Walking in Trust - Mid Week Lenten Worship
Author: Pastor Carolyn Hetrick
February 25, 2026
When I was about 12 years old, in 1975 one of the popular
fads was to take an old wine bottle and put a candle in the top, light it and
let the wax drip down for artistic effect. Bonus points if you did this with a
couple different colors for artistic effect. I just had to try it, so I went
down to the basement in our home in Pittsburgh with matches, old candles and an
empty wine bottle. So far so good. But the floor in the basement was a little
uneven and the bottle with the lit candle fell over. Which would not have been
a big deal on the concrete floor, but I had set up on the carpet. We had just
gotten a new piece of indoor outdoor carpet because we had a pool table and,
you guessed it, the lit candle fell over onto the new carpet which didn’t
create a big flame but synthetic carpet can melt pretty fast I learned.
I was terrified, not by the possibility of danger but the
fact that I definitely could not hide this big black gash in a green carpet.
There was no way to cover it up at all. How long could I hide? At first, I
thought that the good news was that the basement was somewhere people only went
to use the washer and dryer, but then I remembered the door to the garage and
at some point, someone would walk in and see it. How long could I survive the
truth not being made known? Minutes, hours or a day? As you might imagine the
fear of being in trouble only grew and took over the longer, I held onto the
“not telling.”
I knew there was no plausible alternative story to the
truth. Eventually I was found out but until then the cost of avoidance felt
like it was sucking the life out of 12-year-old me. Of course, grown-up me
knows there are far greater things that can eat away at any of us if we hold
onto them. And yet are we not sometimes just like 12-year-old me trying to keep
quiet?
The psalmist says: “When I was silent, my body wasted
away.” Biblical scholar Robert Alter says, “my limbs were worn out.” When
something is unreconciled, we feel it. We ache and are weary. One version of
our confession liturgy speaks, “Almighty God to whom all hearts are open, all
desires known and from whom no secrets are hid…” Of course my parents would
find that scarred carpet. It simply could not be hidden. Then what?
In the same vein, there is nothing God does not know
about us. And yet God longs for us to trust that God, like a loving parent,
will have mercy. God wants us to know the joy of forgiveness. God doesn’t want
us to labor under the oppression of hiding.
Our psalm today comes to us in three parts. At first, we hear “Happy are those who have
been forgiven. Then the writer looks back like I did on a time where they
remembered, “When I kept silent it was awful.” Then, “God promises to help in
times of distress and deliver us and says, ‘So let me teach you.’”
My Dad used to tell me, “Take it from me. You don’t have
to learn this the hard way.” Imagine God through the psalm saying that to you
now. Hiding and deception are hard. But remember then we get to the last part:
Steadfast love (mercy) surrounds those who trust in the Lord.
Can we trust that there is mercy? My experience of
wondering if my earthly parents would have mercy is probably not all that
different than at times our wonderings about God or others. Part of what I hope
to impart is that when we trust God is merciful it allows our hearts to not
only grow in devotion to God, but in mercy towards one another.
Walter Brueggeman observes we can be “rich in conundrums
of secrets, we weave a pattern of lies in order to be well thought of, we
engage in subterfuge about our truth. We carry old secrets too painful to utter…too
burdensome to bear, of failures we cannot undo, of alienations we regret but
cannot fix.”[1] We worry about God’s forgiveness and we worry that others will not forgive
while overlooking God’s capacity to work in their hearts too.
And you Lord know it all.
“And so, we take a deep sigh in your presence, no longer
needing to pretend and cover up or deny…And then we find that your knowing is
more powerful than our secrets. You know and do not turn away, and our secrets
that seemed too powerful are emptied of strength…”
“We marvel that when you find us out you stay with us, taking
us seriously, taking our secrets soberly. But not ultimately, overpowering our
little failure with your massive love and abiding patience. We long to be
fully, honestly, exposed to your gaze of gentleness. In the moment of your
knowing we are eased and lightened, and we feel the surge of our move in our
bodies because we are not OURS in the cringing, we are YOURS in communion.
We are yours and find the truth before you makes us free
for wonder, love, and praise-new life.”[2]
“Create a clean heart and renew a right spirit within us.”
The journey into Lent is taking on a discipline to listen to what will restore
us.
Years after the great candle carpet mishap, that scarred
carpet was still there, in fact until they sold the house in 1995. Once in
awhile, it would catch my eye and it made me pause and remember a failing. More
often it reminded me that my greatest fear was met by God’s grace in our family
journey together. Nothing could make that new carpet pristine, nor could 12
year old me make money show up to buy a new one. But I believe God used that
reminder like the psalm to show us where we had been so the next time we
struggled, we could remember we could trust God to see us through that too. Even
though no one wanted a repeat, it made our bond more durable than before. We put
our faith in each other in love, and our faith in God to help us.
God wants to offer a durable and trustworthy faith that
makes room for our messy stories. We often perceive faith as the absence of
doubts. But taken to its extreme, this kind of “faith” requires a willingness
to avoid too much thought and ignore difficult situations which inevitably
occur. This kind of faith shatters easily.
When we have honest conversations with God, the psalmist would
tell us we can be encouraged that we can see faith as a willingness to trust through
our tensions and despite our doubts and fears. While we and the world may be
far from perfect, there are two kinds of trust we are invited to see- that we
can trust God and we can believe that God places trust in us. Both kinds of
trust in end are kind of miraculous, but both are true.[3] Our psalm reminds us that for both God and us faithfulness is a willingness to
trust despite setbacks and struggles and so we can know joy. Amen.
Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2026 All rights reserved. May
not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.
[1] Walter Brueggemann, Prayers for a Privileged People, “From Whom No Secrets are Hid”, Abingdon Press, Nashville, 2008, p. 7
[2] Ibid, p. 8.
[3] Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, The Bedside Torah: Wisdom, Visions and Dreams, McGraw Hill, New York, 2001, pp. 18-19.
Sermon Text: Psalm 32
1 Happy
are they whose transgressions are forgiven,
and whose sin is put away!
2 Happy are they to whom
the Lord imputes no guilt,
and in whose spirit there is no guile!
3 While I held my tongue, my bones withered
away,
because of my groaning all day long.
4 For your hand was heavy upon me day and
night;
my moisture was dried up as in the heat of summer.
5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and did
not conceal my guilt.
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” Then you forgave
me the guilt of my sin.
6 Therefore all the faithful will make their
prayers to you in time of trouble;
when the great waters overflow, they shall not reach them.
7 You are my hiding-place; you preserve me
from trouble;
you surround me with shouts of deliverance.
8 “I will instruct you and teach you in the way
that you should go;
I will guide you with my eye.
9 Do not be like horse or mule, which have
no understanding;
who must be fitted with bit and bridle, or else they will not stay near
you.”
10 Great are the tribulations of the
wicked;
but mercy embraces those who trust in the Lord.
11 Be glad, you righteous, and rejoice in
the Lord;
shout for joy, all who are true of heart.
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