Sermon for Second before Lent: Eternally Good.

Psalm 107: 1- 9

Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!

For His mercy endures forever.

2 Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,

Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy,

3 And gathered out of the lands,

From the east and from the west,

From the north and from the south.

4 They wandered in the wilderness in a desolate way;

They found no city to dwell in.

5 Hungry and thirsty,

Their soul fainted in them.

6 Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,

And He delivered them out of their distresses.

7 And He led them forth by the right way,

That they might go to a city for a dwelling place.

8 Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness,

And for His wonderful works to the children of men!

9 For He satisfies the longing soul,

And fills the hungry soul with goodness.

Matthew 6: 25 - end

25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

The other day the YouTube algorithm decided I'd like to see a video of an American Pastor preaching. I don't know why the algorithm thought I'd be interested, I very rarely, if ever, look at sermons online. Anyway, the video started before I could stop it, the speaker was a guest preacher, he was mid-sermon when he said, “God is good,” and to his surprise the congregation responded, “all the time.”

He looked confused, so someone sitting nearby explained to him it was a regular call and response in that church. The worship leader says' God is good”, and the congregation respond, “all the time”, and then the worship leader says, “all the time”, and the congregation respond, “ God is good.”

God is good. All the time.

All the time. God is good.

It's like in Anglican churches,

“The peace of the Lord be always with you – and also with you!”

Like the preacher in the video, I had never come across this “God is good” liturgy, but I remembered someone had said it to me once. I was visiting an old lady who was confined to her bed with illness. She was not a member of any of my congregations, she had moved into the parishes to end her days in a Care Home, so this was the first time I had met her. She had asked to see the local Vicar – so there I was. I thought we might be going to talk about funerals, or questions of religion, but no – she wanted to tell me that God was good.

She was bubbling over with joy and peace, and excited to be drawing to the end of her life. In fact, she was so excited, she just wanted someone to talk to who would listen and understand what she was saying, and share her joy.

It took me a while to understand this even though that was what she was telling me, all I could see she was that she was in pain and discomfort, and that she relied on the care of others for her basic needs. This didn't seem to me a moment for joy and peace, but it most certainly was a moment for joy and peace for her.

She told me about her life, from her childhood, and all through her adult life. She told me about all the troubles and the happinesses, and how she came to have faith in God – and how her life demonstrated the goodness of God. Her discourse was punctuated with that phrase, “God is good, all the time.”

I wonder if she expected me to respond – but I have only just put two and two together because of that random You Tube video.

Perhaps the algorithm knew what it was doing, that video reminded me of this extraordinary lady, and made me think again about what she said. She wanted people to know that God was good, and she wanted me to do that for her, to tell people that God was good, all the time.

To be honest I'm not keen on the phrase, “God is good, all the time.”

God is by definition eternal, if He were not eternal he would be less than God.

If God is good, He cannot be good part time, or only at the weekends, or when He is in the mood – God is good above and beyond time.

All the meaning is contained within the words, “God is good,” adding “all the time” seems to me superfluous; adding “all the time” adds nothing.

I have no quarrel with the idea that God is eternally good, both scripture and Church tradition tell us so, as we heard in Psalm 107, verse 1,

“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!

For His mercy endures forever.”

That's the voice of the Psalmist speaking thousands of years ago, and his testimony has echoed down the ages, and echoed in the voice of that dear woman on her death bed.

Yet here was the challenge, I had not expected that to be what she would say, and it took me some time to realise as she was speaking that it was indeed her testimony.

I had expected expressions of sorrow, and pain, and doubt.

I had expected this woman to question if God was good.

I had expected her life experience to lead her to question the message of the ancient scriptures and of the Church down through the centuries, but I was wrong – she was affirming that God was good, and that she saw no exception to this despite her present circumstances.

In good times and in bad she had known that God was good.

Adding “all the time” was not superfluous because it described her experience.

Even in the agonies and indignities of her final days she experienced God as good.

God is good, all the time.

That's not everyone's understanding.

Some people conclude that God is not good.

Some people conclude that God is not good all the time.

Some people, and I am one of them, know that God is good, but struggle to reconcile that to their life experiences.

I don't doubt that God is good, but I do not always understand how in any given circumstance that can be demonstrated. In a way, I do not expect to because I do not have the mind of God. Mortal beings should not be surprised at finding the ways of the Immortal God to be at times beyond our understanding. I am deeply suspicious of religious folk who claim to know more about the ways of God than they can possibly know. We're not clever enough to comprehend God entirely, we're not nearly clever enough, but we can be mistaken enough to imagine we are.

The main reason I do not doubt the goodness of God is Jesus. I can not comprehend the immortal, invisible, ineffable Almighty, but in Jesus I can see enough to know that God is good. Jesus and the Father are one, he is the image of the invisible God, Jesus is what God is like.

This self revelation of the nature of God was made at the cost of infinite love; Jesus, who being in very nature God, made himself nothing, and took the nature of a servant, he was made in human likeness, and so humbled himself, becoming obedient to death – even a bloody and violent death on a cross. Yet even in the crucifixion the goodness of God was at work, but would I have perceived that then?

The measure of God's love is the infinite step taken by Jesus from immortality into mortality. In Jesus we can see the love of God reaches beyond time, the love of God reaches from eternity to eternity.

God is good. All the time.

All the time. God is good.

Amen.