The text of a sermon preached at Central Methodist Church Chippenham on 23rd February 2025
The English nun and Mystic Dame Julian of Norwich lived at the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century. During those years the Black Death was the most devastating pandemic in human history, killing an estimated 75 million people. Julian was a Benedictine nun who herself was mortally ill. During her illness she had visionary experiences. Recording these visions, she wrote her Revelations of Divine Love, the earliest surviving English-language work attributed to a woman.
“And so our good Lord
answered to all the questions and doubts which I could raise” she
wrote “saying to me most comfortingly ‘I may make all things well and I can
make all things well and I shall make all things well, and I will make all
things well; And you will see yourself but every kind of thing will be well.’”
Very often this is summarised
as: “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things
shall be well”.
This is not cheery optimism.
Rather, it is an affirmation of the mystery of God's love in all things, in all
circumstances, even in the midst of personal and enormous human tragedies. With
the perspective of God, and God's own love being present in all things and
through all things, Dame Julian was able to live fully and faithfully.
But of course, her statement
“all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be
well” can collide with our own experiences. From time-to-time things go
badly. Children die of incurable diseases. People misuse power. People fight in
wars. The reality is that when we watch the TV news, we see for ourselves that
all is not well.
The writer of Psalm 37
understood that sometimes we feel all is not well. Writing in the evening of
his life “25 I was young and now I am old”
he says in verse 25, he has seen for himself over a lifetime that not all is
well all of the time. Things go wrong. He’s seen those
who prosper in their way,
over those who carry out evil devices.
In fact, a bit later in the Psalm 37 he goes further:
12 The
wicked plot against the righteous,
14 The
wicked draw the sword and bend their bows
to bring down the poor and needy,
to kill those who walk uprightly;
The old writer has “been
there and done that” we might say. He’s seen how people can be. But nonetheless
the psalmist is not deterred. He offers a far reaching and faithful word. Do
not worry. Trust in God
1 Do
not fret because of the wicked;
do not be envious of wrongdoers,
3 Trust in the Lord, and do good;
so you will live in the land, and enjoy security.
4 Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit
your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
That assurance comes about
from a hard won faith. From years of his experience of knowing that God is God,
and shall be God, and with God all shall be well. In reading this psalm we get
the sense that the psalmist is writing from personal experience. From having experienced
God’s faithfulness himself.
The words of a hymn by Georg
Neumark put it this way:
If you but trust in
God to guide you
and place your
confidence in him,
you'll find him
always there beside you,
to give you hope and
strength within.
For those who trust
God's changeless love
build on the rock
that will not move.
It is a
living hope.
Moltmann
wrote: "From first to last Christianity is hope, forward
looking and forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming
the present."
Moltmann was not saying that by living in hope we are disconnected from daily reality. Living in Christian hope does not mean that everything in the garden will be rosy. Rather, to live with a vision of hope gives a person - and the Church - the inspiration and the motivation to never settle for the status quo. To never settle for the here and now. Rather, to live with a vision of hope leads us to challenge, and perhaps even work towards, the transformation of any part of life that is not in line with that envisioned hope.
In other words, we work towards the hope of the Kingdom of God being fully established.
This is something the psalmist picks up. With the assurance that God holds our tomorrows in his hands, the psalmist calls the faithful to
trust in him and he will do this:
and bend the bow
to bring down the poor and needy,
to slay those whose ways are upright.
32 The wicked lie in wait for the righteous,
intent on putting them to death;
You may
have seen a month ago now, part of the sermon Bishop Marian Edgar Budde preached
at the service following the inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the
USA. The TV coverage only showed the last few minutes of her sermon. And
inevitably Trump himself and the Trump worshippers, particularly those claiming
to be Christians, were very vocal in their opposition to her. But if one reads
the whole sermon, I can find nothing I wouldn’t preach. The need to do
justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with God runs right
through it.
I sincerely hope and pray that in the case of Bishop Budde the wicked will not draw the sword, bend the bow and lie in wait for her. Though as we know Americans do sometimes have a tendency to do such things. Think of how Dr Martin Luther King was murdered for speaking out against in justice.
Of course, the need for us to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with God is tempered by Jesus commands to love our enemies and pray for those who abuse us. Never an easy task.
The only proof we can offer that God rules the world is the tangible existence of a community of believers, you and I and countless millions like us. Followers who are shaped by the character of God, and of God’s son Jesus Christ. We prove that God rules the world when we trust in God (Ps 37 vv 3,5), when we do good (Ps vv 3, 27), when we commit our way to God (Ps 37 v 5), when we give generously (PS 37v21), when we speak justice (Ps37v 30), when we open ourselves to God’s instruction ( PS 37 v31) and take refuge in God (Ps 37 v 40). All these things are explained in this psalm.
The
remarkable thing about so much of the Bible is that although it was written and compiled thousands of years ago,
it still has much to tell us today. Psalm
37 is a case in point. It does not give simple answers about the human struggle
to trust in God, especially when those who do not trust in him seem to be faring
so well. Yet the psalm is a reminder to us all to encourage one another and to
trust in God that
And the
psalm is a challenge to each other not to give into anger or envy when God’s rule
and God’s justice seem to lag behind the world. But to remember in God’s good
time
Amen.
Acknowledgment: I am grateful to the writers of the Feasting on the Word commentaries for the inspiration for this sermon
