To Trust in God...

I was thinking about a song from the distant past, ‘The Great American Novel’ by Larry Norman. There is a line in it that came to mind for some reason: “Your money says ‘In God we Trust’ but it’s against the law to pray in school…” It is a song that critiqued American society and culture last century, of the wealthy and powerful abusing the poor and weak, of racist violence. I pondered: What does it mean to trust in God?

I wondered what American people holding their currency with those words thought, felt? I wondered what they did trust in? Do they trust in the essence of those words – God? Or do they place more trust in the value of the paper on which it is printed? What does it mean to trust God in a world where there is so much else to put our trust in? We live in a world where the enchantment and sense of Spirit, of Divine Presence and activity has dramatically diminished. In our world relatively few have a sense of the spiritual in all things or that the Spirits or God is invested in the world and in human life. We see it more typically in indigenous cultures than in our developed world. The developed world has more things to trust in – science, medicine, psychology, economics, political systems, power… We automatically turn to professionals for help in our various crises. What place does prayer have in our daily lives and how do we trust God?

This is the beginning of Lent, a season (~ 6 weeks) where we are encouraged to pause a bit, slow down and reflect more deeply on our lives and life in the world. We are invited to open ourselves to God’s Spirit to nurture our thinking and reflection and lead us into deeper life and faith. We use the stories from our tradition, both Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, to provide wisdom and insights and stimulate our engagement with the world in which we live. At the heart of Lent is Jesus’ journey to the cross, an act of the deepest trust and faith, of surrender into the deepest grace and love. Such surrender cost him everything but ultimately gave him more and that is the promise – if we can believe it.

This first Sunday in Lent usually has a story of Jesus being led or driven by the Spirit into the wilderness. The wilderness or wild places of life are rugged and raw, places of threat and danger, but also rugged beauty. They are places where our own capacity and resources are pushed to the limits and we ultimately stand raw and naked before life, feeling helpless or powerless. I know, from my very limited forays into wilderness areas, that there is deep and wondrous beauty. I love the red earth plains and desert regions of Western NSW and the red centre of Australia. Grasses, shrubs, small bushes, rocks, rock formations and endless blue sky. There is a wondrous beauty that draws me in but I also realise that I don’t have the resources, skills, or knowledge to survive in these rugged places for very long. There is danger of being lost there. This is wilderness.

Wilderness is also a place within, when the psychological, emotional or spiritual centre of our being is stripped of it sense of control and we confront our own powerlessness before life. Through grief and loss, through deep despair when we recognise that we can’t change or fix the wrong or pain we feel or recognise in someone else, or in our world. It is the helplessness I feel watching on as invasive war ravages through Ukraine or the suffering of people in Gaza, deprived of homes and family members… It is the helplessness I feel in hearing the stories of asylum seekers and refugees around the world or the scientists speaking of the Earth’s warming. It is the pain I feel in my deepest being when I encounter personal grief and despair or sit with someone in such a place.

Recently I sat with my aunt and uncle as he moved towards his own dying. They told me the story that had happened so quickly, of feeling unwell and going to the GP. The GP sent them to the hospital as my uncle’s condition was more than he could deal with. After extensive tests, they diagnosed progressed cancer and sent him to a specialist cancer centre because their resources and capacity were exhausted. There they examined him and sent him to a palliative care centre to die well and comfortably because they were unable to ‘fix’ him, to cure his disease. Each of these layers in which we trust were extinguished, unable to make a difference and all that was possible was to help him die well – really important in itself! What did it mean for people to pray for my uncle? What did we pray for? What did our praying mean or achieve? What trust did we place in God? 

As I thought about praying for my uncle, and a couple of others these last few weeks, I recognised that I came to the prayer powerless to fix anything. I came to the prayer recognising my own (our) vulnerability and weakness. My prayers included any possibility of something ‘miraculous’ happening for my uncle, of the desire that he and my aunt and their family be held in deep peace and grace; that in his journey into that which is beyond, the place of God, a place of mystery and unknown, he would be held in God’s love. These, as always, are prayers that reach into my deepest yearning and being, expressing that which reaches out from my most vulnerable, raw and naked being and trusts in the mystery of God. It is ultimately a prayer for me, us, our world to be held ‘in God’ and to recognise that whatever happens, nothing can separate me from God’s love.

In the wilderness Jesus was tempted by the Tempter (usually called Satan who often acts as a kind of prosecuting attorney, delivering the alternate truth and possibility and seeking to lure us into another way). Jesus is tempted to turn stones into bread and satiate his hunger – to be relevant and do something meaningful for his life. He responded saying that we don’t live by bread alone but by the words that come from God. We are tempted to be relevant and take up the latest whim and trust in it, to save ourselves and be in control.

He is then taken to the top of the Temple and told to jump off and God would send angels to save him – a marvellous and spectacular sight! To be marvellous and spectacular is a strong temptation in our lives, especially through social media where we present ourselves in the best light, or seek to do something outstanding and parade that before the world. Jesus responded that we are not to put God to the test – this would not be trust or faith but testing God and a performance worthy of some of our world’s dictators and narcissists but not of one trusting God!

Finally he is shown all the kingdoms of the world and told that if he bows before the Tempter, all will be his – he will be powerful. We are tempted to be powerful and take control over whatever we can. Trump is worshipping power and might (as is Putin and the gamut of dictators across the word!) but Jesus condemns this saying that you shall not worship anything but God alone. What does it mean to put our whole faith and trust in God? When we come to the place where everything else is exhausted we recognise what this faith and trust really amounts to. Ultimately we are powerless over the life and death but invited into faith in the One who transcends all and holds us in love!