Put Not Your Trust In Princes

Our preschool director Tricia and assistant director Erin and I dressed up for Halloween

last week. They were dressing up as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, so they

suggested I dress up as Prince Charming. Turns out I could do it fairly easily. I could

wear black pants and a blue dress shirt untucked. I have a gold sash from my college

alma mater. And I could use my kilt belt to tie it all together. It was fun, and the students

and families seemed to enjoy their royal welcome that morning!

Then I was asked to lead a Vespers worship service where the assigned psalm is

Psalm 146, which contains the following verse: “Do not put your trust in princes…” (v.

3). What? Not even in Prince Charming?

The psalm goes on to clarify that princes are mortals, like everyone else, and that “when

their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish” (v. 3-4).

“Happy are those,” on the other hand, “whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is

in the Lord their God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them” (v.

5-6).

It is the Lord, the psalm proclaims, “who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for

the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry” (v. 6-7). It is the Lord who “sets the

prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are

bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the strangers; he

upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin” (v. 7-9).

While princes are mortal and come and go, “the Lord will reign forever, your God, O

Zion, for all generations” (v. 10). So the psalm closes with the same words with which it

opened: “Praise the Lord!”

We are now (at long last!) on the other side of this year’s election. We have voted for a

number of “princes” and “princesses” at various levels of our national, state, and local

governments. A vote is a gesture of trust. It’s a way of saying we trust in this person to

do what we think ought to be done. But this psalm tempers the trust we should put in

the principalities of this world. It reminds us that our ultimate help and hope is in the

Lord.

And the psalm reminds us where the Lord’s focus is, where the Lord’s attention and

affections are—not on the power-full, but on the power-less. On those who are

vulnerable, desperate and downtrodden. The hungry. The oppressed. The imprisoned.

The blind and bowed down. The strangers, the widows, and the orphans.



Turns out, that’s where Jesus’ focus was as well. And it’s where he wants our focus to

be, too, those of us who follow him, no matter who is president. For Jesus is the Prince

of Peace. He is the only Prince in whom we should put our trust, in whom there is help,

in whom there is hope.