Sermons at St. John’s Presbyterian Church

2727 College Avenue Berkeley, California 94705
(510) 845-6830 


The Lord is My Shepherd, I Shall Not Want

Transcribed from the sermon preached April 28, 2012

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

Scripture Readings: Psalm 23, I John 3:16-24, John 10:11-18

It is amazing how busy people are these days. We might think that with the abundance of time saving devices in our lives, our cups would overflow with time. It seems that the more time saving devices we get, the less time we have.  When I visited my sister a while back, I used her computer.  Not having much money, she has stuck with dial up Internet service.  I was frustrated by how slow it was.  My God, It took me 30 seconds to connect to the library in Louisville, Kentucky.  30 seconds seemed like eternity. Only a few years ago we would have had to fly there, or go to our local library and order a book that would take a couple of weeks to arrive.  But I didn’t have 30 seconds to waste.  Weird how our perspective changes.  Someone said in America, when we discover our cup runneth over, rather than giving thanks, most of us pray for a bigger cup. We say, Lord, can I supersize that.

Younger friends now hardly have time for a phone call.  Text, sure, they can text instantaneously, though only a few words.  God forbid they actually take the time for a phone call.  On my sabbatical I was sitting in a beautiful restaurant in beautiful location, and took a moment to observe the people around me.  There was a couple, I couldn’t figure out whether it was their first date or their 200th, whether the lady was sending a message to the man next to her which meant “I am not interested in you,” or “I am no longer interested in you.”  But there, sitting in a nice place, I never saw her make eye contact with her date, for she was texting the whole time.  Maybe the issue she was texting over was important, but why not then go out, and speak on the phone?  Why come to this nice place with this guy in the first place?  Why did the guy put up with it?  Here she was in this gorgeous place with a good-looking guy, but she was acting like her cup was empty. 

 

Now before I get too cynical, I have to admit that the internet and in particular, Facebook, has enabled us to connect to people we have long left behind, family in Peru or Texas or San Diego, old friends from junior high and college.  And texting allows us to say something quick and be done with it.  But I fear we are losing our ability to be where we are at, to attend the people and earth before us.  We are always thinking about the future, about someone or somewhere else.  We have so much to do that we are always thinking about the next thing.  We have multiple projects at work or school, relationships that are difficult, mail to sort, bills to pay, a house to clean, bodies to care for, children and parents and siblings to deal with…we want and are responsible for so much.  Even though we are always communicating, we still feel empty, alone and anxious here, where we are, so we jump out ahead of ourselves, always looking to the next thing.  We are so busy looking out to the destination that we miss the journey.  If the Lord has led us to rest in green pastures beside still waters, we would probably miss it and go right on by because we would be texting or trying to get the kids to shut up by watching “The Day of the Living Dead” on the car video.

 

If Sunday worship is about anything it is about taking a time out, a Sabbath, a deep breath of the present moment.  I hope that this sanctuary is just that, a sanctuary, a shelter, a place where you can tap into the real, present, still waters deep within your soul.  I pray this is a place where you can recharge your ability to be real in the present, wherever, whenever. I pray this is a place you can stop long enough to recognize abundant life.

 

And so we come and hear these ancient and familiar psalms.  Psalm 23 is so familiar that it is almost cliché; it has become background noise in our culture, filler in Westerns or crime dramas as the minister reads it at a funeral.  The use of this psalm as background filler for writers and actors and a story that didn’t really care about it or listen to it used to annoy me, and I guess it still does a bit.  But I have come to understand that psalm 23 can hold its own.  It will not allow itself to be trivialized to death.  For when we who no longer have time for it, find our real life journey difficult, filled with enemies and shadows, and we are thirsty and need rest, then the psalm has a way of echoing from the background to our foreground.

I think it is background noise because in a culture that tells us nobody should be our shepherd and we shall want! We don’t want to admit we find the psalm both comforting and inspiring.  We don’t much like considering ourselves weak, dumb sheep who must be dependent on a leader and follow the flock.  There remains a bit of the adolescent within us, who needs to grow and separate, to find his own identity and follow her own unique way.  We get tired of parents and institutions being our shepherds, as if we are sheep.  We think they are old fashioned and controlling, better to go our own way.

 

It is interesting though that after a few years on our own, when we have actually established something of our own life, we start to realize that it is not all about us, and our parents weren’t that dumb or as controlling as we thought, and the distant echo of passed on wisdom fills us with longing for connection that is longer and more real than a tweet.  Usually that realization comes home in a big way about the moment we leave the hospital with our first child.  It is terrifying to think that the powers that be are stupid enough to let us drive away into a world of enemy cars and shadowy valleys with this beautiful creature all by ourselves.  Suddenly the idea of having a shepherding mother around feels pretty good.  Suddenly mother’s nagging and controlling becomes grandma’s doting and nurturing.  Don’t ask me why the voice you once wanted to be as far away from as possible becomes the one voice you trust beyond all others with your children.  I don’t know why, but I know it is sweet.

 

Jesus knows us like a shepherding grandmother.  We may have wanted to go it alone for a while, and God certainly understands that too, even if and when going our own way we find ourselves alone and anxious, like a lost sheep.  But he will search us out; we lost sheep. His rod and staff will gently lead us to realize that a little family and community can be a powerfully good thing, and lead us to see that what we thought was dumb advice may include a good bit of wisdom. 

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures; he restores my soul.  It is amazing how repeating this message, that God is our shepherd, present and watchful, caring and protecting, is both comforting and empowering at the same time.  With faith in God as our guide, the want can stop pulling at us.  We can take a look at how God is guiding and filling us with what we already have before visiting us, and trust that even though we may not have everything, we will have enough. Our cup overflows. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.  Here we find both comfort and empowerment.  The Church at its best too offers both comfort and empowerment.  There are so many amazing people in this congregation, people who work to maintain this church as a shelter from the storm of life, take comfort in the shelter themselves, and then are empowered to be good shepherds out in the world.  

 

Claudia’s nephew-in-law recently had a massive stroke.  Now he and his wife are just in their thirties, starting their family and careers, and now they face a very long road of recovery and struggle.  So we as a church have been praying for them.  As you might imagine Claudia’s niece has been traumatized, is in shock, and in her state has to not only try to single handedly maintain the household and pay or negotiate bills, but to deal with health care and insurance choices for her husband, and try to be a moral support for him along the way.  So it was no surprise that since the stroke happened, Claudia has disappeared for weeks at a time. 

In an objective world we might ask why it would be Claudia in particular who would travel down and offer support?  Certainly there are probably numerous folks who are trying to be helpful, and Claudia would not be one to toot her own horn.  But as I listened to the story, subjectively, I praised God that this young couple had someone who could stand with calm faith in their very difficult here and now to be a shepherd, to be with them in the shadow of death, to prepare a table in the presence of enemies. 

 

But my hope is not just for the young couple.  Because when I see you doing your best, stopping in the midst of your busy lives to be a shepherding presence, to your children and grandchildren, but to others as well, perhaps to those whose mothers voice is absent or for some reason not able to comfort. When you love and support others in big ways and small, you give me hope, you restore my soul.  You become living psalms, and hope for the world.

 

It may seem that for the culture and world whose motto is, I shall want, Church and Christians are so much background noise, story filler.  So your small acts of loving kindness, from opening a door, to preventing a fight at work, or adopting a child, to advocating for justice for sheep not of your fold, mostly go unnoticed, serve as background noise to clamor for more stuff.  Yet it is inspiring that you do these acts of loving kindness despite your own faults and fallibilities, that you do not use your past mistakes or desperation for future accomplishments to keep you from boldly loving in the moment, for creating space to lie down in green pastures and along still waters, to restore souls.

 

 “Little children,” the author says in I John, “let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.  And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts.”  

For “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”  The life of Jesus was just background noise in the grand world of the Roman Empire.  Outside the Gospels you will only find a few historical references to him.  He was a small fish in a big sea, but he had big love, the love of the Creator.  But he wasn’t ethereal, not just philosophical, not just oriented toward his destination as if the means had nothing to do with the end.  God in heaven was not so important that he only paid attention to others enough to get himself past them on his way to sit at God’s right hand in paradise.  His love was present tense, in the flesh, right here, right now with us, a shepherd who inspired trust that enabled people to rest in peace, even as their journey was filled with danger.

 

The Lord is my Shepherd, but she and we are not just that.  The Bible twists the metaphor every which way.  For the Shepherd also becomes the sacrificial lamb, and the sheep, strengthened by the lamb like sacrifice of the shepherd, become shepherds themselves.  So while Jesus is the lamb whose life is sacrificed, this is not an unknowing sacrifice, but a life he chooses to live sacrificially for others even to the point of death.  So to, as sheep of his fold, we follow his lead, to become shepherds who choose to love even and especially when it is difficult, in truth and action.

 

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.  This is both comforting and empowering.  It allows us to take a break from the anxieties of the world’s wants, to fear no evil, and it empowers us to be shepherds of others.  As we realize our cup overflows, we have abundance to share, so we come here for a Sabbath to restore our souls, but we are charged to go out with Good News to serve those beyond this world. He leads us in paths of righteousness for his names sake; he restores our soul. 

 

He restores our soul.  There a reason this is read at so many bedsides and memorial services.  For when all the driving and texting and accomplishing and consuming can no longer mask the fact that we are in the valley of the shadow of death, that we have not done things that we had hoped to do, that we have done things that we wished we didn’t, and there is nothing more we can do about it, and badness and judgment seem justified in having their way, then it is powerful and wonderful news to know that it has been decided long ago, before we got lost, before we decided there was no need for a shepherd, before we were formed in our mother’s womb or she in her mother’s womb, even before the psalmist took note, even before Adam and Eve ate the apple it was decided, the God of love restores our soul. And even as we must go and can no longer be the shepherd of those we leave behind, they need not fear evil, for God will be with them.  Surely goodness and mercy will follow them all the days of their life too, and we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

 

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.  Amen