tried to share the good news that God is a stable presence with us and the church regardless of the season we are in and the transition we are undergoing.   It is our trust of God and the way of Christ which will enable us to not only survive, but thrive, the changes we will experience.  Lorraine Harder (the worship leader of the morning) asked a very important question as we discussed the text earlier that week, “How do I get trust?”

“Lorraine”, I said exasperated, “that is a huge topic which deserves an additional Sunday if not a whole group of Sundays”.  And yet the question remains, how do we get trust??  This question took me to 2nd Kings 18.  The Hebrew word for trust appears frequently in the passage.

Poor Hezekiah, he has already stripped down all the precious metal from the Temple to appease the Assyrian bullies (18:13-16) and still they come.

Rabshakeh is no mere messenger; he is a propagandist and skilled negotiator speaking the language of diplomatic disputation.  His goal is to split Judah along class lines, undermine their will to resist, and acquire Jerusalem without utilizing the “great army” he has brought as a show of force.  In a speech...he advances what seem to be...excellent arguments for capitulation:  Trust [i]n Egypt is foolish and dangerous... Trust [i]n your God is unwise...Trust [i]n your own military establishment would be ridiculous.  We Assyrians are the agents of your God, charged with the mission of destroying you...

- (Richard Nelson, First and Second Kings (Interpretation Commentary Series), p. 237-238)

In a sarcastic mockery of promises the Lord gave to the Hebrew while they were in the wilderness he tells them that if they trust the Assyrians they will live in a land flowing with wine and grain.  In addition everyone will have access to their own fruit trees.  Conversely, if they refuse to trust the Assyrians they will be forced to eat their own excrement as a means of survival during a siege.  And all of this is spoken so that the whole of the city’s inhabitants can hear.  Brutal.

Hezekiah is in a difficult spot.  Almost as difficult a spot as that of the original audience to this story:  the Jewish exiles who had been deported to Babylon.  “In the light of Jerusalem’s fall, God’s power must have been called deeply into question.  Judah itself had joined that roll call of bludgeoned nations whose gods had proved powerless to save them.  Was Rabshakeh right after all?”  (Ibid, 242)  Far from being a feel good story about what the trust of the Lord can do for the people of God this account drives home the point that trust “in God may not have immediate results”, may not rescue us from military might, and may not save us from suffering (Choon-Leong Seow, The new Interpreter’s Bible Commentary (vl III), 1 & 2 Kings, p. 273).  Continued trust of the Lord (for Hezekiah, the exiles or us) flies in the face of reason.  Rabshakeh makes clear that we all choose to trust something.  We can choose to place our trust in foreign alliances, in our own systems of defense, in our own military, in our wealth.   Given that this story of trust was first given to a defeated and exiled people we must probe the good news of a trust in this God who does not necessarily protect the trusting.  We all will trust something, why should the exiled Jews or we place our trust in God?

Forgiveness and mercy—the Jews understood their exile tied to their sin, but a funny thing happened as they continued life in Babylon.  As they worshipped and formed community in exile they experienced the presence of God.  In exile they learned that God’s trustworthiness was not tied to their perfection.  Rather, God’s trustworthiness hangs upon the divine character.  How wonderful to be reminded that God is not tied to Jerusalem and not limited by our failures.  That is good news—for them and us.

Righteousness and Justice—God’s mercy and forgiveness does not come at the expense of justice.  As we read in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and a bit later in 2nd Kings the leaders of Judah mistreated the people, particularly the poor of the land.  In my reading of these texts the Lord does not have a problem with wealth or power so long as everyone has enough.  When servants and workers are exploited and when the poor can’t afford to eat God speaks out.  The exiled Jews might even have pointed to the inequalities of their life before exile as a reason for their deportation.  In the biblical narrative the enactment of divine justice takes a bit of time, but it does happen.  I choose to trust in a God of righteousness who brings justice for all peoples.  It will happen in God’s way and in God’s time.   There is no better system than the kingdom of God justly and rightly lived.   And it gives me hope to trust in this God and know that God is ultimately responsible for making things right. 

Universality—the Hebrews understood themselves to be a chosen people, but a funny thing happened after their deportation.  In exile they were reminded that God loves all people.  God loves the world enough to scatter the chosen people across the land so that all might hear of his goodness and mercy.  God loves the world enough to give his son for the salvation of all peoples.  God loves the world enough that the church is ever pushed from its comfort zone into neighbourhoods sorely in need of good news.  So long as the Jews cling to Jerusalem, so long as Jesus remains safely next to God, so long as we have an internally focused church—salvation will not come to the nations.  Few other gods care about anything but themselves and their earthly proxies.  The God and Christ of the bible love the nations so much that they will live, die and go into exile with them.  That is beautiful.

Is Jesus aware of 2nd Kings 18 and all it implies as he nears the end of his life??  I think so.  We pick up the story of Jesus in the last week of his life.  He has come to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration and been teaching daily in and around the temple.  He has alienated many in the things he has said and done.  Money changers taking advantage of the poor have been publically humiliated as Jesus chased them out of the temple court.  Jesus has shamed certain wealthy people of the faith by holding up the generosity of a widow and an anonymous woman.  He has outfoxed Pharisees and Herodians in a question of taxes.  Jesus knows the great confrontation is coming, so he goes to a garden to be strengthened.   In the garden he is arrested.  From there he put on trial, convicted in the religious court, scourged, sentenced to death, and crucified.  Near the end of his earthly life Jesus cries out the first line of Psalm 22—the Psalm we read earlier.  Why did Jesus choose to quote this particular Psalm at this moment in his life?

No doubt the anguish of the first line captured his rawest feelings of exile and alienation from God.  This is surely clear.  The identification with Psalm 22, however, run more deeply than just the first line.  Psalm 22 invokes the trust of the ancestors and that it led to deliverance.  Were the ancestors really delivered?; were they kept from shame?  Not if we stop and consider most of their chronicled history.  It is true they were delivered and justified over the long haul, but they endured much defeat and shame along the way.  I think Jesus is tapping into this trust of the long haul.  The conclusion of Psalm 22 also fits nicely with a theology of exile.  God will be honoured by all people, in all place, in eternity.  Psalm 22 fits with the deeper trust being asked of those in exile, those suffering, those tempted by other gods, and those who are mocked.  Now back to Lorrain’s question on how we might cultivate this trust.

Hezekiah and the people initially responded to Rabshakeh’s challenge with silence.  Jesus goes to the quiet of a garden for meditation.  We become more trusting of God as we are able to “be still, and know that Lord is God” to quote Psalm 46.  We become more trusting as we learn to breathe in the God who is in all and beyond all.

Hezekiah and his court tear their clothes. Throughout the Bible the tearing of clothes is an outward sign of distress, and sackcloth is for repentance.  When trust of the Lord is hard it may benefit us to link our hope with some external action or ritual.  I would not suggest that knelling in prayer or tearing one’s clothes will produce deeper trust, but these actions of humility may actually make a difference. 

Hezekiah goes to the house of the Lord and gathers his friends around.  In the house of the Lord stories of our ancestors are told.   In this place we hear again that God goes with the Hebrews into exile.  Like Jesus, and the church through history, we learn Psalm 22 and that death does not have the final say.  In community we tell the stories which inspire us to be more trusting.  If we want a deeper trust in the Lord, we tell and listen to the stories again.  I can recommend several books which inspire me to deeper trust through a look at the lives of saints, prophets, and witnesses.

And finally, we courageously face death, exile, and disappointment knowing that the apparent end of things is not actually the end.  We simply tell ourselves that the end is not the end.  So the economy or government policy has shifted and the business or program is tanking?—God will do something new.  So the rain continues and the seeding is not done?—God be with you come what may.  So your health is failing and death is imminent?—remind yourself that death is not the end.  So the church is changing and program is not what it once was?—no problem, God is in the future waiting for us.  Our trust is deepened as we remind ourselves what we believe.

Soon we will be singing “All will be well”.  The text of the hymn was penned by Julian of Norwich, and it doesn’t hurt to know a bit of the setting which inspired her words.

The late fourteenth century was a time of terrible upheaval.  With the Black Plague, the Hundred Years War, and the crisis of church authority occasioned by the long papal schism, Europe was burdened by an atmosphere of anxiety.  Intense concern about the prospects for personal salvation, coupled with doubts about the efficacy of the church and its prescribed channels of spirituality, led to a proliferation of new forms of religious expression...The Showings of Julian of Norwich is one—and perhaps the greatest—of these works.

We know little of Julian’s biography; her name itself is uncertain, possibly being taken from the church of St. Julian in Norwich, to which she attached herself in her later life as an enclosed anchoress.  As an anchoress, she would have been literally sealed in a dwelling attached to the wall of a church.  Her cell would have allowed a view of the church interior, as well as an outside window for the delivery of food and the reception of visitors seeing spiritual counsel.  She may also have enjoyed a garden and the companionship of a cat.  Otherwise, her life was devoted to prayer and reflection...

Julian did not directly address the major political and ecclesial crises.  But it cannot be said that she was remote from the concerns of her day.  In an age of anxious uncertainty, Christians were desperate to seek assurances of salvation, of the meaning of suffering, and of the power and goodness of God.  Julian’s answers spoke directly to these issues.  Her central insight was that the God who created us out of love and who redeemed us by suffering love, also sustains us and wills to be united with us in the end.  This love, and not sin, fundamentally determines our existence.  Evil has no independent status; whatever we may suffer, God has already suffered.  “The worst,” as she noted, “has already happened and been repaired.”  As for our suffering in this life, insofar as we share Christ’s passion we may look forward as well to sharing his joy in heaven.  Thus she could say, in her most famous and characteristic words, “All shall be well, and shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

- Robert Ellsberg, All Saints:  Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time, pp 211-212