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They will prosper in all they do
Psalm 1; Jeremiah 17:5-10
February 16, 2025
Michelle Hicks is the managing editor of a devotional magazine called Journey. In an online issue a few years ago, she wrote about a accident she was involved in. Hicks and some friends were driving to a birthday celebration when a woman in another car pulled out directly in front of them. The car Hicks was in couldn’t stop in time.
Here’s how she described the resulting accident: “One minute we were talking and laughing, and then it was silent. Actually, there may have been a lot of noise and screams, but I don’t remember any of that. All I remember was a loud boom, airbags exploding, and smoke from the chemical in the airbags. And silence.
“I felt my shoulders surrounded as if the seat were wrapping around me and enveloping me in its protection. In the silence, I knew I had to trust God with whatever was happening. I knew that if my time on this earth was finished, I was ready for eternity with Jesus. Instead of panic, there was silence, and there was peace.
“‘And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus’ (Phil. 4:7). I’d memorized Philippians 4:7 early in my journey with Christ. However, I never could capture what it meant until that day. This moment with my car totally out of my control was beyond my understanding, but the peace that invaded my soul guarded my heart and my mind. I knew Jesus was with me and for me, regardless of the circumstances or the outcome of this life-changing moment.”
Fortunately, they were all able to walk away from crash, in spite of being in shock and covered with bruises. Hicks went to the emergency room to be checked out as a precaution. There she was tested for internal bleeding, fractures, or anything unusual.
The scans discovered a kidney stone and a hidden breast cancer tumor. That tumor was lodged against her chest wall and, because of that, the doctors speculated that it probably would never have been discovered on a mammogram.
She sums up her experience by saying, “A totaled car, unplanned scans, a miracle. Yes, it was breast cancer, but the fact it was discovered under such odd circumstances due to a car wreck [was] miraculous.”
When I read that article, I was reminded of my own accident in June 2023 that totaled our Toyota Prius. It was a hot day and I had been working nearly non-stop teaching magic classes to third and fourth graders. Without thinking, I hadn’t keep myself hydrated. The result was that I passed out while driving 65 miles an hour on Highway 20.
You may remember hearing about this. It happened at the curve on Sand Hill. I was driving in the left lane, having just passed another car when I passed out. Without anyone to steer the car, I crossed the right lane, heading straight for the ditch.
The noise of the rumble strips under my tires woke me up see that I was rushing towards a thicket of weeds. There was nothing I could do except to try to slow down and attempt to avoid any object that would crumple the car in around me.
My car followed the contours of the ditch and then up a hill before coming to a stop on a driveway. My back tires were inches away from the edge of that hill, which could have caused me to roll backwards into the ditch again. But, like Hicks, I was able to walk away from that accident without a scratch even though the car was totaled. Also like Hicks, I was and still am firmly convinced that God was with me as I went through that experience. However, I’m not convinced that God necessarily saved me from any of the potentially far worse outcomes that I could have had to endure.
But that’s exactly the way some people understand both our of passages from Jeremiah and from the Psalms. After all, Psalm 1 says, “Blessed are those who trust in the LORD […]. In all that they do, they prosper.”
These interpreters think we’re being told that good things come to good people and bad things to evil people. It’s as if God had established an instant justice vending machine that doles out rewards and punishments in this world based on the faithfulness or lack of faithfulness of each individual.
But is that what’s really being taught in these passages? What about the many instances of of seemingly random suffering? For example, some 20-30 years ago, Marilyn Edwards who was a caring home health nurse and a deeply religious and involved member of the Hanover Presbyterian church, was involved in an accident much like mine. She was driving on Highway 20 when she lost consciousness. It’s unknown whether that was due to a heart attack or lack of sleep or some other cause.
In any case, her car crossed the center line and rushed head first into an oncoming semi. Marilyn was killed outright, although no one else was hurt. That outcome begs the question: If God protected Hicks and me, but allowed Marilyn to die, where’s the justice in that?
I would suggest that the reality is that the messages in both Jeremiah and the Psalm are far more subtle than that. Here’s how my father once explained this point when preaching about Psalm 1:
“[…] the unknown author of this psalm wrote his convictions that good things do come to good people. He was not wearing blinders. He knew very well that wholehearted loyalty to God and faithful efforts to keep his laws were often put to severe tests. He knew the history of his people. He knew the account of their slavery in Egypt and the times in Palestine when they had been overrun by waves of Syrians, Philistines, and alliances of Near Eastern people. He recalled from that history the inundations of his people by the Egyptians and the Assyrians with the latter carting off the ten northern tribes.
“He knew about the destruction […] of Jerusalem and the beautiful temple built by Solomon. And he was not unaware of the fact that frequently individual observers of the law seemed to suffer bad fortune while the godless prospered. Oh, he was completely aware that the facts of history and of individual experience often appear to belie the expectations of the faithful but this psalmist maintains that, despite all appearances to the contrary, it is forever true that God cares for all who love him and it goes well with those who abide by his law and ill with those who despise it.”
The point that both the psalmist and Jeremiah are trying to make is that the best way to navigate the joys and sorrows, dangers and celebrations of our earthly existence is to trust in God and God alone. As one commentator put it: “Whatever changes and challenges they may experience, trust in God permits them to draw comfort from that which is truly immutable, solid, steady, dependable, and above all, eternal. God and God’s gracious goodness allows them to continue to thrive amidst dire circumstances, when all Creation seems barren and dry and unable to offer anything truly life-giving […].
“[…] On the other hand, the wicked and all who follow them are inherently groundless. They cannot survive — much less thrive — in the face of changes in their surroundings. To the contrary, they are to be treated as useless vestiges, like chaff being blown about like so much nothingness. While the righteous prosper, the wicked perish.”
Both Jeremiah and the psalmist are not implying that rewards will be granted in this life for good behavior and the punishments doled out for bad behavior. Instead, their message is that behaviors that align with God’s wishes are, in fact, their own reward regardless of the current circumstances faced by those who are following God.
Elsewhere in scripture, we read about rewards and punishments that will be meted out in the afterlife. So, for example, Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
But in today’s passage, both Jeremiah and the psalmist are firmly focused on the life of this world. A story that’s more in line with their ideas comes from Annie Dillard’s book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
In that book, she tells of one of her childhood pleasures. She used to hide what she called a “precious penny” for someone to find just for the fun of it. She would sometimes draw big arrows on the sidewalk guiding strangers to her gift by writing something like “money this way” or “surprise ahead.”
Then she would watch from a hiding place, waiting for a some anonymous passerby to find what she thought of as being her free gift from the universe. Dillard concludes that section of her book by stating that the world is fairly studded with lucky pennies flung everywhere from God’s generous hand.
We can find God’s equivalents of Dillard’s “precious pennies” not by seeking them out for their own sake, but by choosing to live in accordance with the standards that God built into creation for faithful living.
A good example of that may be seen in the life of Albert Schweitzer. Due to his love for Jesus, he chose to abandon a successful career in Europe, go to school to gain medical training and then move to equatorial Africa to establish and run a hospital.
Schweitzer wrote of his own experience: Existence would become harder for him in every respect than it would have been if he lived merely for himself. However, at the same time, it would be richer, more beautiful, and happier. Instead of mere living, it would become a real experience of life.
Isn’t that same ideal true of Jesus himself? As Claire McKeown expressed it, “Part of [God’s] prescription for a healthy life was to embrace the unknown — unknown people, an unknown future. Jesus embraced the reality that not everything that happened to him was under his control, but that God was in it and under it and through it and around it. Jesus trusted his future, his life, his death, his life after death, to God.”
Father Thomas Merton made a similar point when was going through a time of personal depression. At that time, he wrote in his journal: “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself. And the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
“But I believe, dear Father, that the desire to please You does in fact please You, and I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And so I believe that if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust You always: though I may seem to be lost in the shadow of death, I will not fear, for You are with me and You will never leave me to face my peril alone.”
If you and I can have a similar unqualified faith in God’s guidance for our lives, then we, too, will prosper in all we do in the midst of all our joys and all our sorrows. Amen.
by Jim McCrea

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Rev. Jim McCrea
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