April 25, 2010

A Sermon for Easter 4, Good Shepherd Sunday

Psalm 23

So when you and god woke up this morning what was it like? Do you remember dreaming together, lying next to each other? Do you and god ever sleep together like spoons? I knew a woman once who would tell me stories about her husband, Ramone--long dead--she told me one time about how they slept like spoons. When you and god woke up this morning could you feel each other’s presence like spoons laid neatly in the silverware drawer? Was there a conscious greeting or maybe just the peaceful, easy company of the other’s presence? When you and god slipped on a robe, put on your pants, felt around with your foot for a shoe--a slipper, were you still shaking off sleep or had the business of the day already called you into action? Did you have the luxury of waking without an alarm or were you summoned into consciousness by a baby’s crying or the sound of children or maybe a dog sniffing politely at the edge of your bed?

When you and god woke up this morning, after you’d been to the bathroom, after you’d shaved, fixed your hair, brushed your teeth, as you started this day together what plans did you make? Were your plans grand and hopeful? tentative? ambitious? Did you speak about the day to come or did you both just know its expectations and step into it? Sometimes companionship needs words but at other times knowing comes easier than speaking. When you and god woke up this morning did you share a glance, a conspiratorial smile maybe as you set out into your day.

When you and god woke up this morning, what was it like?

I have spent the last two days at a workshop listening to Matthew Fox, theologian, mystic, friend of the earth, teacher. I came away with a renewed sense that god is everywhere, that god is in us and with us and that there is no part of our lives or our world or any world we can imagine that is not contained within god. god is everywhere, in everything, permeating our lives. It is a simple message, but one that I easily forget. Our spiritual ancestors knew it. “Where can I run from your love,” asks the psalmist. “If I climb to the mountains you are there.” god is always near, as close as our breath, but it is so easy to begin believe that we are separated from god.

Maybe we begin by imagining that little bits of our lives are not acceptable to God, or they are not exactly what we might want for ourselves--from ourselves--so we try to hide that bit of ourselves from the one-from-whom-nothing-can-be-hidden. I hope that somewhere in your life experience you know what it is like to look back on such a time of hiding having learned that god, the universe, the people in your life are more accepting than you had expected. Wherever we are, wherever we go, whether we are laughing, crying, dancing, even when we think we’re hidden from god, god is there.

Many of us had a chance to learn this lesson early on in our life as Christians. The message of the unescapable presence and companionship of god is imbedded in one of the best known psalms from our tradition. When I was a kid, I knew two rote ways of speaking to god. One was the Lord’s prayer which pretty much everyone knew, and the other was the twenty-third psalm which I only kind of knew, often mixing up the parts about the table and the cup running over. I don’t know if I would know the twenty-third psalm--though I am sure it is the best known psalm in the book--unless I had had my tonsils out when I was twelve. In the only piece of spiritual advice I ever remember receiving from my father, he told me as I was going into the hospital that when he was about to be operated on he recited the twenty-third psalm and it helped. In what I’m sure was one of the few times I ever took his advice I did my best to learn the psalm, and sure enough; it helped me as they wheeled me into the operating room. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want……..he leads me beside still waters…..

I thought of this psalm as a call to bring god close in times of trouble or fear or danger. What I missed, what I think many of us miss, having been warned in church about the dangers of separating ourselves from god--as if that were possible--what I missed was this psalm’s message about just how deeply we are imbedded in the life of god and how close god is to us. Listen.

The Lord is my shepherd;

I shall not be in want.

Shepherds don’t leave their sheep. They sleep with them, protect them, take responsibility for their welfare. That is what we are meant to take from all the shepherd references we hear on this fourth Sunday in Easter, sometimes called Good Shepherd Sunday.

He makes me lie down in green pastures

and leads me beside still waters.

In the best times of our lives, says the psalmist, when there is no perceived danger or trouble, even when we might tend to forget our need of god, god from whom we can not be separated is not only present, but leading us.

He revives my soul

and guides me along right pathways for his Name's sake.

At the center of our being god is at work restoring, renewing us, helping us--urging us to choose well our path.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I shall fear no evil;

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Our awareness of god’s presence doesn’t begin with being rescued in times of trouble. The god who accompanies us through the hardest parts of life--doesn’t remove us from trouble, but walks through it with us--the god who accompanies us through the hardest parts of our lives is an old friend, a companion we have known from the beginning. We don’t need to call god into the hard moments, but simply remember that we have never been nor will we ever be alone.

You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me;

I don’t know about you, but most of the time when I think someone is troubling me, it is because somehow in my exchange with that person I lose my sense of grounding, I forget for a moment who I am, I lose confidence in some aspect of my being. In the presence of enemies we are told that our responses are fight or flight. I wonder this morning what it would be like, in the midst of some heated argument, to imagine, to picture god right there with us setting a table of fine food, good silver, cloth napkin….maybe the on those goofy place mats from Disney World. To imagine finding our grounding in such times in a table prepared by our absolutely unflappable companion.

you have anointed my head with oil, and my cup is running over.

Can we even stand the thought of being treated like royalty by our divine friend? Can we stand still and let ourselves be made into kings and queens in god’s presence. That is quite a challenge to the arguments we sometimes make about how unworthy we can be to have such a friend.

Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

...and I will dwell in the house of he Lord forever. I don’t know how long forever is, but I would assume it has to contain at least this moment and the next. I think maybe the psalmist is telling us that we live, even now, in this very moment, as close to god as we can get. Didn’t Jesus tell us that the kingdom of god is not out there, but all around us and within us?

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

We can not be separated from our divine friend, the god who walks, eats, breaths, laughs, plays, cries, dreams, loves with us.

And so I ask again. When you and god woke up this morning, what was it like?

JB

Just a note about the little g in god. When I preached this on Sunday, no one knew the g was lower case. The little g seemed right because of the familiarity of the god with whom we sleep and wake. The French Prayer Book uses the familiar form of “you” in speaking to god. I had never considered the theological implications of this simple choice. The Matthew Fox workshop put me in touch with the very familiar god, and though I am still a bit uncomfortable with the small g, it feels like a good, growing discomfort so I will leave it as it is.