Our Rock and Our Fortress

Our Rock and Our Fortress

May 6, 2020

Scripture: Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; Acts 7:55-60

To quote Thomas Paine from a very different context: These are the times that try men’s souls. And women’s souls. And children’s souls. We live in difficult times the likes of which none of us other than a few professional epidemiologists ever thought we’d see. Many of us are self-isolating at home. Many of us are faced with the impossible choice between risking our lives by going to work or losing our jobs. We don’t know when or even if things will ever go back to something close to what used to be normal. We don’t know when or even if we’ll have a vaccine. We are isolated from friends and family. I haven’t seen either of my children, their spouses, or any of my six grandchildren in over two months. It looks like it will be a very long time before I see them again. I’m an ordained Christian minister, albeit a retired one, and I haven’t been to a worship service in person in over two months because there haven’t been any. I don’t know when or even if I will ever attend one again. Yes, these are difficult times, and I freely admit that they are more difficult for many other people than they are for me.

The psalmist of Psalm 31 was experiencing or at least had experienced difficult times too, although they were very different difficult times than ours are. In his difficult times he turned to God. Hear his plea from Psalm 31:1-5;

In you, O Lord, I seek refuge;

     do not let me be put to

          shame;

     in your righteousness

          deliver me.

Incline your ear to me;

     rescue me speedily.

Be a rock of refuge for me,

     a strong fortress to save me.

You are indeed my rock and my

          fortress;

     for your name’s sake lead me

          and guide me,

     for you are my refuge.

Into your hands I commit my

          spirit;

     you have redeemed me

          O Lord, faithful God.

The ancient psalmist of Psalm 31 knew where to turn for help amidst troubles. In that he is a fine model for us in our time of troubles.

We want to cry to God with our psalmist “O God, you are my rock and my fortress,” but when we read all of the scripture passages that the Revised Common Lectionary gives for next Sunday we immediately run into a big problem. Along with verses from Psalm 31 the lectionary gives us Acts 7:55-60. Those verses are part of the story of the martyrdom of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. A mob of local people stoned Stephen to death. They were mad at him for his testimony to the risen Lord and because he blamed them for Christ’s execution. The lectionary doesn’t give us the verses from Acts in which he does that, but here’s what Acts says Stephen said to “the council,” apparently the Sanhedrin, the council of Jewish elders at the time:

‘You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers. you are the ones that received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it.’ Acts 7:51-53.

No wonder they were mad at him, mad enough to stone him to death.

Stephen was of course a man of great faith, faith in God and in Jesus Christ, yet the mob stoned him to death. Neither God nor Jesus Christ saved him from being martyred. Our text doesn’t say that Stephen ever asked God to save him from the mob. It does say that as he was being stoned to death he had a vision: “’Look,’ he said, ‘I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’” Acts 7:56. He saw both Jesus Christ and God as he died. We can safely assume that they saw him too, yet they didn’t intervene to save his life. The mob continued pelting him with stones until he was dead.

So in these two scripture readings we have two very different images of the relationship people of faith have with God. In Psalm 31 the psalmist prays to God for salvation:

My times are in your hand,

     deliver me from the hand of

          my enemies and

          persecutors.

Let your face shine upon your

          servant;

     save me in your steadfast love. Acts 31:15-16.

Acts doesn’t tell us that Stephen prayed for deliverance the way psalmist did, but is the lesson here that God saves us when we pray for deliverance and doesn’t when we don’t? I don’t think so. I think there is a very different lesson here.

Surely God didn’t abandon Stephen to a miserable death because Stephen didn’t expressly ask God to save him. The undeniable truth is that sometimes people survive difficult times, and sometimes they don’t. Does that mean that sometimes God saves us and sometimes God doesn’t? Does that mean that sometimes God is our rock and our fortress and sometimes God isn’t? I sure don’t think so. I think instead that it means that we need to reconsider just what it means for God to be our rock and our fortress. Let me explain.

One thing we know for certain is that God was with both our psalmist and with Stephen in their times of trouble. The psalmist apparently survived his trouble, and Stephen didn’t. So it may be harder for us to see God being with Stephen than with the psalmist. Yet our text about the martyrdom of Stephen tells us that as he died he had a vision of God and Jesus Christ. That’s how God was with him. God appeared to him and showed him that the risen Christ was there with him too. As he died Stephen knew that God was with him. He knew that God was there to cling to and take courage and strength from. Stephen knew all that as the mob stoned him to death. Stephen knew all that precisely as he was murdered.

We aren’t being murdered exactly, but a lot of us are suffering nonetheless. We learn from our two readings that God is with us no matter how we are suffering. We may not have a vision like Stephen had, but we can turn to God the way our psalmist did. When we feel alone in coronavirus lockdown we can know that we are not really alone. God is with us. When we’re afraid to go to the grocery store because we might be exposed to the coronavirus we can take God’s hand and find the courage to do what we have to do. When we face the choice of going to work where we might well be infected or staying home and losing our job we can turn to God, listen for God’s wisdom, and know that God supports and loves us however we decide. When are miserably ill and even facing death we can know that in Christ Jesus God has been where we are—and worse. So we know that God suffers with us, holds us, loves, and waits to welcome us home. When someone we love with all our soul has died we can know that God grieves with us and knows full well what we are suffering through.

So even though very bad things happen in our lives we can know that God is truly our rock and our fortress. We can know that God is with us, holds us, knows, and loves us no matter what. Knowing all that doesn’t mean bad things won’t happen to us. The mob did after all stone Stephen to death. It does mean that we can face whatever comes our way clinging always to our rock and our fortress. Amen.