This sermon was delivered on June 13, 2015 at St. George's Episcopal Church in Bismarck, ND. It was during Evening Prayer. The text is from Psalm 23.
At
dinner one night we were discussing the readings for this evening. When I mentioned that one reading was Psalm
23, my husband Jeff, said, “Don’t preach on that! It’s too depressing.” Our daughter retorted, “No, dad. It’s about hope that God will be with
us.” I smiled inside, because I have to
agree with Erin. Psalm 23 is about
knowing God is with us in all things and at all times.
Rabbi
Harold Kushner wrote a book about this Psalm.
In it, he reminds readers that though this is a Psalm of David, there is
no way to identify who the author is.
Kushner believes the author has experienced some sort of tragedy or loss
in his life where he is in despair.
Through the writing of the Psalm, the writer learns that God is with
him, supporting and restoring him throughout this trauma. God cannot undo what has been done, but God
will be present throughout the writer’s life.
In
his forward, Kushner wrote: “God’s
promise was never that life would be fair.
God’s promise was that, when we had to confront the unfairness of life,
we would not have to do it alone for He would be with us.”[1] I believe this is the overarching message of
this psalm and it is invariably the most important thing any one of us needs to
know.
But sometimes we forget.
We
forget because we let life get too busy, with too many things on the calendar,
too many responsibilities, too much work. We are continually bombarded with images that
tell us how to do more, be better, and to go…go…go.
So
we need to be reminded every once in a while about God being with us in all
things.
The
book Rabbi Kushner wrote, The Lord is My Shepherd, is only 175 pages
long. It’s a great book for a Bible
study because each line of Psalm 23 is the focus of each chapter. Chapter Six talks about the line: He restores
my soul. In a nutshell, it’s about
creating Sabbath, that place where our souls understand our interconnectedness
with the Holy; where we take time to be in relationship with our God and with
people who help feed our understanding of God; where we stop the busy-ness of
living and take time to, as the rabbi says, “nourish our souls” because we need
to “rely on the wisdom of the soul to guide our working and our living hours”
(61).
We
need to stop. We need to lie in green
pastures and spend time near still waters.
We need to take a vacation!
Why? Because even God stopped on the seventh day
to rest, to replenish what was depleted in the process of creating.
A
few weeks ago, we took a vacation to Yellowstone. While there we basked in the glory of
creation: the snow-capped mountains, the green fields, the babbling brooks and
massive Yellowstone Lake. We drove on
roads with buffalo walking alongside us.
We stopped to admire big horned sheep, elk, antelope, foxes … and a
jackrabbit. We walked on trails
surrounded by the new growth of Lodge pole pines growing throughout the
park—trees that would never grow had it not been for the fires that opened the
pine cones and revealed the seeds. And we
were reminded of the magnitude of God’s creation.
Throughout
our trip we marveled at the uniqueness of this place with the misty sulfur
fields emitting a rotten egg smell in the midst of an amazing sunset; of the
geysers; of the many varieties of moss.
We took over 400 photos, trying to save the beauty in a snapshot so that
our minds would be free enough to welcome the next scenic overlook.
What
was most amazing was that we were able to empty our minds of the “stuff” that
zaps our creativity; that causes worry and concern; that burdens our daily walk
and distracts us from our relationship with God. We didn’t worry about weaknesses or about
authority figures.
And
we found God in all of it. We, as the
saying goes, “Let go and let God.” We
lived in a state of Sabbath.
Our souls were restored.
I
ask you to think about these questions:
Is
it well with your soul?
Is your soul in
need of Sabbath?
Though
our vacation became a Sabbath, it is not enough. God wants us to regularly stop so that we can
be the best we can be for God. We do
better, are more healthy physically, emotionally and spiritually, and are able
to give more fully if we take time to let our souls be restored.
There
is no specific rule about Sabbath. Can
you set aside time each day or each week to rest your weary soul, to restore
the gifts God has given you? Do you
already? How does your practice of
Sabbath restore you?
By
engaging in Sabbath, we are given the opportunity to be reminded that God is
with us, no matter what. No. Matter.
What.
Let us pray.
O God of Creation, you have
given us so many opportunities in this life to be your people. Help us when we are overextending ourselves
to remember to stop and be in your presence.
Give us grace and courage to say “no” to other obligations when it is
time for Sabbath. Restore our souls,
dear God. Amen.
[1] Harold S. Kushner, The
Lord Is My Shepherd: Healing Wisdom of the Twenty-Third Psalm (New York: Knopf, 2003), 3.