During these last months, the world has been going through a harrowing financial crisis that has affected nearly everyone everywhere. The various financial markets have been shaken, credit is frozen, investor confidence in the system if not low at this point, is certainly very shaky. Governments around the world have instituted unprecedented measures to deal with this crisis. Still, many are worried and all are nervous and uncertain.

It has been interesting to note how the churches have reacted to the financial crisis. The pope addressed the issue in a sermon delivered just a couple of weeks ago during a daily prayer liturgy to the bishops, who had assembled in Rome for a synod of bishops meeting. Coincidentally, the ELCA bishops were gathered in Chicago at roughly the very same time for a conference of bishops meeting during the course of which they issued a pastoral letter on the crisis. The ELCA bishop’s letter draws on the ELCA constitution and the ELCA social statement on economic life to bolster its arguments, claiming that “any economic system should be measured by the degree to which it serves God’s purposes for humankind and creation,” while the pope reflects on the biblical readings assigned for the particular service of daily prayer at which he delivered the homily.

The pope commented on Jesus’ admonition in the gospels that “Everyone…who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock….And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand” (Matt. 7:24, 26). The pope elaborated: “At the end of the Sermon on Mount the Lord speaks about the two possible foundations for building the house of one’s life: sand and rock. The one who builds on sand builds only on visible and tangible things, on success, on career, on money. Apparently these are the true realities. But all this one day will pass away. We can see this now with the fall of large banks: this money disappears, it is nothing.” The pope continues: “And thus all things, which seem to be the true realities we can count on, are only realities of a secondary order. The one who builds his life on these realities, on matter, on success, on appearances, builds on sand. Only the word of God is the foundation of all reality, it is as stable as the heavens and more than the heavens, it is reality. Therefore, we must change our concept of realism. The realist is the one who recognizes the Word of God, in this apparently weak reality, as the foundation of all things. The realist is the one who builds his life on this foundation, which is permanent.”

A similar distinction lies behind Jesus’ response to the Pharisee’s supposedly trick question, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” After they show him a coin bearing the image of the emperor, Jesus replies, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” As does the pope in his sermon, Luther also drew a distinction between that which is dependable and real and that which is undependable and ephemeral. True reality for Luther is always the Gospel, which is real. He commented on this passage about the coin, “This is written for our consolation, in order that we who believe in Christ should know that we have a wisdom that far surpasses all other wisdom; a strength and righteousness, which are not to be compared with any human strength or righteousness.” Luther then expands on his theme: “Therefore we should not be afraid of powers. But we should fear our prosperity and good days which cause us more harm than our anguish and persecution; and we should not be afraid in the face of the wisdom and the shrewdness of the world, for they can do us no harm.” We could also add that we should not be afraid of the failure of worldly realities in which we place so much trust, invest so much of our lives and to which we mortgage our future. When these apparently solid worldly realities go—and they will—what we have left is the sand that slips through our fingers.

This distinction between the true reality of the Word of God and the shaky reality of the world as it presents itself to us, even if through that world seems as solid and as dependable as a rock, is also the theme of our first reading from Isaiah. The Lord appoints the far-away foreign, pagan king Cyrus to be his chosen instrument and thus to serve his will and Word; and the point is made very clearly that this is to show that it is the God of Israel, and no other potentate, president, emperor, or king, who is the true power and reality in the world, who governs and rules over all other powers, authorities and realities. “For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you [Cyrus] by your name, I surname you, though you do not know me. I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides me there is no god. I arm you, though you do not know me, so that they may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is no one besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I the Lord do all these things.” Cyrus, of course, thinks that he is the world’s strongman and sets out to capture an empire. He is completely unaware that God is using him for God’s purpose. Thus unwittingly Cyrus’ rise to power is by the will of God, who uses Cyrus to accomplish his purpose for Israel, his chosen. Cyrus assumes that he is sovereign and all-powerful, but he is very mistaken about that. To Israel God reveals the truth of the matter. Israel can certainly trust in the might of Cyrus, but not because Cyrus himself merits their confidence. Rather Israel can freely welcome Cyrus and submit herself to him, because the mighty Cyrus is but God’s chosen instrument and unwitting servant. God uses Cyrus so that God may accomplish Israel’s salvation. While Israel was often told not to put her trust in rulers of any kind, Cyrus may be trusted and obeyed because he is God’s agent of deliverance. Thus does Israel, as it were, give to Cyrus the things that are Cyrus’s and at the same time to God the things that are God’s.

Most people literally worry themselves to death, or become ill through stress, fretting, suffering and dying over things that ultimately pass away. We are usually nervous and uncertain about many things in life in which we invest so much stock, and to which we give our allegiance and our trust. But these, like the stocks that have lost their value almost overnight, like many economies that are built on sand and sustained by something as flimsy as investor confidence, like our dependence on oil and our trust in leaders that betray and disappoint us, these things are like gossamer, that fine film of cobwebs that float with the breezes: they are ever so delicate and temporary and ultimately insubstantial.

Only the word and promise of God, even if it flies in the face of what we think is reality, is solid, dependable, permanent and true. Too many worldly realities have become our gods, idols fashioned by human hands. We should put our trust in the one and only God. We should cling to the word of Israel’s God, his Word made flesh in Jesus. Cling to this word in good times and in bad, in times of plenty and in times of want, in times of peace and in times of war, in times of vigor and in times of illness, throughout life and when faced with death, for it alone will follow through on what it promises. As the psalmist says to us today: “Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, more to be feared than all gods. As for all the gods of the nations, they are but idols; but you, O Lord, have made the heavens….Tell it out among the nations: ‘The Lord is king! The one who made the world so firm that it cannot be moved will judge the peoples with equity….Then shall all the trees of the wood shout for joy at your coming, O Lord, for you come to judge the earth. You will judge the world with righteousness and the people with your truth.”

-Amen-