Blessing is a Privilege (3rd Pentecost / Propoer 8C)
- Guillermo Arboleda
- Aug 10
- 8 min read
A sermon by the Rev. Guillermo A. Arboleda, written for and delivered at the Episcopal Church of St. Paul the Apostle, Savannah, GA, on Sunday, August 10, 2025, which is the 9th Sunday after Pentecost (RCL Proper 14, Year C).
Primary Bible Readings
Psalm 33:12-22 (BCP, pp. 626-627)
[[1 Rejoice in the LORD, you righteous; * it is good for the just to sing praises.
2 Praise the LORD with the harp; * play to him upon the psaltery and lyre.
3 Sing for him a new song; * sound a fanfare with all your skill upon the trumpet.
4 For the word of the LORD is right, * and all his works are sure.
5 He loves righteousness and justice; * the loving-kindness of the LORD fills the whole earth.
6 By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, * by the breath of his mouth all the heavenly hosts.
7 He gathers up the waters of the ocean as in a water-skin * and stores up the depths of the sea.
8 Let all the earth fear the LORD; * let all who dwell in the world stand in awe of him.
9 For he spoke, and it came to pass; * he commanded, and it stood fast.
10 The LORD brings the will of the nations to naught; * he thwarts the designs of the peoples.
11 But the LORD'S will stands fast for ever, * and the designs of his heart from age to age.]]
12 Happy is the nation whose God is the LORD! * happy the people he has chosen to be his own!
13 The LORD looks down from heaven, * and beholds all the people in the world.
14 From where he sits enthroned he turns his gaze * on all who dwell on the earth.
15 He fashions all the hearts of them * and understands all their works.
16 There is no king that can be saved by a mighty army; * a strong man is not delivered by his great strength.
17 The horse is a vain hope for deliverance; * for all its strength it cannot save.
18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon those who fear him, * on those who wait upon his love,
19 To pluck their lives from death, * and to feed them in time of famine.
20 Our soul waits for the LORD; * he is our help and our shield.
21 Indeed, our heart rejoices in him, * for in his holy Name we put our trust.
22 Let your loving-kindness, O LORD, be upon us, * as we have put our trust in you.
Blessing is a Privilege
By the Rev. Guillermo A. Arboleda, Program Manager for New Starts, ELCA
Good morning! I would like to thank Fr. Kevin and you all for the opportunity to be with you this morning at the Episcopal Church of St. Paul the Apostle. Some of you may not know that my path into the Diocese of Georgia and ordination as a priest began at this parish. My first encounter with this diocese was through a summer internship with St. Paul’s in 2014 while I was still a seminarian. This parish sponsored me in my ordination process, and my ordination to the diaconate was held here in November 2015. As a local priest serving other parishes, I have occasionally filled in for weekday masses over the years. Sometimes, Fr. Leonel has invited me to preach and preside at the Spanish language mass at 12:15. But, if I am not mistaken, the last time I preached at the Sunday 8:00 or 10:00 masses here was during that internship eleven years ago. A lot has changed in the last decade, but it is still an honor and privilege to be with you.
12 Happy [Blessed] is the nation whose God is the LORD! * happy the people he has chosen to be his own!
This is one of those verses that you actually might see out in the wild (somewhere outside of church). I’ve seen it on t-shirts, bumper stickers, flags, and other things people wear or display. Usually, on this merchandise, the verse is surrounded by an American flag or even printed in red, white, and blue with the stars and stripes in the background. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, do a quick Google search for this verse and click on the Shopping tab. You’ll see lots of variations on this design.
There are a few implications in this trend. One is the assumption that the United States -- all 340 million of us -- worship the LORD as our God. That’s factually incorrect, of course. There are plenty of religious minorities who don’t worship the God of the Bible, who Christians, Jews, and Muslims all worship in different ways. There are also a growing number of Americans who don’t have any religious affiliation at all. So maybe the t-shirt is saying that the majority of us worship the LORD, and that’s good enough to make the LORD the God of this nation. But this mentality is sometimes used to say that the United States is really just a Christian nation and that people from other religious traditions, even Jews and Muslims, are not worthy of equal treatment or equal rights. You see this conversation play out in the public sphere in state or local governments that try to add things like the Ten Commandments to public schools. This sort of Christian Nationalism becomes problematic very quickly for minority groups of all kinds.
When you place the verse, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD” next to an American flag, it might also imply that the United States is a nation that is blessed and/or chosen by God. This might imply that we are special and righteous. This can might lead to arrogance and hypocrisy. And that would not be unique to the USA. It’s the same thing that the biblical people did. It’s the reason this psalm was likely written in the first place.
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD” is not a statement about one people group being better than any other. It’s a warning. It isn’t just asking us to say that the LORD is our God. It’s asking us to live like it. And that’s the hard part!
We began reading Psalm 33 at verse 12, which is right in the middle. But our portion makes more sense if we read the whole psalm (BCP, pp. 626-627). Psalm 33 begins by inviting all righteous people to rejoice and praise the LORD God. God is worthy of praise because God “loves righteousness and justice; the loving-kindness of the LORD fills the whole earth” (33:5). Then, the psalmist reminds us that God was powerful enough to create the whole world just by speaking the word (33:7, 9). All the nations belong to God. Therefore, the psalm says, we and everyone on earth should “fear the LORD” alone (33:8). Nothing else is greater than God and nothing else deserves our fear, awe, and reverence.
And that’s where things get tricky. We fear so many things beyond God, and God knows we do. The psalmist says that God “fashions all the hearts of [all people] and understands all their works” (33:15). God knows that it’s easier for us to trust in kings and strong men and horses (33:16-17). In biblical times, before advanced military technology, a horse and a skilled knight were powerful weapons of war. Likewise, we spend billions (almost $1 trillion) on the military, and we build weapons of mass destruction out of fear of enemies and a desire to destroy rather than be destroyed. We would rather take matters into our own hands than trust that God will be “our help and our shield” (33:20). But that flies in the face of God’s righteousness and justice; it ignores our call to love and reconcile with our neighbors and enemies alike. Because, again, God made all people and loves all of us the same. We Americans are no better morally than anybody else.
But the blessed and chosen nation mindset is so strong, that we Americans have often deceived ourselves. We have justified all kinds of behaviors that we call evil when other countries do them. For example, the US became an adversary to Nazi Germany in World War II. Our military forces proudly liberated Jews, Romani, and other oppressed groups from German concentration camps. But Nazis literally borrowed their tactics for oppressing Jews from Jim Crow laws in the American South (Isabel Wilkerson, Caste, 78-88). Black World War II veterans fought a war to defend democracy and human rights and then they were denied democracy and human rights at home. Likewise, during the Second World War, Americans established our own internment camps for Japanese and German immigrants. We were doing the same evil things we accused Nazis of doing.
We need to be extremely careful not to repeat this arrogance and hypocrisy. We need to be very careful not to confuse our blessedness and belovedness with the divine authorization to do as we please. We see this play out countless times in the biblical narratives.
In ancient Israel, the arrogant King Rehoboam (son of Solomon and grandson of David) fractured the kingdom in half because he tried to dominate his people instead of ruling with equity (1 Kings 12). The prophets said that Rehoboam lost the civil war because he mistreated poor and needy farmers.
Later, the prophets warned Judah to treat its people fairly and trust that God would protect them. Jeremiah told King Zedekiah to surrender to Babylon, but instead he formed an alliance with Egypt against Babylon, trusting in their combined military might. Babylon crushed them, burned Jerusalem to the ground, and forced its people into exile (2 Kings 24-25). God never stopped blessing Jerusalem. But the people took God’s blessing for granted, and they stopped actually trusting in God. They stopped fearing God and they started fearing people, whether foreign adversaries or domestic scapegoats. They turned their back on the poor and they instigated foolish wars and they suffered the consequences.
We can and we should pray for God’s blessing on our people, land, and nation. But God’s blessing is a privilege not a right. God’s blessing is a responsibility to bear the Good News of God’s lovingkindness. God’s blessing means that we need to pursue justice and righteousness even when it is inconvenient and hard. It means standing up for what is right even when people say that it is wrong. Being blessed means trusting more in God’s justice than in human might. It means trusting that no human leader or institution can save us, because nobody but God is perfect. It means trusting that God will help and defend us when people fail to.
Let these words from Psalm 33:20-22 be our prayer today: “Our soul waits for [you, O] LORD; [you are] our help and our shield. Indeed, our heart rejoices in [you], for in [your] holy Name we put our trust. Let your loving-kindness, O LORD, be upon us, as we have put our trust in you.” Amen.
Bibliography
Thornburgh Sigmon, Casey. “Commentary on Psalm 33:12-22.” Working Preacher. Published July 2025. Accessed 9 August 2025. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-19-3/commentary-on-psalm-3312-22-6.
Wilkerson, Isabel. Caste: The Origin of our Discontents. New York: Random House, 2020.
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