“The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is. Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of man. And so it also does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this. In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner. The psychiatrist must first search my heart and yet he never plumbs its ultimate depth. The Christian brother knows when I come to him: here is a sinner like myself, a godless man who wants to confess and yearns for God’s forgiveness. The psychiatrist views me as if there were no God. The brother views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the Cross of Jesus Christ.” 

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together


Texts:

Psalm 46

Proverbs 8:1-21

Mark 3:13-19a

The texts today don't seem to give one much with which to work, at first glance.  Most of the Mark passage is taken up by the names of the disciples.  Proverbs exhorts us to listen to the voice of wisdom, and the Psalm - for the whole week - has remained in the ether, silently plugging along, waiting for me to listen.

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  

Therefore we will not fear thought the earth should change,

Though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea,

Though its waters roar and foam,

Though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

The holy habitation of the Most High.

God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved.

God will help her right early.

The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;

He utters his voice, the earth melts.

The LORD of hosts is with us,

The God of Jacob is our refuge.

Come, behold the works of the LORD

How he has wrought desolations in the earth.

He makes wars to cease to the end of hte earth;

He breaks the bow, and shatters the spear,

He burns the chariots with fire!

Be still and know that I am God,

I am exalted among the nations,

I am exalted in the earth.

The LORD of hosts is with us;

The God of Jacob is our refuge."

It seems humans live from one existential crisis to the next.  We see and experience calamity and bloodshed, and hear the proclamation of God in the midst of it.  Is this simply some sort of psychological failing, some sort of strength we name "God" because we are too weak to see the strength within us?  Or is this to tell the truth: that the strength within us is not of our own making.  This is the response of a broken-holy people to a broken-holy world: "Though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of hte sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult." 

It would be easier to have a more magical explanation, to imagine that humans have some amazing sort of strength within them to pull themselves up out of the mire and proclaim themselves sovereign.  But the human race, whose intellectual capacities created the A-bomb, lacks the technology to counter its effects of those still suffering in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.   The human race, who has the capacity to grow food in nearly every corner of creation, cannot seem to find a solution to world hunger.  The human race, who has the capacity to build walls and structures for protection, has built a Great Wall to separate China, a wall to separate East and West Germany, a wall to separate Israel and Palestine, constructing walls for which we are not sure whether the purpose is to keep one's brothers in or one's sister's out.  The wind and the rain beat against the walls in protest, yet we will not listen.  For every act motivated by bravery and altruism, there is another act motivated by fear and hatred.  And we believe ourselves masters of our destinies?  

From the Large Catechism: "What does it mean to have a god? or, what is God? Answer: A god means that from which we are to expect all good and to which we are to take refuge in all distress, so that to have a God is nothing else than to trust and believe Him from the [whole] heart; as I have often said that the confidence and faith of the heart alone make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust be right, then is your god also true; and, on the other hand, if your trust be false and wrong, then you have not the true God; for these two belong together faith and God. That now, I say, upon which you set your heart and put your trust is properly your god."

Perhaps to have a god is a great psychological failing.  But perhaps trusting and believing in God speaks to the hunger within us that refuses to be filled by anything else.  It points to remembering an Event which we did not witness as we break bread and share wine.  It points not to the destruction of which we are capable, but to the generative restoration which points to God's work among us.  It looks at the spent shells and broken glass of human history and proclaims it does not have the final word.  To call belief a psychological failure is to imagine a world so small humans could have created it.  To believe in the Master of Creation is to imagine a world so big humans are overcome by the wonder of it all.