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