Our psalm today, Psalm 146, is the first of a set of five psalms that finish out the psalter that we might call the Hallelujah Songs of Praise psalms. Why not just call them Songs of Praise without adding the word Hallelujah? It is because this set of psalms is unique in that each one begins and ends with the word Hallelujah. Otherwise, they are similar to other songs praise. They are cheery, they are upbeat, they offer praise to God for all the good things that God has done in this world. Our Psalm today starts the same way, Hallelujah. Praise the Lord, oh my soul. I will praise the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. It is a beautiful introduction, a classic introduction to a psalm of praise.
But then the psalmist does something a little different than usual. In the next verse the psalmist takes a darker turn and issues a warning: put not your trust in rulers nor in any child of earth for there is no help in them. When they breathe their last they return to earth, and in that day their thoughts perish. Put not your trust in rulers, some translations say put not your trust in princes. Put not your trust in political leaders or leaders of any kind for they are fallible humans who will disappoint you at some point.
The psalmist is probably writing sometime during the exile, although it may be right after or right before or right in the middle, but either way the psalmist knows their history. The psalmist knows that for hundreds of years their rulers have failed them. The prophets tell us why: they stopped loving God and stopped loving their neighbor. They stopped loving God and stopped honoring the image of God in their neighbor. That was manifested in many ways: the worship of idols, the oppression of the widow and the orphan, injustices, greed, corruption. They were all fallible humans who failed the people. That doesn’t mean all the rulers were bad. There were some that were better than others, some who came along and realized things were not on the right path and tried to turn back and get the people to turn to God, but they also let the people down. They were fallible humans. Ultimately they didn’t go far enough, or they died and their project of reformation died with them. Put not your trust in rulers.
In contrast, the psalmist wants us to put our trust in God, the God who made the heavens and the earth. While the rulers will all go down to the dust, this is the God who made the dust. That is more stable ground in which to put our trust. For while the rulers will let us down, we have a God who will not give in to injustice, and will love you and care for you and support you through it all.
The psalmist knows from the prophets why the other rulers have failed them, so the psalmist chose a contrast with the God who is the exact opposite. Those rulers failed because they were not able to move the people toward God’s dream for this world, so the psalmist reminds us of that dream. We have a God who gives justice to those who are oppressed and food to those who hunger. The Lord who sets the prisoners free and opens the eyes of the blind, the Lord who lifts up those who are down, the Lord loves the righteous and cares for the stranger, which can be translated as sojourner or resident alien. The Lord sustains the orphan and the widow but frustrates the way of the wicked. We are to put our trust in this God with a dream for a world in which each person is made in God’s image and is given the full dignity and respect they deserve as the image bearer of God.
The psalmist wrote these words twenty-five hundred years ago, give or take a couple of hundred years, but it is wisdom that resonates throughout the ages, wisdom that each generation discovers time and again, wisdom that resonates today and will continue to resonate in the future. Leaders will fail us. They are not where we are to put our hope or trust. Instead, the psalmist says put your trust in the Lord.
I encourage you to try and do that. I encourage you to read, mark and inwardly digest this psalm, to write it on your heart. No matter what the world throws at you with all of its fear and darkness and its fallibility, remember the words of this psalm and put your trust in the God who is eternal and loving and caring. Keep walking forward in faith with this God who is worthy of our trust.
This is wisdom to carry us forward, but it can also be a bit dangerous to do this. Sometimes we can say we trust in God, God has it all taken care of so I don’t need to do anything. That, my friends, is not what the psalmist is trying to tell us. That is apathy and it is not what God wants for us.
The Gospel lesson we just heard is a beautiful example of continuing to do good even when it seems insignificant. Jesus is at the temple with the Disciples and observes people putting their money into the offering box. He sees folks who come forward and put a whole pocketful of coins in, maybe a few checks that are big enough to make a transformative difference, maybe even big enough to get a building named after them. Then Jesus sees a woman, a widow, who puts in two coins, the kind of gift the world would think is insignificant, the kind of gift the accountant would consider a rounding error. And Jesus says, let me tell you something. Of these huge gifts that the world thinks are really important and the really tiny gift that the world thinks is meaningless, the small one is the one that is most important. Some people are giving the spare change out of their pocket and it is almost an afterthought. But the woman is giving her everything. While the world will say that doesn’t matter, God says that is the thing that matters most. Each and every single one of us, doing what we can, in the place in which we have been put, with the gifts that God has given us, no matter how insignificant it might seem, is how we should live our lives. And this is beyond the subject of just money.
When everything around us seems so overwhelming and we cannot do anything to change it, when it seems that there is fear and hatred spilling out everywhere, and powers and principalities are winning the day, Jesus says keep trying. Keep giving. Keep serving. Keep loving. Keep caring. Keep working toward the dream that God has for a world in which injustices end, where every single person is nourished, people are liberated, the eyes of the blind are opened, and those who are bowed down can stand up straight, in which the stranger, the resident alien, are cared for and treated as one of our own, in which the orphan and widow are sustained. Keep working towards that dream that God has. The tiny little bit that you can do in your place, in your school, in your work, in your home, in your community, even if it feels insignificant, it is not. It matters. It matters to God.
So, my friends, remember these words of the psalmist. Put your trust in the Lord. So many things are asking for your trust, but put your trust in the Lord because the rest of them are fallible and transient. Put your trust in the Lord. Mark these words, write them on your heart. But when you do that, do not grow apathetic. Instead, work towards trying to realize this vision that God has presented to us from time immemorial, in which every single person has dignity and respect, even when the world does not give it to them. Keep moving forward in faith and hope and love.
AMEN
