4/22/18 “Faithful Presence & Great Love”

Text: Psalm 23

Seventy-nine years ago today, on April 22, 1939, a young couple stood before their pastor in the sanctuary of Citadel Square Baptist Church in Charleston, SC to pledge their love for one another in marriage. The only other people present were their parents and several siblings, the couple’s finances being such that a marriage license, a very simple ring, and a honeymoon trip to Savannah in a borrowed car were all they could afford. That young couple was my parents. This morning as my time as one of your pastors draws to a close, I marvel at the meandering thread that runs from that April 22nd morning in that Baptist church to this April 22nd morning in this Baptist church. For I am certain that my story began not at my birth, but on the day when my parents committed themselves to each other and to God. Today I am with you here because of what they did there.

You may not know that ministers joke a lot about their last sermons. For each of us, aggravating or confounding things happen in the life of a congregation that can provoke a desire to tell an individual or sometimes the whole church what is truly on our minds. If you share those things with other ministers, the response is often, “You’d better save that for your last sermon.” I don’t really have any of those remarks to make this morning, so I’ll just tell you what’s on my mind on this day.

Today’s text is the 23rd Psalm. Many people from my generation who grew up in a Baptist church memorized it early – in the King James Version, of course. And where I came from, if you got to Miss Brightman’s second grade class in school and hadn’t learned it yet, she would teach it to you right after you said the Pledge of Allegiance and the Lord’s Prayer. Never mind that it was a public school. Luckily, the psalm comes from the Hebrew Bible so the two little Jewish boys in my class, Mark and Ira, didn’t mind. The Lord’s Prayer in school was another story. I was abruptly reminded that not everyone was required to memorize this psalm when I led my first funeral when I was in seminary. The pastor of the church where I worked was in the UK when a 102 year-old member died. At her graveside I asked the gathered family and friends to say this psalm with me and was stunned to observe that no one under thirty knew it. So I learned early on that if you want all the mourners to say the 23rd Psalm, you’d better print it.

Although it’s very comforting to hear or recite this psalm at a funeral, it’s more important that we view it as a psalm about living a radical life centered in God and God’s way. So this morning I’d like us to consider the richness of this familiar poem. Scholar Walter Brueggemann says this about Psalm 23: “It is almost pretentious to comment on this psalm. The grip it has on biblical spirituality is deep and genuine. It is such a simple statement that it can bear its own witness without comment. It is, of course, a psalm of confidence. It recounts in detail, by means of rich metaphors, a life lived in trustful receptivity of God’s gifts.”

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. In ancient times, monarchs were known as shepherds. So for the psalmist to say the “Lord is my shepherd” was to declare loyalty to God and one’s intention to live under God’s reign. But for me, this verse is more than that. Some years ago when this psalm came around as the lectionary text, I realized that this one sentence could be a life-long statement of faith: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Period. I suspect that if we held to this affirmation on a day-to-day basis, everything else in our lives could flow from it.

Yet I have to say this with a caveat. It is challenging, but possible for me as a white, middle class, educated, first-world Christian to say this could be my statement of faith. But what if you’re a father in Syria struggling to protect your children from the war or a woman of color in inner-city Chicago trying to keep her son alive until adulthood or parents in northern Nigeria whose daughter has been kidnapped by Boko Haram? Can they say, “I shall not want?” I believe many oppressed people have a much deeper faith in the goodness of the Holy One than I do and I do not speak for them. One of the most important aspects of my seminary education came from a book entitled, “Reading from this Place: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in Global Perspective.” It taught me in a powerful way that where one is located socially and geographically impacts the way we read scripture – and everything else for that matter.

Consequently, I will be the first to say that in many settings in the world, “the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” can sound very naïve. So this morning I can speak only from my own social location that this could be a significant statement of faith for me, and perhaps for you as well. Its parallel can be found in the old hymn, “Great is Thy Faithfulness” where the refrain says, “All I have needed thy hand hath provided…” This first verse of Psalm 23 is an expression of a simple trust that I find refreshing in our complex world. It’s an affirmation that first and foremost, we can choose to live humbly and gratefully as a child of God. We can choose a radical life centered in God and God’s way.
Over its 134-year history, this congregation has made numerous hard decisions. Many of them have been visionary and life-giving, but they have still been hard. Through all of these decisions, Pullen has not wanted for wise leadership and discerning members of this community who held themselves together when they felt called to go against the prevailing winds of the culture. This includes decisions to elect female deacons in the 1920’s; to welcome African Americans in the South of the 1950’s; to stop requiring Christians from other denominations to be immersed, thereby affirming the meaning of their baptism as infants; to ordain a women to the ministry in 1979; to purchase property – or not – and expand or repair this old building; to fully include members of the LGBTQ community which attracted protestors and brought national media attention and denominational exclusion in addition to the loss of beloved members of the Pullen family; to change our model of pastoral leadership; and, most recently, to become a sanctuary church – just to name a few of the hard places this congregation has been. I hope those of you who were around for any of these conversations had a sense that you did not lack what you needed to be as wise and discerning as a group could be together in those difficult places. From this location in 2018, this certainly seems to be the case. You have so many times been ahead of the curve – a curve that represents the arc of the moral universe that bends toward justice.

You make me lie in green pastures and lead me beside still waters. You restore my soul and leads me in right paths for your name’s sake. Verses 2 and 3 further explain how the poet’s needs are met. For sheep, to lie down in green pastures is to have food. To be led beside still water represents having something to drink. To be directed down right paths avoids danger. So the restoration of my soul provides not just a spiritual well-being, but an embodied nourishment and safety as well. The psalmist wants us to know that being kept alive for God’s name’s sake is consistent with God’s fundamental character. This character includes a deep concern not just for our souls, but for our minds and our bodies as well.

Let me say just a word about the term “righteousness” because those of you who have the psalm committed to memory know that the King James Version mentions not “right paths” but rather “paths of righteousness.” The word “righteousness” has gotten a bad rap over the years because we’ve been taught that it refers to strict rules of behavior. When we speak of someone being “righteous,” it’s typically not a compliment. But the Hebrew words from which this English term comes don’t refer to a Puritanical restriction on one’s behavior. Rather it’s about restoring right relationships, which is one of God’s primary tasks. So whether we talk about right paths or righteousness, the path the Holy One wants us to follow is fundamentally one where relationships between us and God, and with our fellow creatures are held sacred and they are always being restored. One writer interprets it this way: “You lead me in the path of goodness to follow Love’s way.”
Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff – they comfort me. I think this verse is the most moving portion when we read or recite this psalm at a memorial service. Whether you have known for months or even years that your loved one’s life is slipping away or it’s a sudden, tragic shock, losing those who are beloved to us is very difficult. Facing the future without them can look like darkness or, as one interpretation says, “deep darkness.” For the psalmist, even in a threatening situation, God’s provision is sufficient. Brueggemann explains it this way: “God’s steadfastness and goodness is found adequate in the face of every threat to life. This psalm can recall situations of threat, but the poet knows that the powerful solidarity of Yahweh more than overrides the threat. The whole memory of Israel presses the psalmist toward trust…It is God’s companionship that transforms every situation. It does not mean that there are no deathly valleys, no enemies…”

In my years with you, I have watched some of you walk through very dark days. Your strength and humility and perseverance have been an inspiration. It has been moving to observe that, in your grief, you were hanging on to faith and love and hope as best you could. I have also witnessed others in this community trying to accompany and support fellow Pullenites when they were walking through the “valley of the shadow of death.” As a church or as individuals and certainly as staff, we never do this perfectly. I know there have been times when members of this faith family have felt alone and we did not provide what you needed from us. But I believe there have been many more days when our people have felt the love and support of their Pullen family. There have been so many times when you embodied “God’s tender, faithful presence and the depth of God’s great love.”

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Here the poet depicts God as a gracious host providing food and drink like the shepherd. God’s character is to provide for God’s people. Love and mercy are at the heart of who God is. Hospitality is the hallmark. Regardless of the threats posed by the world, at God’s table we can be safe. The companion image to what the psalmist describes is, of course, our communion table. We Baptists have historically focused on communion as a memorial meal remembering the Last Supper and Jesus’ death, which is a meaningful but narrow understanding of this special ritual. Like the preparation of a meal in the presence of enemies, our communion table represents God’s commonwealth where all are fed.

At this moment in history, the image of spreading a table for all is critical for our common life. We constantly hear about building walls to keep people out; sending long-time residents away from our communities; and allowing fewer newcomers in. So we need this image of a table spread for all. God’s way is not one of hunkering down but of opening up. “Psalm 23 knows that evil is present in the world,” says Brueggemann, “but it is not feared. Confidence in God is the source of a new orientation.”

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long. I have to tell you that I can’t read this passage without recalling the day that Felicia suggested if we ever had three cats, we should name them Shirley, Goodness and Mercy. More seriously, in considering this verse, I admit that I like the King James Version: “…and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Forever” seems longer – and more comforting – than the length of my life. One version says, “I will dwell in the heart of the Beloved forever.”

This verse has an obvious individual dimension and could be heard as self-focused. “But the “I” statements are filled with gratitude, yielding, trust, and thanksgiving,” says Brueggemann. “It calls us not to simply claim personal, individual assurance but to take our place with others in the household of God.” This means the personal promise that goodness and mercy will follow me is experienced in the community of God’s people who also dwell in the house of the Lord. Staying in the sanctuary can represent remaining close to God. But by necessity, it also includes staying close to God’s people. If I’m here and each of you is here, we’ve got a crowd and we have to learn to be a community if we’re going to stay together here our whole lives long.

An important thing to note about this verse is the word “follow.” One scholar suggested that the Hebrew word used for “follow” would be better translated as “pursue.” That is, God’s goodness and mercy actively pursue us. One of many valuable things I learned by attending a United Methodist seminary is the Wesleyan concept of “prevenient grace.” This is grace that comes before we are even aware of it. It’s the belief that God is constantly wooing us to come closer – to be in deeper relationship with God. Now if your idea of God is a cosmic, non-personalized one, this may seem odd. But I have to say that one of my core beliefs is that God, in a mysterious way I’ll never understand, is always working to draw us in – each of us – all of us – all the time. That’s what love does. It pursues closeness and connection and works against disconnection.

“I will dwell in God’s house my whole life long,” the confident psalmist proclaims. One of the many gifts I received from my parents is a love for the Church in general and, since I became a member of this congregation, this church in particular. I watched my parents stay connected to their faith community through good times and bad; through preachers who weren’t very good at preaching and through at least one staff member’s affair. They endured arguments over everything from the color of the paint and the carpet to whether they should buy more property all the way through a decision to tear down what my father believed was a perfectly suitable sanctuary to build a bigger one. Through it all, they stayed engaged. Now I know there are times when some folks need to take a break from church or even leave for good. I honor those decisions. But I am so grateful that my parents modeled this constancy for me – that they continued to be present with people who got on their nerves and disagreed with them when it would have been so much easier to just pick up and leave. I think because they believed God is always faithfully present they remained faithfully present to their community of God’s people. It’s why they chose to dwell in God’s house their whole lives long. This is called the spiritual practice of stability. It’s a rare commodity these days, but it’s a discipline that teaches us how to love in maturing, life-giving ways.

I have many hopes for this congregation in my final days in this role – too many to name. But I will share one. It is my hope that in the months and years to come, this congregation, all of you, will be able to instill in our young people a love for the Church – not a blind obedience to whatever you tell them, but a persistent, curious, patient, inspiring relationship with the work of God’s people in this place or in another faith community of whatever flavor they choose. Recently we have been proud of our teenagers in how they have responded to the Parkland school shooting by taking a stand for sane gun laws just as they have made us proud many time before. Today it’s even more critical that they continue to see the Church as a serious actor in this and other important issues impacting their world. We need them, and I believe in this confusing culture, they need us. So I pray that you will help them feel not like a stranger or a guest here at Pullen, but like a child at home.

Henry Nouwen once said, “My deepest vocation is to be a witness to the glimpses of God I have been allowed to catch.” Like my parents and others along the way, you have offered me moving glimpses of God in these 17 years we have been together. On so many occasions, you have showed me what a radical life centered in God looks like. You have embodied God’s faithful presence and great love. I only hope I have been able to be a witness to my own Holy glimpses in ways that been helpful to you. Always remember that like the psalmist, I have confidence in what you and God will do in the years to come. Knowing you, working with you, loving you and with you, loving the God who wants wholeness for every person and all of creation has been an honor and a privilege. Thank you all for this great gift – and thanks be to God.

This Isaac Watts poem, slightly updated, expresses the simple trust that Psalm 23 communicates:

My shepherd will supply my need,
Jehovah is God’s name;
In pastures fresh God makes me feed,
Beside the living stream.

God brings my wand’ring spirit back
When I forsake God’s ways;
And leads me, for God’s mercy’s sake,
In paths of truth and grace.

When I walk through the shades of death,
Your presence is my stay;
A word of your supporting breath
Drives all my fears away.

Your hand, in sight of all my foes,
Does still my table spread,
My cup with blessings overflows,
Your oil anoints my head.

The sure provisions of my God
Attend me all my days:
O may your house be my abode,
And all my work be praise!

There would I find a settled rest,
While others go and come;
No more a stranger or a guest,
But like a child at home.