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After our Journey with the Avengers VBS, I’ve still had the Avengers on my mind a lot. One of my favorites of those films is Captain America: Winter Soldier. As a warning, I’m going to be giving some major spoilers right now because the movie has a major twist.
Since the first Avengers movie, even really since Iron Man, we’ve always known that S.H.I.E.L.D. Were the good guys. They were always there to help the Avengers out and protect the world from super-powered threats. Yet in Captain America: Winter Soldier, we learn that the higher ups in S.H.I.E.L.D. are actually the bad guys. They actually work for Hydra, an evil organization Captain America fought against in World War II. He even thought he had defeated them back then. Turns out he was wrong.
After Captain America and Black Widow learn the truth, Black Widow takes a look at Cap and sees he seems chipper, in spite of this revelation. She comments on this, to which he responds, “Well, guess I just like to know who I’m fighting.”
This is an issue of trust. Everyone trusted S.H.I.E.L.D. They put their faith in them as the good guys, but that trust was in the wrong place. Now Captain America and everyone else have the opportunity to put their faith in the right thing.
That’s what all our readings are about today: Trust and Faith. They are about where to put that trust. Ultimately, that trust, that faith, is to be given to God and God alone.
As our psalm calls us to do, we are not to place our Faith in the leaders of this world, or even the S.H.I.E.L.D.s, as Captain America learned. As the author of James points out, we are not even called to trust in those who have the money and resources to help us do the work we’ve been given to do. When we put our Faith in others, we will find ourselves disappointed. Even when people have their hearts in the right place, the truth is that none of us are perfect, so none of us can live up to any glorified standard of perfection. God can though, and if our trust is in the Lord, then we know that even though things may be hard and even through our difficulties, we have a guide who is there with us helping us to do the right thing.
That is the assurance Isaiah tries to give us by telling us to “be strong” and “not fear.” God is with us and has our backs, even when it seems like the enemy, or Hydra even, is all around us.
This trust, this faith, is what God seeks in us. That is what we see in the Syrophoenician woman today. Though she is a Gentile and not a Jew, Jesus gives her what she asks for, the healing for her daughter, because she has Faith that even when it seems like Jesus will not help her that He still can. It is her Faith in Christ Jesus that makes her daughter whole.
It is easy to say we need to turn to God and no others to have Faith. It can be even harder to live it. When James tells us that “faith without works is dead”, we shouldn’t take away that anything but the grace of God can save us. It is a reminder not to merely say “yes Lord, I believe”, but that we also need to show that faith in how we live and in our very being. This is the struggle for all of us. This is what the Faith journey is here for.
Like Captain America, we are all struggling to realize who we can really trust around us. We know from our Faith and from Scripture that are called to trust in the Lord. Doing so is often difficult for us. The first step is to recognize the truth, just as Captain America did with S.H.I.E.L.D. The truth is that God is the only one we can ultimately have Faith in, who we can trust in. If we can have that initial trust, then we can let God in to make us whole. If we can trust in God to change us, then God can help us build that trust in Him more and more. If we can continue on this journey, then even in the hardships we can know all will be well because we will be doing God’s work in this world and God’s work alone.