Trust - so many of the spiritual giants of our time find such importance in this one word that I find myself grasping to mimic their simple eloquence. Author Brennan Manning condenses his understanding of religious truth to this one thing. He says that trusting in God is the very essence of biblical faith. (Manning, Ruthless Trust, p.6) From the stories about Father Abraham to the writings of the apostle Paul, the Bible certainly can be interpreted through this repeated theme of trust in God’s grace and mercy. Abraham trusts in God’s promise that he will become the father of many nations. Paul writes to the early churches about how trust in Jesus Christ has turned his life inside out and upside down. Trust in God inspires poetry, prophesy, and prayer. Waver in that trust and God seems distant. Jesus trusted in God so completely that only in the last pains of his death does he voice the prayer of the forsaken.

But rather than embrace that kind of trustful existence, even in the fellowship of the faithful, we lower our expectations to following the rules of scripture rather than encouraging one another to use every fiber of our mind, heart, soul and strength to live into this radical trust in God. It’s tempting, as Manning puts it, to “make faith a mindless assent to a dusty pawnshop of doctrinal beliefs,” And he notes that if we could free ourselves from that temptation, “we would discover with alarm that the essence of biblical faith lies in trusting God.” (p.6) Lest we assume that this is merely his condemnation of those who use the formulas of Christian tradition as a crutch to prop up one’s self-esteem, he later says that we can also postpone our decision to trust in the love of God through “a one-sided emphasis on the pressing issues of social justice.” (p.20) Both faith and works can be distractions from the real work of trusting in the unconditional love of our Creator. We still build our faith through prayer, study of scripture, theology, spirituality, and service – but the very insights we gain from those things are not enough unless we actually learn to trust those insights. Putting our full trust in the love of God sounds simple and yet putting it into practice may be one of the hardest things we’ll ever do. It will take courage and a more than just a little bit of foolishness to trust God in the throes of today’s world.

In another book I’m reading, family systems therapist, Roberta Gilbert talks about the importance of parenting as the “hope of civilization.” She says, “The world is different for today’s parents. It is different from the world of their parents and perhaps from the world of any parents ever before.” (Gilbert, Connecting with our Children: Guiding Principles for Parents in a Troubled World, p.11) Her opening argument made perfect sense to me. Parenting children today is scary business. The temptations to all kinds of bad behaviors are out there. What parent wouldn’t want a greater sense of control and the ability to protect their children from any danger? I was nodding along. The world is dangerous, awful, and completely untrustworthy, and must be getting worse with each passing day. Even in my own childhood, we rarely locked doors, and we could play all day outside with little or no supervision. And the author painted an even rosier picture for the generations of children who preceded me.

But then, all of a sudden, my mind couldn’t go along any longer. Hold on just a minute! I began to have my doubts that this is this is justifiably the worst time ever to be a parent. What about watching disease ravage entire households during the Dark Ages? What about sending sons off to war in Germany, Italy, or Vietnam? What about the Christian martyrs who made the impossible choice to honor Jesus Christ and be sent to death by lions knowing full well that someone else would be raising their own children? Yes, there may have been a day in the 40’s when teachers reported that the worst things they experienced from their students were chewing gum in class and dress code infractions – but ours is not the only time in which parents and children are facing trying and tempting choices in their paths.

I don’t really thing that Gilbert is on to anything all that new in pointing out that we live in a troubled world. We’ve been there before. We’ll go through it again and again in the patterns of human relationships. However, I’m glad that I’ve read further in her book, Connecting with Children, because I think she’s absolutely correct in writing that the basic family unit is the place where love and trust are learned. Parents do offer hope to civilization as a whole. It’s probably no real surprise to us either that problems showing up in families expand out exponentially, and problems solved through families begin to send ripples of hope out into the larger community. Trust in any one sector builds trust in other sectors. Love, as imperfect as human love can be, is real when it is neither arrogant, nor rude, when it does not insist on its own way, when it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things. The love that is God’s gift never ends.

Parenting is a limited metaphor though for God’s love for humankind, especially when we understand parenting best through the lenses of how we each grew up. Some of us had great parents to be sure. Of course, I think mine were better than most. But not everyone has stellar memories of dear old Mom and Dad. For whatever reason, love is lost, trust is broken, and God was not the father who could welcome the prodigal home; God was not the mother who would never forsake her nursing child. Sadly, this is yet another reason why trusting God can be so hard. We imagine God, not as THE loving parent, but as a reflection of the parenting we received, for good or for ill. Some parents are trustworthy, others not so much so. So our understanding of trust is tempered by what we know, what we can believe.

So how do we grow into a mature trust of God? How do we develop a trust that acknowledges the fallible nature of human trust but seeks to go beyond it? Is it possible to possess a trust that allows us to expand and breathe in a world that seems troubled and anxious most of the time? Is trust something we can learn to do for each other as well as for God?

As I said in the beginning of this message, I have wished for, but have yet to receive, the simple eloquence necessary for being able to capture just exactly how to describe perfect trust in God. I know it’s important. I recognize it in the deeply held stories of my faith. I also know that it’s elusive, fleeting, and just a glimpse of that trust can be the kind of spiritual mountaintop moment that makes all other journeys of faith possible. I see some of the nature of trust in the love my parents held for me, and in the love I have for my own children. Trust is somehow passed down from spiritual generation to generation, and it is transmitted not by knowledge but by relationship.

Chicken Little-like we are inclined to lament that the sky is falling. The sky is falling. Yet, trusting in God teaches us to stop, look around, and take notice. It’s been said before. It will be said again. Perhaps our world is not so bleak. Perhaps families have a fighting chance to redeem the very events that were thought to be an impossible impasse. God makes it all possible. Trust that God is bigger than any storm cloud we might imagine.

Amen.