Isaiah 35:4-7a; Psalm 146; James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17; Mark 7:24-37
The Rev. Candice B. Frazer
In the name of the one Holy and Undivided Trinity, Amen.
In scripture we read about two men who betray Jesus. One of which is Judas. Judas betrays Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. He turns him in to the Temple authority and marks him out in the Garden of Gethsemane, sealing his fate with a kiss. Immediately he will feel remorse, try to return the blood money, and finally commit suicide. He dies in a place of hopelessness and helplessness. His betrayal was the culmination of a misguided belief and false hope in the political system of his time. He wasn’t looking for a Messiah to save him from his sins and offer him salvation; he wanted a warrior to defeat Rome and restore Jerusalem to its former glory.
Judas put his trust in earthly rulers. When Jesus didn’t live up to his expectations, he betrayed him. His betrayal, however, was rooted in a different place than the other person in scripture who ends up betraying Jesus.
Peter denies Jesus three times before the cock crows. His betrayal is not rooted in false hope but in personal doubt. He is afraid and that fear is rooted in his grief. He has spent the last three years living in the thin place where the kingdom of God intersects with its earthly domain. He has been travelling with Jesus and playing witness to all that Jesus has done—miracles, exorcisms, healings, teachings that inspired, comforted, and even disrupted people at times. He has seen what the world can be and grieves its potential loss. He has known a vision and possibility that there is more to this world when Jesus is near and now that Jesus is gone, he weakens. His faith falters but only momentarily.
Where Judas lost all hope, Peter’s hope is restored in the resurrection. Jesus doesn’t judge Peter for his lapse of faith, he gives him a second chance. Peter may have renounced Jesus three times in the courtyard of Pontius Pilate, but he affirms Jesus three times on a beach after the resurrection.
Peter, do you love me? Yes Lord you know that I love you. Then feed my sheep.
Three times Jesus asks Peter if he loves him, and three times Peter says yes. In that conversation, Jesus is helping Peter clarify his trust and faith—not in the political powers of this earthly realm but in the heavenly ones above.
Our psalmist this morning is quick to point out our false trust in political authority:
Hallelujah!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
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 the earth,
And in that day, their thoughts perish.
Some scholars believe the psalms are the oldest works of scripture. They are the songs of the Israelites individually and communally that express their hopes, their laments, their prayers, and their worship. They were sung in times of desperation and in times of joy. Though there are 150 psalms expressing a myriad of emotions, they all come back to a central theme—their trust and faith in the Lord.
The psalms continue to speak to us in ways as relevant now as they were to those ancient Israelites. The emotions, sufferings, sacrifices, laments, fears, celebrations, and joys are not that different from those who have gone before us—even thousands of years ago.
The psalmist warns us from putting our hope and faith in earthly rulers, yet we continue to do just that. We allow political partisanship to persuade us not to act as followers of the way of Christ but as those who are distracted by our earthly desires. We allow those false hopes to set up expectations that can never be realized simply because no “child of earth” can give to us the things that God can and does give to us.
The psalmist goes on to talk about how “happy are they…whose hope is in the Lord their God” and describes the Lord in all the ways we have never been able to describe the rulers and principalities of the earthly realm. The Lord is a creator—he made heaven, earth, sea, and all that is in them. No man has done that—God did that right at the very beginning. And God made humankind—and gave us stewardship of all the gifts he has given to all the world. Then God made promises to us. The Lord is the one who grants justice, feeds us, frees us, helps us to see, lifts us up when we are weighted down, loves and cares for us, sustains us, and frustrates those who are out to get us. The message of the psalmist is not that we shouldn’t participate in this world—by all means, do everything you can to affect positive change in the world—but don’t let your hopes, your emotions, your health and relationships rise and fall on the tumultuous tides of political turmoil.
We have entered a divisive time in this country in which we label one another red or blue with little interest in finding places of commonality between the two. That divisiveness will only intensify as we move closer toward this election, in no small part because we fall prey to what our psalmist warns us about. We place our hopes in elected officials far removed from our everyday experiences instead of staying focused on Jesus who ate and drank and healed everyday people in their everyday lives—a little girl whose mother fought for her daughter’s life and a man whose friend begged for his healing. To be followers of the way is to put our trust and faith in the divine—not because God will come down and solve all our problems but because in God, we find hope and healing.
We betray God, when we, like Judas, turn to earthly rulers to find hope. Fortunately, most of us, are much more like Peter—distracted by our doubts and deniers of Christ in our greatest moments of fear and anxiety. That is the true test of us in this election season. It is ok to falter, to doubt, and to question especially when we cannot know the outcome—that is the lesson of Peter. But it is also the lesson of Peter to know that God is inviting us into second chances, in to the places of God, to affirm God and to affirm one another; to say yes to God, I will feed your sheep. But be warned, as the story of Judas and our psalmist reminds us, not to place our hope in the outcomes of elections or the power and purpose of earthly rulers.
Kings and dictators, presidents and prime ministers—the world has seen its fair share come and go. A few of them have been notable, many have not, some have even brought great tragedy and destruction and, yet, the world continues, the sun rises and falls, the seasons change, and humanity moves forward. We cannot know what might happen tomorrow or the next day, but we can know the promise that our psalmist reminds us this morning, “the Lord shall reign forever…throughout all generations.”
Amen