By Lucia Lloyd, St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Heathsville, VA
Not a Funeral Sermon
Psalms 23
(NIV)
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.
Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
Psalm 23
The 23rd psalm, which is the psalm appointed for today, is the best-known and best-loved of all the psalms. The first person I made that comment to this week replied, “That psalm depresses me. It always reminds me of funerals.” So, it is not loved by 100% of the population. However, one very good thing about our situation today is that each of you is alive today, and today is a happy Sunday worship service rather than a funeral. I believe in heaven, and I am also very happy to have each of you here on earth with us today. So each of us can thank God for our life this morning, and for the life of each person in this room. And since this sermon is not a funeral sermon, we have the gift of being able to look at this beautiful psalm without the intensity of fresh grief. There are other people who love this psalm, especially the King James Version of it, because the familiarity of it is comforting to them at funerals. For them, the beautiful archaic language is a connection to something older and grander than the emotions of the grief of the present moment.
The other aspect of this psalm that is so appealing is the lovely visual images it gives us: sheep lying down in green pastures, God our shepherd leading us beside still waters, walking through the valley of the shadow of death. It is so visual that one jeweler made a bracelet with different colored stones for each verse of the psalm: green for the green pastures, blue for the still waters, black for the shadow of death, red for the cup running over, and so on. I have one of those bracelets that a parishioner at St. Thomas’s gave me after her father’s funeral, and it is a lovely reminder of the comforting images of this psalm.
The familiarity, the beautiful language, the vivid visual images, are all wonderful aspects of this psalm. But I think even more important than any of those is the sense of being cared for by God.
There is a lot in Christianity about what we ought to do, and what we ought not to do, and what we ought to do more of, and what we ought to work harder at. Those things are valuable, and any form of faith that is missing them is missing something essential. There are certainly times when God needs to tell us, “Hey, get up and take care of the poor” and there are times when God needs to tell us, “Hey, quit being so judgmental and forgive those people” and there are times when God needs to tell us, “Hey, cultivating a rich spiritual life means you need to exercise enough discipline to show up and pay attention.” There are times when God needs to tell us to steer clear of greed and dishonesty and sloth and adultery and arrogance and envy and complacency and all the rest. All those things are important.
But if we focus only on our own behavior, we can make it seem like religion is just one long series of thou-shalt-nots. If we focus only on our own behavior, we can make God seem like someone who’s constantly telling us we must work harder and do better. God does not want our view of him and his love to be distorted that way, and so God gives us passages of scripture that show us God’s unconditional love and care for us, such as the 23rd psalm.
A dear friend of mine was talking about the job stress he felt, and about the migraines and other headaches that had become almost constant companions in his life, and about how hard it was for him to turn off his computer and go to bed at night when there were still tasks unfinished, and about how stress was affecting his relationships. Then he said, almost casually, “When I was young, my father said I was too cavalier, that I didn’t worry enough.” I was taken aback, as it sank in that he, like many sons, had wanted to earn his father’s approval, and as I realized what a huge effect this attempt had taken on him, well into adulthood. He had the sense that however hard he worked, it was never enough.
It is not uncommon for us, even the best of us, to fall into a similar pattern in our relationship with God. I don’t want to oversimplify a very complex condition, and I don’t want to oversimplify a very complex person, but I can’t help feeling that this kind of thinking could lead to depression even in someone like Mother Teresa, and could lead even someone like her to feel distant from God.
God gives us the 23rd psalm to remind us that sometimes the will of God is that you take a nap. “He makes me lie down in green pastures.” God gives us the 23rd psalm to remind us that sometimes the will of God is that you eat good food. “You prepare a table before me.” God gives us the 23rd psalm to remind us that sometimes the will of God is that you relax: “I shall fear no evil, for you are with me.”
God gives us the 23rd psalm to remind us that the shepherd loves and cares for the sheep unconditionally. There are no ifs in the 23rd psalm, that say if you are a sheep who does the right things your shepherd will care for you. The shepherd cares for the sheep no matter what. The sheep do not have to do anything to earn the shepherd’s care. It is a delight to the shepherd when he sees the sheep enjoying their rest in the green pastures, enjoying their walk beside still waters, enjoying the reviving of their souls, enjoying the safety of his presence.
A few weeks ago, on my day off, I was dressed in ordinary clothes, not clericals, and I was walking alone under the bridge in Tappahannock. A strange man was also under the bridge and he came toward me. When he got close enough, he said, “Here, I want to give you this,” and he held out a hand-carved wooden cross on a chain. I remembered that over a year ago I’d overheard a conversation Marshall was having with his friend Louise, in which she said that a man she didn’t know had come up to her and given her a hand-carved wooden cross on a chain. She had offered him money for it, and he refused to accept any money; he simply wanted to give people the crosses he’d made. It was his ministry in the world. I didn’t realize until that moment how hard it would be to accept a gift from a stranger without paying for it or giving something in return. There was a part of me that wanted to say, “Wait a minute, I’m the one who’s supposed to be ministering to you, not the other way around.” But it seemed rude to insist on paying him, and it seemed rude to refuse his generosity. So I accepted his cross. I thanked him. I told him it was a wonderful ministry he was doing. I accepted a nice gift, given unconditionally. I accepted grace. It wasn’t easy to practice what I preach. But I’m glad I did. And I’ll wear his cross not only as a reminder of God’s unconditional grace in the crucifixion, but also as a reminder of the importance of accepting the grace of other people, even strangers, and letting them minister to us, letting them care for us.
The two most important tasks of our lives are to love and to be loved; to care and to be cared for. When people wind up in the hospital with an illness or an injury, it can sometimes be a big adjustment to learn to receive care graciously. If receiving care graciously is not a something we have already learned, now is a good time to start, because the ability to receive care graciously tends to come in handy more and more often the older we get. If we’ve spent most of our adult lives taking care of others we may be a bit out of practice. And we may have some inner resistance too, because receiving care means giving up control of the interaction. There’s some vulnerability to receiving care, and sometimes some awkwardness too, so no wonder our first impulse is to reassert control over the situation. But when we allow ourselves to be cared for, we discover some of the most wonderful experiences of love.
The 23rd psalm is about living like a happy sheep, well fed, well rested, well cared for by the good shepherd. Another day we’ll talk about loving God and loving your neighbor. Today, the main message is simply, “God loves you.” God cares for you like a shepherd cares for his sheep. It is a well-known and well-loved psalm because it reminds us that we are well known and well loved by the Lord, our good shepherd.
05/15/11
Note: If you are still confused about how a gay Christian can feel they are 'right' with God I encourage you to read the section of the web site entitled "Gay and Christian? YES!"