Gaining a Wise Heart

Psalm 90

For the next two Sundays, we’re going to engage a bit more intentionally the responses many of you shared to the questions we asked on Pentecost Sunday and in the weeks that followed. The second two questions next week. And the first two questions this week: What do you care most about? And, what matters most to you? These next two Sundays will set us up for a few weeks in July when we will actively explore the ways in which this community is “on fire” and engaging our concerns for the world and our little corner of it.

And as we begin this morning, considering what we care most about and what matters most to us, I ask you another question of societal concern: “What are the things, the topics, we’re not supposed to talk about in polite company?”  Anyone? Religion, politics, finances, personal intimate relationships, race and culture, mental health struggles. That last, comes closest to another topic that should probably be added to that list: human frailty. We don’t like to talk about our shortcomings or our fear in “polite society”.

We love to talk about heroes and beating the odds, of miracles and of “making it”, pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, and all that. But, we do not like to confront what we cannot control, and we do not like to talk about our limitations. We prize individualism and independence above almost anything else. We fight long and hard against disease, even when it severely diminishes our life, or the life we share with others. We battle aging with every creme we can possibly use and every prescription we can possibly fill. And we struggle to let loved ones go at the end of life.

There’s some good in these refusals when they allow us, allow others, to push harder than they thought they could. Or when they create and innovate cures and remedies beyond what was dreamed of before.

But in another light, our refusal to talk about, let alone accept, human frailty is really a refusal to accept (about) half of our own life, and the actual lives of a huge percentage of the world’s population. Refusing to see “human frailty” keeps the “haves” from having to confront the struggles of the “have nots”. It’s a refusal to see our own self in the proper place of need and reliance on something beyond technology, or pharmaceuticals, or the best money can buy many times (most times?). Refusal to actual human frailty, our own and others’, diminishes the depth and breadth of life that is ours to cherish, if we could be so … courageous.

This is why I found it so refreshing, and so deeply faithful, to read the responses that came back to us to the questions of “what we care about” and “what matters most to us”.

Pray with me …

The responses to what we care about and what matters most to us from our “asks” this past Spring can be summed up by saying “others”.  We are focused outward, beyond ourselves. With the exception of one response, one, what we care about and what matters most to us is others. Many of the responses kept the concerns close to home – children, family, friends. But, they weren’t “me” and “my” statements. Even the one that was, also included their “kid’s health and well-being” as major concerns.

We care about love and compassion, being a better person, being in community and living our lives well with others. We care about following Jesus and making a positive difference, doing and caring for others. We care about peace and equality, being open to God, and taking care of the world that we are bequeathing to younger generations.

What matters most to us is taking care of others in our lives, seeking the safety of our world and peace in it, the flourishing of others, helping others find the way of Jesus, diversity, inclusion, and taking care of the poor. What matters most to us includes kindness, forgiveness, thoughtfulness, justice and that we learn to love and respect each other. What matters most to us is that we learn to love and respect each other, and that we cultivate a life of peace, compassion, joy, and connection.

I’m profoundly aware of how we, how I, can manipulate responses like these (and those for next week) in ways that support what I want to hear and share. But all, and I do mean all, of the responses we got back speak, in one way or another to me, about addressing the frailty – the vulnerability and fragility – that has always been a part of life, but that seems to be magnified and amplified for everyone in the years since COVID.

There are a number of ways to deal with this increased vulnerability. One is to double down (triple and quadruple down) on shows of strength and power, certainty and control. “We’re going to wrestle this frailty to the ground in a cage-fight match on the front lawn.”  But the way we are addressing this frailty is through the lens of our common humanity. What we care about is not centered on “me” and “mine” and beating this thing, but on “us” and “ours” and managing this thing.

That doesn’t shock me, and it probably shouldn’t even surprise me. We are Christians, after all. But there are so many other Christians getting most of the headline these days whose certainty about God centers on how well they are doing, that this particular community’s sense of our well-being tied up with how others are doing, is notable. And should be noted. We’re not unique in this way. There are many other Christian communities who truly seek to follow the Way of Jesus – compassionate, humble, and concerned about the well-being of the least of us, and the most vulnerable of us. I’d like to think the numbers of these are growing, but they’ll only grow if we make note of them – of ourselves when we’re living as Jesus lived and loving those that Jesus loved, so … noted this morning, this summer, right here.

And here’s where all of our human responses get deeply theological. Why do we care about these things? Why do these things matter most to us? Because of our faith – our trust in and fidelity to – the Way of Jesus. And because, I suggest, somewhere inside of ourselves – maybe so deep we don’t even recognize it or want to acknowledge it – we know and feel the need to engage our own frailty. We know our own time is limited, so the time to care and take care of what matters is limited, and we need to get busy.

Our way in the world is an act of Faith.  We don’t “care” about compassion or fight for economic justice because we expect to see discrimination and poverty erased in our lifetime.  We don’t “care” about global peace and stability for our children and grandchildren, and for millions of others being devasted by war and the violence of world government’s policies and laws, including our own, to see it happen before we die.  I mean, if any or all of that happens in our short span of years (and sometimes it does, it has!) that’s fantastic.  But our acts are not futile if it doesn’t.  We “care” because we are convicted that it is the will of God and that it will happen in God’s time.  Our way in the world is an act of faith.

Our way in the world is an act of Hope.  As we align ourselves with God’s work and God’s time, what “matters” most to us no longer has a timeframe. We might just be able to stop dividing time into parts – my time with my concerns, my time with the concerns for others around me, my time with the concerns for the world – and begin to think of it all as our time. Caring for ourselves and our loved ones is caring for the world. And, just as importantly (if not more so), caring for the world is caring for ourselves and our loved ones. Our way in the world is an act of hope.

Our way in the world is an act of Love.  When we place ourselves in God’s time and “care” about “matters most” through our faith and with our hope, then we place ourselves in communion with past generations who did the same for us, and with future generations who will keep “caring” and taking care of “what matters” because we did – and we got closer to the Kin-dom of God on earth.

Do you feel time disappearing altogether? Past, present and future coming together?  Our way in the world is an act of love. Because we care about what matters? I hope so, because …

In case some of you may have noticed or others of you may be wondering, all that you have allowed me to share this morning in sermon-form, has led to our scripture reading, instead of following it.

Psalm 90 is a poetic meditation on and an acknowledgement of the transience and frailty of human life, the problem of time, and the eternity of God. The ascription of this Psalm to Moses calls to mind the problem of time for another human being, Moses.  His time was too short.  One of the most incredibly surprising aspects of the whole biblical story is that Moses, Moses, dies before entering the promised land.  With this example and countless others of tasks undone and lives cut short, we may wonder why bother with anything we’ve been talking about – why care at all? Why should anything “matter” to us, beyond, taking care of “me” and “mine”?

Because our time, finally, is measured, in terms of the reality we call God, and God’s time.  We find the meaning and vocation of our lives not in our short span of years on earth, but in the eternity of Love.  So listen now for the Word of God from the ninetieth Psalm.

Read Psalm 90. The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

We care, O God. Your will and Jesus’ Way matter to us. Touch our brevity with your eternity and prosper the work of our hands, so we, too, may gain a wise heart. Amen.

Reverend Joel Weible, Pastor

Pewee Valley Presbyterian Church / June 21, 2026