Focus: God is ever present to help us, no matter what calamity befalls us.
Function: Help people look forward to the future with hope.

Some of you who’ve been reading my blog know about a few of my adventures with my dad while we were up at the lake this last month or so. At 93, his robust activity and independence are providing a great model for younger generations, a lot like the 90-somethings in this congregation. But Dad’s getting a little worn around the edges and his engine isn’t operating at the RPMs it used to. He’s starting to consider a future that might be different from his life as usual. Of course, that hasn’t stopped him from canning peaches and apricots and burying his carrots in a gopher-proof box in the garden. But he confessed his golf bag is falling apart and he doesn’t know if it’s worth buying a new one. Really, how much wear will he get out of it? We went through this same questioning a couple years ago when he was trying to decide whether to replace his smelly gas golf cart with an electric one. Did I mention my Dad is thrifty? Spending more time in his house this summer reminded me of that.  Why get a new dishrag when that raggedy, stained one is still picking up water off the counter as good as ever? And those 150 empty canning jars in the basement – they just might come in handy sometime – like when he becomes a housefather for a hundred orphans.
But Dad’s decision about buying a new golf bag is a little like the situation confronting Jeremiah in our Old Testament lesson today. The Babylonian army was at the gates of Jerusalem, Israel was a jug of water away from being conquered and Jeremiah was under house arrest in the palace with no parole board hearing in sight. That’s when he was offered the opportunity to buy his cousin’s field on the outskirts of the city. Slim chance of ever farming that little parcel, at least in his century. What’s the point of investing in a future that’s so uncertain? Why take the risk? “You’re just throwing your money down the drain,” the witnesses to Jeremiah’s transaction must have thought.
Why make such a foolish investment? Maybe because it was a sign of trust in something more certain than earthly actors and events. Maybe Jeremiah was making a statement about the God he worshiped who promised to care for his people, no matter what happened in the future. “Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land,” God told him.
The writer of Psalm 91 makes that same statement of confidence in God’s protection, probably about the same time Jeremiah was making his. The psalm lists a mind-numbing array of calamities that might befall an individual in his time, but none of them have the capacity to terrorize those who live in the shelter of God’s wings. Snare of the fowler, deadly pestilence, terror of the night and destruction that strikes at noonday…slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, destructive influences on our kids, economic recession, broken relationships, climate change, pandemics, terrorism, genocide. We can update that list a little with today’s troubles, and it still has the power to instill fear in the average listener.
  The future is such an unknown. What terror lies ahead of us? Is it the fear of falling and breaking a hip – that could be bad. Getting pneumonia. Bad too. Cancer. Not good. Losing your job. That’s tough. A broken relationship with a child. Very hard. “But in all these things,” Paul says, “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life nor things present, nor things to come will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” When we have a relationship of love and trust with God, these things are survivable.
The psalmist affirms God’s faithfulness through all these difficulties, always providing the kind of shelter a bird provides its young. He is confident that God is present with the believer through whatever struggles they may encounter. His words give us a glimpse into the psalmist’s “spiritual quest to find comfort, meaning and hope by trusting God in the face of suffering.” Jeremiah speaks the same language. And so does Paul. All three writers have a deep and profound love for God that gives meaning to everything they experience.
The medieval theologian Julian of Norwich expressed this same foundational blessing that came from her life with God. Julian was an anchorite – someone who lived in a tiny room attached to a church where they lived a life of devotion and spoke to pilgrims who sought their direction. There came a time in her life when Julian became very ill, almost to death. This is what she had to say about the experience:
“At one point, when I scarcely had the patience to go on living, God gave comfort and rest for my soul - delight and security so blessed and so powerful that there was no fear, nor sorrow; no pain, physical or spiritual, that one could suffer which might have disturbed me.”
Seeking refuge in the shelter of God’s wings doesn’t mean believers are immune from harm, but it means that those harmful things don’t have the power to destroy us. God cares for his people with tenderness and love. God enables us to endure because of the relationship we have with him. We are promised a life that satisfies us and saves us, a sense of blessing that drives out fear and overcomes pain. The people of South Africa experienced that during the struggles against apartheid and in the healing that took place afterward. Much of the reconciliation was due to the strong faith of people like “Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He explains the history of white settlement of his country like this: When the white man came, we had the land and he had the Bible. He said, "Let us pray," so we all bowed our heads, closed our eyes, and prayed. And when we opened our eyes, lo and behold, we had the Bible and he had the land. But you know,” he says, “we got the best deal!”
It was the best deal because the Bible is where we find the stories of people like the psalmist who make their way through daunting circumstances in the presence of a faithful God. As it is written, “Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name. When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble...With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.”
 My dad isn’t afraid. Not of the snare of the fowler or deadly pestilence, not of car wrecks or bears or broken bones or falling down the stairs or burglars. Well, maybe housekeepers, but that’s a different story. You may have read about our hair-raising drive up to the huckleberry patch that he had visited by himself three days before. I was very afraid.  I don’t like mountain roads with steep drop-offs, especially on both sides. I don’t like the lack of control you feel as washboards bounce you close to the edge. I don’t like the possibility of losing your berries to a bear. I don’t like watching my dad shuffle through the logs and brush and roots that grab his feet and knock him down. I don’t like the helpless feeling as he concentrated on looking for good berry patches alongside the road instead of looking at the road itself. I don’t like going through that anguish for two quarts of berries. On a good day.
All these things made me suggest that he not go up there again. Ever, but especially not by himself. I gave him the name of a lady who would sell him huckleberries cheaper than his actual per quart cost. His reply was, “Well, it’s more for the fun of it than how many berries I get.”
Dad’s not afraid of injury either. Three weeks ago, he fell and split his head open on the front sidewalk. He drove himself to the hospital because he felt perfectly capable. My sister called and chewed him out and said it was time for him to go to assisted living. “You could fall in the stairwell and break your hip and lie there in pain all night by yourself,” she told him. He turned a deaf ear on her - in more ways than one. He’s not afraid of falling - in the stairwell or going down to the garden or bringing wood in from the garage or unloading his boat from the truck or leaning down to put his golf ball on the tee. If he does hurt himself, he trusts that God will see him through it. He’s healed before and he can heal again.
And he’s not afraid of failure. He keeps golfing, even when he struggles to hold up his part of the team. He keeps skiing, even though he’s limited to the intermediate runs he used to scoff at. He keeps planting a garden, even though he can’t control the marauding turkeys and the wire worms and the man-eating slugs. Every year, he agrees to make an apple pie for Thanksgiving dinner at his granddaughter’s house, knowing it could turn out badly. He still talks about trying to water ski again, even though he never got up on his last attempt fifteen years ago. He talks about helicopter skiing, ignoring the fact that he cut his last trip short three years ago. And every once in a while, the subject of a female companion comes up in his conversation. No, the possibility of failure doesn’t scare him either.
He’s not so different from lots of you, who take difficulties and blessings in stride because you trust God to carry you through. You’ve cultivated a relationship with God over a lifetime of turbulent water – the depression, the Great War, children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. You aren’t afraid to invest in the future, because you know it’s in the hands of the one who has walked with you through all that. Your soul is anchored to the One whose faithfulness assures your well-being now and forever.
And there are generations following you who could use your reminders of that divine promise of well-being. We all need to hear how you’ve persevered through your trials and rejoiced in your blessings of life, all in the shelter of God, our refuge and fortress. I have been paying attention to those unspoken messages from my father a little more lately. I’m learning about being fearless in the face of frightening things. Somehow, I think my dad will be replacing that worn out old golf bag, maybe even before he orders that load of wood to get him through the winter. Wouldn’t you? Let us pray.

Benediction: We live in a time when risky investments are not recommended. But Jeremiah and the psalmist assure us that investing in a future governed by a faithful and loving God is a sure thing. So go out into the world, trusting in God’s ability to protect you and be with you no matter what happens. Hold fast to the stronghold of your life. Now may God deliver your soul from death, and keep your feet from falling, so that you may walk before God in the light of life, now and forever. Amen.

NewTestament Lesson
Great to be back. Grateful for opportunity to do something different and to step back and view things from a new perspective. I think I was ready for a break. As someone told me before we left, "If you look like your passport picture, you probably need the trip." I may not look that much better, but I feel refreshed and recharged. As part of my daily devotions, I’ve started reading through the psalms again and rediscovering their timely wisdom and assurance. The psalms were used in Israel’s worship, but also as personal devotions. They reflect the individual and corporate life of the Israel people over the long span of their religious history. The psalm we’re studying today is considered a psalm of trust. The psalmist professes his faith in God who has and will continue to deliver faithful followers from all manner of calamity. The psalm ends with a promise from God’s lips regarding all the things God will do for those who love him. A portion of the psalm is quoted in Matthew and Luke when Jesus faces Satan’s temptation to throw himself off the pinnacle of the temple. Jesus reminds Satan that the protection God offers his followers is not something to be exercised at our own whim, but an assurance that transforms our lives. Listen for the word of God.