5th Sunday of Lent 2024
Texts: Jeremiah 31:31-34, Psalm 51:1-13
In the part of Virginia where I grew up there were many thoroughbred breeding farms. For a time we lived across the road from Buckland Farm, where the Kentucky Derby winner Pleasant Colony was foaled. When we were young teenagers—and lightweight, many of my friends and I broke thoroughbred yearlings on these farms.
From the time we started handling the colts and fillies on the ground to the time they were galloping around the training track we were trying to get them to trust us. You can’t make a 1,00o pound animal do anything if they don’t trust you.
It’s best if the yearlings get ridden every day so it becomes a routine. They get used to having a rider get on them, use their legs to nudge them forward, use the reins to guide them. Then they get used to trotting and having the rider post on their back. Once the horse has learned to trot straight and evenly then they learn to canter, with the rider standing in the stirrups.
Eventually, the yearlings are encouraged to stretch out into a gallop. Some are still a little fat from being babies and they get easily winded. It sometimes takes an effort to keep them going, but once they get enough training in them, these yearlings begin to form into racehorses. It’s a beautiful thing to experience. They trust the rider enough to go into a full gallop with other yearlings around the training track.
As the horses age into two year olds they are introduced to the starting gate, and to working at racing speed. One of the most important things for them to learn before they race is changing leads at full speed. The rider lifts the horse’s head slightly and shifts his weight in the saddle, and the horse goes from leading with one front leg to leading with another. Toward the end of a race it’s vitally important that a horse who has come around the final turn on the left lead switches naturally to the right lead coming down the stretch. The muscles on one side have become a little tired, so when the horse switches leads at the head of the stretch a fresh set of muscles take over.
None of this could happen without the horse trusting the rider. By the time the yearling becomes a racehorse it has become second nature to accept the direction of a rider.
There are some horses that may be well-bred and have great confirmation, but will not be successful as a racehorse because they never learned to trust a human being enough. Such horses can be a real danger to themselves and everyone around them. I rode too many horses like that at Charles Town. They were rogues and they wasted a lot of energy before they even got into the starting gate. Then when the gates would open sometimes the horse wouldn’t run straight or it would try to buck at full speed. I remember seeing a friend of mine coming out of the starting gate and being catapulted into the air by one of these rogue horses. Such horses never live up to their potential.
We human beings are a lot like thoroughbreds. We were created to be guided by God. When we are trained, and we learn about God, and we are taught to pray as children, we come to know God. As we hear the stories about God from the Bible and from the experience of those Christians we know and respect, we see that God is trustworthy and reliable.
We can trust God.
A few weeks ago we read the 10 commandments and I preached that they were given to us to shape our hearts. We learn to accept them as wisdom from God, or we reject them at our own peril. The 10 commandments are how God guides us to live well. There is a pattern laid down for us just as that pattern is developed within a racehorse to trust the rider.
In the collect we prayed, “Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners”. And from Jeremiah we heard the Lord say, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” Taken together, the 10 commandments are intended to be internalized to such an extent that they shape our thoughts, desires, and actions. They are like God’s invisible hand guiding us.
In this 5th week of Lent we are in the process of renewing God’s hold on our hearts. The Lord told Jeremiah, “No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me.” “To know” someone in the Old Testament was to have a personal relationship with them, not just to have knowledge about someone. So, it is a deeper thing based on trust. If you don’t trust someone it will be difficult to have a meaningful relationship with them. We allow God into our hearts because we trust Him.
The psalmist cried to God, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” He knew he was a man weakened by sin. Perhaps the psalmist had experienced the sad consequences of trying to go his own way without God. So, in this psalm for today, the psalmist is confessing to God and asking God to change his heart.
During Holy Week we will once again recite Psalm 51 together. It seems to be the high point of our spiritual journey during Lent, confessing to God our unfaithfulness and asking him to help us. We will recite verse 13, “Give me the joy of your saving help again, and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit.”
Happy are they who walk in the law of the Lord. They shall run straight and true.
Amen.
