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This sermon was given by Rev. Judith Campbell at the service held on January 6, 2005, at Stevens Memorial Chapel. The Enduring message of the 23rd Psalm"THE LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Several of you have requested that I preach on the Bible from time to time. So this year, I told you that I would do this. In the first talk that I did, I mentioned the 23rd psalm and actually spoke the beginning words of it but did not say the whole thing. An interesting thing happened that day when I started to say the words of the psalm…and it just happened again. Many of you settled down…you relaxed, many of you your dropped your shoulders from the customary raised and tense position. Many more of you shut your eyes and let words that you have known from your childhood comfort…and yes…protect you….and a few of you recited those lovely and time honored words along with me because you learned them by heart at your mother or grandmother’s knee or you learned them in Sunday school and were rewarded, perhaps with a ribbon or a medal or a bible bookmark. These are powerful words. They take many of us to place and a time when we believed we were protected by something all powerful and all knowing…a good shepherd…who looked after all of his sheep and would never let even one of them stray…very far, and who would not rest until the stray lamb had been returned to the flock. As adults, whether we admit it or not, we long to be protected…to be safe…to know there is a safe harbor, and that we are safely in it….or we are at least headed directly/set on a straight course towards it. But as we all know to well, life is not safe, sure or predictable. We look for, or do what we can to create a structure which will provide some sort of stability and security. Ideally, family is the most immediate and the most basic, but we all know, that the even the family unit is not a stable entity any longer. We turn to Church communities, fraternal and social organizations. In our parents and grandparents day, business used to be secure….you apprenticed with a company and stayed with that company….or in the trade of your father until your son took over for you Sudden illness, human accidents and natural disasters, the terrorist attack on 9/11 and most recently the incomprehensible devastation of the tsunami remind us that everything we treasure can be swept away from us in an instant, and it is terrifying. “The lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” Most Unitarian Universalists prefer to think in terms of self reliance. We set our course. We make our choices. We make the bed we will lie in, and if the bed turns out be an uncomfortable one, we set about making in more comfortable or we decide to get a new one. We do not think in terms of a Deus ex machina, some external mechanical deity who will come out of the heavenly wings off our human stage and make everything turn out right. We do not often turn over the responsibilities of our living to someone or something else….or do we? We might like to, but most of us find it hard to impossible, and not at all acceptable to the way we were raised. We fend for ourselves, pull ourselves up by our OWN boot straps Yet so many religions and religious philosophies encourage their members to “lay their burden down” at the feet of the lord.…as much as we might like to, our reason based and intellectually elite religion says “no way Jose”…I’m in charge, and I’m keeping it that way. It’s my burden, and I’ll do with it what I like. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Maybe it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Maybe there is a way we fiercely independent cautiously religious intellectuals can find/get to a place of spiritual safety and comfort.
Consider the worldwide and universal success and accessibility of the 12 step program of recovery from addiction to self destruction. The first step says we admit we are powerless over our addiction and the second says that we have turned to a power greater than ourselves for help. That second does not name a specific deity…although many people in recovery use the word God…there are significant numbers who do not, and are still made whole and healthy again through the love and acceptance of the group and through the power of program. The theology and the power of the 12 step program is based on acceptance of your own powerlessness over your problem and the acceptance of a higher power….something greater than ourselves of which we are an integral and vital part. I can easily read our seventh principle into that, and think of the interconnected web of all existence of which we are a part. Anonymous group members who do not use the word God, will sometimes use the word love, or the group as that entity which is greater than themselves and from which they gather strength and experience safety. This is not ever intended to mean a lack of personal responsibility for one’s behavior. It is admitting that whatever is troubling you is more than you can handle by yourself, and by admitting it, first of all to yourself, then you are ready to be helped, to be spiritually cleansed and refreshed. To walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil. I believe those of us who do not use the bible as our religious and spiritual authority can still find much in it of lasting value and inspiration. Earlier I read two interpretations of the 23rd Psalm…a native American one, and one written by a man of the sea. Allow me please to go where angels fear to tread, and take those beloved and time honored words and look into them with my Unitarian Universalist heart and words.
"THE LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. The universe/cosmos is so vast, and I am so small/infinitesimal, and yet I trust there is an order to it all and that I am part of that order. I rest and I am refreshed in the beauty of nature He restoreth my soul. When I let myself stand and look into the still surface of a pond or a lake, I am able to see the reflected depth of human experience and the beauty of the natural world around me, and my soul and my spirit are refreshed and made whole once again. I am able to see the right and wrong way of being a human, and out of respect for all living things and the planet we share, I am reminded that the tiniest thing that I do affects us all. One day all living things will die. I am comforted knowing that there is a greater order and harmony to our living and our dying that I can comprehend, but in choosing to trust it, I am comforted. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. There are times when it seems that everything and everyone is in opposition to me, and I am filled with anger and fear. It is then when I most need to recall the words of this psalm and look at the many experiences of this of life as personal strengths and blessings. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever." Goodness and mercy will only follow me all the days of my life, if I practice goodness and Mercy all of the days of my life, to the best of my frail human ability. If I can do that, then whatever happens I know I will have done my best and said “yes” to life…and whatever follows it.
There will be days in my life when my own more contemporary interpretation will be what I need to get me through, but I promise you, there will be just as many days and times when the elegant, even archaic beauty of the traditional words and the singular cadence of the language of the King James version will be the only thing on Gods green earth that will comfort me. And I will remember that my cup will ever… runneth over with goodness and mercy, because I want it to and I believe it will. A prayer for the New Year.
Lead me to the quiet places O God of my soul and my understanding And there may I be comforted knowing that I am not alone.
Let me find in the quiet of my heart those things which remind me of the reverence I have for the gifts of life which I so often ignore in my “doing” rather than my “being”.
Let me remember the value of friends And let me remember to ask them for help in time of need.
Let me remember the power of love And let me not turn away from love when it is offered.
Help me to remember that no person is ever so tall as when he or she bends down to help someone who has fallen.
Help me to remember the beauty and promise of the spring When I am in the midst of a long dark winter.
Help me to learn the wisdom that others have to offer By listening with my heart.
Help me to give and to forgive even before it is asked of me.
Help me to put my stubborn ego aside And receive help graciously.
Help me to know when to hold fast to something And more importantly, when to let go.
Help me to be present to the moment in a universe that is careening towards an unknown future
Help me to see the world in a grain of sand and find the flower in the crannied wall Before it is too late
Lead me to the quiet places O God of my soul and my understanding And there may I be comforted, knowing ...I am not alone.
Amen. Judith Campbell Early January, 2005
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