Trust and Obey: The Second Sunday after Trinity (June 18, 2023)

Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

“WANTED: Somebody to go back in time in time with me. This is not a joke. PO Box 91 Ocean View, Washington 99393. You’ll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once before. SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED.” This is an ad in a newspaper at the beginning of the film Safety Not Guaranteed in which a group of reports decides to investigate the ad. Of course, once they find the man who placed the ad and no one takes him seriously. Without giving too much away, let’s just say the man was not as crazy as the reporters thought he would be. I like the film because there’s a guy who folks are so ready to write of as crazy who turns out to be the sane one.

I was thinking about that story as I meditated this week on Genesis 6 where God instructs Noah to build an ark and Noah obeys. Can you imagine what it must have been like to be Noah? First, he’s surrounded by such wickedness, after all, Genesis 6:5 diagnoses the problem: “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Second, the instructions from God probably come off as a bit eccentric to the rest of the world. I mean can you imagine what the conversations must have been like between Noah and his neighbors? And of course, this is all happening without signs of a coming flood. Noah works on this boat presumably for years without the slightest hint that it would be needed beyond what God told him. And yet how does our Old Testament reading conclude? “Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.” The author of Genesis words it that way on purpose: we get no sense that Noah waivers or second guesses. He obeys. This ties in really well with what Dcn. David preached on last week: namely that Jesus doesn’t see us as servants but friends, and that if we love him we’ll keep his commandments. Noah is a prime example of this principle. Noah’s response can be categorized as faith. Faith means obedience to what God says even when it doesn’t make sense to us in a given moment.

Faith is hard precisely because we rarely get to see the big picture. What makes it even harder is that not everyone around us has faith. We live in a world where many have not received the Gospel. St. Paul warns us about this in 1 Corinthians 1:18 “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” This inability to understand the things of God is precisely why they lashed out with violence and insults. They thought Jesus was possessed by a demon. Jesus reminds us:

John 15:18–20 KJV 1900

If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.

So the world with react with violence. They will insult us. They will think we’re crazy. And this kind of pressure is really hard to resist. Our brains are hardwired for conformity, for fitting in. We hate standing out. And yet, this is what we’re called to do. The world beckons us like a siren and, just like Odysseus has to tie himself to the mast of his ship in The Odyssey, we have to resist that pull from what distracts us from obeying God.

It’s important to remember that, at the heart of faith is the idea of trust. Obedience, like what Noah did when it came to building the ark, is trusting that God knows, even when we do not. If it’s true that God is the Creator of the universe, then can’t we trust him to know what’s best for us? And when we flip this idea around, we begin to discover something insidious about sin. If obedience is trusting that God knows, what are we saying when we disobey? That we know better than God? This is the sin of pride, the primal sin that is the root of all other sins.

The only viable response to God’s commands is faith. Faith is an active trust in God that works itself out into our actions. There are times in life where faith may not seem to make sense, yet the point is that faith is always worth it no matter the consequences. “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt 10:28). The world changes, it lashes out, but we’re called to fight manfully under the banner of Christ, against sin, the world, and the devil.

There’s a hymn Jude and Rowan like to sing, “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way, to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey.” The hymn is simple but beautiful and profound because it gives us the way forward. To trust and obey is to live a life faith.

What does it mean to trust? It means to have confidence in someone else’s character, strength, or ability. It’s Noah building the ark because he trusted God’s word. It’s Joshua marching the people around the city of Jericho seven times because he trusted God’s word. It’s the woman who struggled with bleeding in the Gospels who reached out to touch the hem of Jesus’ garments because she trusted in him. According to Northwestern University’s Trust project, trust happens when we recognize 4 features in someone else: benevolence, integrity, competence, and predictability. Benevolence refers to kindness or acting from a place of well-meaning. Integrity means honesty and consistency according to moral principles. Competence is the ability to complete something successfully. And predictability refers steadiness and stability. It’s important for us to build trust with others but ultimately, there is only one place to put your ultimate trust if you don’t want to be disappointed and that’s in God. Because all those criteria for trustworthiness—benevolence, integrity, competence, and integrity—are summed up in God.

The other facet of faith is obedience. Obedience is a form of submission to a superior authority or law. For the Christian, we understand that there can be no higher authority than that of God. We understand that when he gives us commands and laws, its coming from him who created all things and knows all things and has our good in mind. Sometimes, we think of obedience as purely mechanical. You say jump, I say how high? We teach our boys that when mommy and daddy tell you to do something, the correct answer is “Okay.” But it’s also important to remember obedience is active. Obeying God requires more than just mechanical response. It requires us to give him our whole beings out of a posture of trust. Further, obedience is participatory. When we obey God, we get to take part in the unfolding of his great plan of redemption, we get to play a part in his kingdom. Finally, it’s important to remember that obedience is humanizing. God has created us with a specific end in mind: namely that we would worship and adore him forever and ever with the whole company of heaven. Every command he gives us, not matter how big or how small, is designed to make us who we are.

And so that’s what we need to be reminded of: trust and obey. We’re bombarded with tons of idols attempting to convince us to trust in them and obey them. We’re told to trust and obey political parties and politicians and the pursuit of wealth and class. We’re told, especially during “Pride Month”, to trust in ourselves and to celebrate all identities, even when it involves celebrating actions that fall outside of God’s vision for human flourishing. The world offers us a plethora of alternatives of what makes the Good Life but the Church and her Scriptures constantly call us to trust and obey God. Maybe we’ll look crazy to the world. Maybe our safety won’t be guaranteed. Maybe we’ll feel at times like we’re all alone and there is no hope. But it all comes back to trust and obey. If we really believe God is who he says he is, then there can be no other option.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.