Promises in Psalm 23

Passage for reflection: Psalm 23 

This Sunday the lectionary includes Psalm 23, perhaps the most well known and best loved of all 150 Psalms in the Psalter. There will be many sermons preached on Sunday about sheep and about God being a shepherd and leading us to green pasture and rescuing us from our waywardness. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” 

I’ve grown to love and depend on the Psalms over the past few years. When you have no words of your own to pray, the prayers of the Psalmist remind us there is no life experience or emotion we cannot bring before God. The Psalms are amazingly honest. The rawness of human existence is named, but that rawness is met by the care and dependability of God.  

The American monk and activist Thomas Merton once wrote: “The secret of prayer is hunger for God. The will to pray is the essence of prayer.” We bring what we feel and place it in the hands of God who is big enough to cope with us! I was taught a long time ago that the most important word in a Psalm might well be “but”. My day is rubbish God, I don’t know what’s going on, but I trust you and I know you are there, so come on, do something! 

Psalm 23 is full of promises, certainties, and is a divine roadmap out of bad times into a new reality of deep joy. I want to leave the shepherd bit to Sunday’s preachers, and look at three other bits of the Psalm we often don’t dwell on. 

First, this verse. 

“Even though I walk through the valley of shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” 

Someone whose husband died suddenly said  “I never realised the twenty-third psalm was about me. I thought it was about my husband, but it’s not. I’m the one walking through the valley of the shadow of death.”

For each of us, there comes a time when we realise we are walking through the valley of the shadow of death. It might be the death of a loved one, the recognition of our own mortality, the death of a dream. What comfort is there in this darkness? Why not fear evil? The psalmist says there is something of God upholding us—that God is with us in the midst of the dark valleys of this life. I often say at a funeral service we need to note we don’t die in the valley, we are led through it, which brings me to the second promise. 

“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. My cup overflows.” 

I love the fact the Psalmist is lead out of the valley into an eternity of delight with God, an eternity of feasting and abundance. There’s nothing nicer than being satisfied by a good meal. I’m nicely full as I write this. We had to go into Harrogate this evening and we got some lovely Thai food full of flavours and ate it in the car in a lay-by on the A59! The feast in eternity with God is a banquet. And where is it? In the presence of my enemies! 

Even if we have walked through a dark valley, perhaps the darkest of all valleys ever, God will lead us through it so we successfully  reach the other side. The danger will be behind us and we  will transition into His marvellous light.

It is then, after we leave the valley, we  will find His holy table. The table illustrates abundance, satisfaction, and everlasting love. God’s people can feast at His table of endless love and grace and no enemy of any sort can ever take it away. And our cup overflows! At communion we speak of it being a foretaste of the heavenly banquet prepared for all people. Then we give out really tiny cubes of bread and small glasses of wine!! 

A valley walked through, a banquet overflowing with generosity where enemies are shown the grace and fun of God putting them back in their selfish and evil box, and then this:

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.” 

Walter Brueggemann, in his book, The Message of The Psalms, categorizes all 150 psalms into one of three movements—orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. Each of these movements exemplify a fragment of the human experience:

I. Orientation: when everything feels right and content in our lives.

II. Disorientation: when life feels difficult, dark, and broken. There is lament. There is despair.

III. Re-Orientation: when God pulls us out of the brokenness of life and we are brought to a deeper sense of awareness and gratitude.

Brueggemann argues that we go through rhythms of orientation to disorientation to re-orientation—it is part of the natural human experience. The end of this Psalm has us exclaim “surely”. We know where our faith leads: to dwell with God for ever, to know God’s goodness and mercy every day, to journey even in uncertainty confidently. 

Brueggemann further writes, “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.”

So let me end like this having highlighted three promises in the six verses of the Psalm and not mentioning the sheep bit at all.  From the Feasting on the Word series, in his advice for how to preach this passage, pastor David Burns writes, “One way to approach preaching Psalm 23 is not to preach it.  Just read it slowly—preferably in the King James Version—and then sit down.” Over the next few days, why not find a quiet place and do that. What does this ancient prayer do to you? 

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:

He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul:

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil; for thou art with me:

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:

Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

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. 

Proving what you say

Passage for reflection: Luke 24: 36b - 48 

How do you trust someone? How do you persuade yourself their story is credible? Life is full of experts who try to convince you they know what they are talking about. We usually judge people on whether they really know what they are talking about by how convinced we are they have immersed themselves in the area of life they are sharing with us. 

How do people trust those of us who are church? How do they persuade themselves our story is credible? People want to know we know what we are talking about and whether we are immersed in authentic, genuine, earthy Christianity that understands where they find themselves. It’s easy to be dismissed as shallow if we really can’t enter someone’s world and we offer them trite and unhelpful platitudes. Like Job in the Old Testament found, empty words and little idea about stuff will be challenged by God: “who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”

I remember a vicar in Brighton once telling me about a service he took one Sunday morning when mid sermon a man came in the church very vocally asking for help. One of the congregation got up to try and quieten him down as he was interrupting the worship. But this only made things worse. He yelled for everyone to hear; “You ha

haven’t got a clue. You haven’t got a ******* clue!” 

There’s a song that has the line in it “ I need to know that Christ can feel the need to touch and love and heal the world, including me.”

Although we have reached the third Sunday of Easter, the lectionary still has us on Easter evening. Luke has a Jesus coming to disciples like the other accounts but he emphasises Jesus being human. He has wounds, and he is hungry and he smells fish cooking. To airbrush crucifixion out of the story to make Easter prettier is not to show a credible Christ to a world that needs to know he knows something about being wounded. 

To know he knows what he is talking about helps us in our trust of him. 

Henri Nouwen painted Jesus as a wounded healer. He wrote in his book of that name “Nobody escapes being wounded. We all are wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. The main question is not “How can we hide our wounds?” so we don’t have to be embarrassed, but “How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?” When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers.

Jesus is God’s wounded healer: through his wounds we are healed. Jesus’ suffering and death brought joy and life. His humiliation brought glory; his rejection brought a community of love. As followers of Jesus we can also allow our wounds to bring healing to others.”

So how is the Church credible? By putting what we believe into action and by walking with people in their pain, entering the woundedness and helping people come out the other side of it. We mustn’t hide from real life. We need to admit to people times of our own vulnerability and give testimony to our wounds and then our healing. For me a wounded Jesus is worth following.

For a few years I was the minister at Ashington in West Sussex. I remember one evening arriving at Ashington with my projector bag and my laptop bag. There was a protest meeting in the hall about compost (don’t you love village life!) They thought I was there from the press to take their picture! "I am the minister of this church!" I exclaimed! We were in the church  - someone from the compost meeting said afterwards, "couldn't hear ourselves speak with all that singing in the church!" The community and the church didn’t interact. The village saw us a nice hall to hire. They didn’t think we had anything to offer them so we were just a noise interrupting their meeting. Of course the compost group and their like were the first to complain when the church had to close. 

The risen Jesus continues in real and vital relationship in the community of those who follow him. We have a real and vital relationship that transcends the limits of death, and that continues to be manifested in concrete acts of ministry, healing, teaching, learning, community compassion, and outreaching love.

And we are witnesses of it and it is real and it is to be trusted. Can people believe it through us or are we as relevant as I was in that chapel to folk who just needed a room to discuss compost?! 

Death is real - but remembering new life

Passage for reflection: John 20: 19 - 31 

Imagine if you will for a while something life changing happening, a huge moment no one expected, something your friends are so excited about – but you weren’t there. You missed it and now you cannot get your head round what they are telling you. You think they are having you on.

On the evening of the first Easter Day Jesus has come to the disciples huddled in the upper room in fear and he has given them peace and he has breathed on them with the gift of his Spirit. 

I want to think about Thomas and then us as we try to come to terms with the reality of Easter: that resurrection just happens, that new life out of seemingly desperate endings is God‘s way.

Thomas wasn’t there that evening. Where was he? Like all of them he’d been through the brutality of witnessing crucifixion. I wonder whether while most of them wanted to be together, maybe he just needed to be on his own in his grief. Remember when Jesus talked about going to Jerusalem to suffer and die, and the others wanted to go anywhere but there, it was Thomas who said “let us also go with him that we might die with him.” He’d been fiercely loyal to Jesus and so I reckon he was heartbroken. The reality of death was real.

And so it is. Yes, we have our faith in eternal life, we know the end of God’s plan for his people, but let’s be a honest shall we? When death comes, and we encounter it, it is really hard. We say death is nothing at all, in a poem to comfort us at funerals, but actually I’d like to take Henry Scott Holland in a corner and say actually, it isn’t nothing at all, it’s huge and it’s shattering.    

The time for hope comes but first people need to know we get their pain. 

Thinking about the Duke of Edinburgh, we give thanks for the life of a remarkable man who served his country faithfully and did all sorts of stuff, I want us to remember an elderly lady who is grieving a life partner of 73 years marriage who she has called her strength and stay. I want us to remember a family who mourn a father, grandfather and great grandfather. I want us to remember all those who have lost loved ones through this dreadful pandemic and are trying to pick up the pieces. 

Death is real. I’ve been fascinated since the announcement of the Duke’s passing of protocol that swings into action. D day was planned for ages. So suddenly there are decrees about flags at half mast, bells tolling in cathedrals 99 times, Parliament being recalled, and in the media all usual programming altered. Radio 2 as I wrote this yesterday afternoon were still playing music to suit the national mood,(Carpenters tracks) and I loved some of the teenagers who were listening to Radio 1 on Friday morning when suddenly a Lana Del Ray song had the National Anthem break into it. One wrote on Twitter they hadn’t a clue what was happening and thought we’d suddenly gone to war, and another later clearly bemused why the radio sounded different exclaimed “surely Prince Philip liked a bit of Dua Lipa.” We’ve been through the likes of Diana and the Queen Mother passing on, they had not. Death became suddenly real and unavoidable.

Thomas was full of death. So imagine his friends telling him Jesus was alive. He just couldn’t accept it. No one survives what Jesus went through and you don’t just walk through locked doors. So he asks for proof. “Unless I see, unless I feel his wounds, I will not believe.” I get him. How cruel to wind him up. He liked to ask questions. Remember when Jesus went on about being the Way and them knowing where he was going, it was Thomas who spoke up and said “We don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way? I don’t get it!”

 

A week later, Thomas sees Jesus. He gets the chance to do what he needs to, and he doubts no more. He is the first to offer a creed post Easter: “my Lord and my God.” What does he show us? Well, I think a Jesus who doesn’t deny death is a big deal, but who patiently shows people with questions he will answer them and show them a power in the world stronger than death. Questions and searching are okay with this Jesus. Death isn’t whitewashed out of the story. The pain is allowed to be voiced. 

And sometimes coming out of a horrible situation people need permission to share exactly where they are. Or they need to be allowed to emerge into a new reality slowly. 

There is in this encounter a word for us. Jesus says to Thomas “blessed are those who have not seen yet come to believe.” Then John the Gospel writer has some words about his editorial policy. “These stories are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing, you may have life in his name.” John has in his previous 19 and a bit chapters given signs about who Jesus is. Here, in this upper room, he reveals his true identity, and from this upper room, he calls the church to share him, yes, death is real, but he is the Lord of life and conqueror of death. Alleluia! 

I was interested to see in one of the programmes about the Duke on Friday night he’d written some books and one was on theology. The Guardian obituary confirmed this and his love of questioning!

“Clerics visiting Balmoral or Sandringham to preach Sunday sermons could be disconcerted by his beady-eyed scrutiny from the front pew and his close questioning over lunch afterwards.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury in his Easter sermon last Sunday thinking about us emerging out of our own lockdown and our own times of death: 

“Death is the greatest and most devastating liar. The lie that the final breath is the end, there is nothing more; the lie that we will always be separated from those we have loved, ultimately losing those we love for ever… of course death matters. It is brutal, terrible and cruel. But it lies when it claims to have the final word.” 

That’s what Thomas needed to hear. That’s the sure and certain faith the Queen holds on to, that’s the message that must come out of us, every day to a world and hurting people who really think death is it. For them, like Jesus did Thomas, can they be convinced through us to believe in Easter?

Easter Day - the gifts of Easter

Passage for reflection: John 20: 19 - 23 

 

I want us to think about Easter being a gift. We were given two vegan Easter eggs in the week by the folk at Boroughbridge which was very kind. We’ve given up chocolate for Lent so we may enjoy these later very much. To receive a gift, especially when you are not expecting it is one of life’s blessings, because we are remembered and appreciated through the act of giving. 

In our Gospel, we have a picture of the room where some of the disciples gather on the evening of the Sunday after the crucifixion. 

How are those men feeling? They are there with the doors safely bolted. They are petrified. The doors are locked for fear of the Jews. They are frightened because there might now be a search party out there looking for them and they might end up dying the same way as Jesus. How is Peter feeling? He’s denied Jesus even though he said he wouldn’t. How are the others feeling? Is there much conversation? Probably not. When you’ve been through shock and trauma there is a numbness in your body, for a while you are paralysed. Thomas isn’t there, and he will have his say later. I suggest to you the men are weary, bewildered, and unable to take any more.Sometimes when life kicks you hard all you can do is hide away. You can’t face your fear. You are mentally exhausted. So you lock yourself away. At junior school, being a desperately shy child, I used to hide in a toilet. The other children were scary! I have no memory of how they got me out of there. It’s like cats whenever there’s a vet appointment or a holiday in the cattery. Even before there’s a cat carrier in sight, they hide so they aren’t got. The safety and security of the hideaway is a better option than the alternative.

Imagine you are one of those men. Your head hurts, your brain is frazzled. We’ve been through a long Holy Week some of us of services and reflections, but it’s been a piece of cake compared to what they’ve been through. Everything they’ve invested in this Jesus has been destroyed. So they sit there directionless. And then Jesus stands among them…

 

How do you feel now? Your mind must be playing tricks. It can’t be him, they know he’s in a tomb most definitely dead. Perhaps we’ve nodded off and are dreaming or hallucinating. And how if it is him has he got through those doors? And now imagine you are Peter. This is a bit scary. What’s he doing to do with me, he wonders. 

Surely he will be angry, will accuse me of all sorts, want to avenge my broken promises.

 

What’s the first thing the risen Jesus gives to these poor souls? He gives them peace. “Peace be with you.“ He’s come through the doors in love, in mercy and with pardon. He shows them his hands and side where he was crucified to calm their doubts this isn’t some dream. Then he again gives them peace. The greatest gift for them in their state. They surely need peace. 

 

The first gift of Easter then is peace. In our fear, Jesus comes. This is our faith, that he comes into the mess we find ourselves in, in our turmoil and our upset and when we’ve made a pigs ear of life or we feel there is no future. “Peace be with you.” Where do you need peace today and where does the world? 

 

Then there’s a second Easter gift. Jesus in this room of heightened emotion doesn’t stop there. This lot have a job to do. Restoring relationship includes a new commission. They are to be his church. Flawed, unreliable, yes, but they are to be his church. Which is good news for us! There’s this lovely act. He breathes on them, and he says “receive the Holy Spirit.” We sometimes just remember the Holy Spirit coming at Pentecost loudly to a huge crowd. But here, Jesus quietly gives confidence to those who think they have no use to him at all. It’s a gentle reassuring gift which enables them to believe in themselves again. 

 

How does Easter come then?

Well, three images to think about.

Easter is a reality! And it comes when we’ve forgotten how to expect it. This morning around 6.30am, we drove up to Dallowgill to see the sun rise. The colours were extraordinary. The way of God is that there is always a new day, the sun rises to reveal new possibilities if only we will see them. I like the fact here in this story, Jesus stands among them.  

Then it is the nature of God to break into unexpected places. Those demoralised disciples did not expect resurrection, despite it being promised to them. In their grief, they were blind to the possibility of new life. You don’t expect someone you know is dead to come through a door and even more without unbolting them! 

 

I was putting the bin out the other day at the same time as Ann next door. We discussed the state of the world and then looked at the array of daffodils in her garden and in ours. She said “it just happens doesn’t it and it’s a good job it does.” Later that day Lis and I were in the back garden and noticed daffodils springing up in the middle of Fred’s compost heap. A sign that the divine is present even in the most awful and unhealthy of places.

 

And finally,  Easter is something to do. Can’t we have a few days off? Jesus sends them. They are to go out of lockdown and into the world that they were frightened of, but they would now not be alone. The day of resurrection, earth tell it out abroad!  As I think Pope John Paul II said “ We are an Easter people, and Alleluia is our song.“

 

“Peace be with you” Jesus grants us peace and breathes the breath of life into us. On Easter evening, remember we have the courage, the strength, and the peace to walk in God’s love. Easter gives us gifts. Peace and life are Jesus gifts to us and to all people, especially those who are fearful, today and for all time.

Holy Saturday - Where is God now?

We reach Saturday on our Holy Week journey. The world calls this “Easter Saturday” but it isn’t Easter yet... 

I ended my Good Friday liturgy yesterday with silence. I’m not sure that was expected. What do you do after you’ve encountered the cross? There are no words. I wonder what Jesus’ friends did on the Sabbath. Those who had fled in fear were presumably in the upper room with the door firmly bolted. I suspect there were few words but a collective numbness. Jesus’ mother had presumably gone home with John, having been entrusted to his care. I suspect they just held each other. The authorities presumably breathed a sigh of relief. They had managed to destroy this heretical rebel as a example to others who might dare to challenge them. And what of the women? They presumably spent the day planning to make the sad journey to his tomb to pay their respects and share their memories and mourning together. 

Where is Jesus on this Saturday? 

Jesus was crucified, killed, yesterday. His body was placed in a tomb. A great stone was placed over the tomb. Then comes the next day, Holy Saturday, and the tomb is sealed, guarded, and made secure. (Matthew 27:57-66)

On Holy Saturday we want to know what’s next or if there will even be a next. Is the tomb the end? We want to know like the characters battered by this week if there is life after this loss. Is there life after Holy Saturday? Holy Saturday is a day of tears and prayers. Where is God? Where is Jesus on this Saturday?

Remember what the Apostles’ Creed says. “He was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead.” Or as another translation says, “He descended into hell.” And that is so beautifully portrayed in the Church’s iconography. It’s called the Harrowing of Hell. That’s where Jesus is on the Holy Saturday of your life.

Look at the icon what do you see? It’s Jesus breaking open the graves, bringing out Adam and Eve, the images and representatives of all people. And there at the bottom is the personification of death tied and bound up. And the locks and keys and chains of death have been broken and scattered.  

In the Holy Saturday of our life Jesus descends into the dead and hellish parts of your life, “trampling down death by death, and giving life to those in the tomb.”

I found this reflection:

In life Holy Saturday is also the next day, the day after.

It is the day after the funeral.
It is the day after the body has been buried.
It is the day after the relationship ended.
It is the day after the dream was shattered.
It is the day after we tried and failed.
It is the day after the diagnosis.
It is the day after the tragedy.
It’s the day after we admitted our life was a mess.
It is the day after we realised life is not going the way we planned or intended.
It is the day after we made the wrong decision.
It is the day after our life was forever changed in ways we neither asked for or nor wanted.

Holy Saturday is the day after. It’s a day of silence, stillness, and waiting. There’s not much to say or do on Holy Saturday. The tomb has been made secure and the only thing certain is that things have changed and something has been lost. Holy Saturday is a day of not knowing. There are no answers; only a question, but it’s a day we hold on to hope. No one can take away our right to hope. 

I was grateful to Jan, a member of our church at Boroughbridge church for ringing me up at lunchtime yesterday and telling me Premier Christian Radio were having a Good Friday service from Lindisfarne. In that service, the vicar, Sarah used the poem “Double take” by Seamus Heaney. Part of the poem goes like this:

History says, Don't hope
on this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
the longed for tidal wave
of justice can rise up,
and hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.

Believe! Even in the darkness and in the tears and in the waiting and in the questioning and in the rawness. Today is for people living the reality of the day after. And sometimes the day after turns into the week after and the months after and the year after. The events of life can be mentally challenging for a long time. They say don’t hope on this side of the grave. But while we struggle in the unknowing today, Jesus is working away harrowing the gates of hell bursting them open for ever. Death will be no more! 

We will see that. But I’m glad today we have a day in our liturgy when those of us who need to know we are remembered in days after or in long periods of waiting and in deep darkness aren’t forgotten. We will make our journey from where we are today to where God would have us be. 

The day of resurrection remember begins while it was still dark.

Good Friday: Solidarity

 

I’ve enjoyed very much sharing in two ecumenical lent groups this year, one in Boroughbridge and one in Bishop Monkton. I led the final session for the Bishop Monkton folk where we looked at the cross and I asked if you were giving a message of hope on Good Friday this year what would you say. 

Well, here’s mine. I believe this day is all about the solidarity of God who through Jesus in this self giving act proves he means it when he says he loves us. Desmond Tutu once said that God has this deep, deep solidarity with us. God became a human being, a baby, God was hungry, God was tired, God suffered and died. God is there with us. Solidarity. 

 

It’s not easy to think about the hill of Calvary outside a city wall. We want to leave it outside and just get on with Easter. So I’m very pleased so many of you are out there today taking time to remember with me. 

 

Matthias Grünewald’s “Crucifixion” (above) was once described by Pope Benedict as perhaps the most moving depiction of the Crucifixion. It was painted in the early 16th century for a monastery in which the monks took care of the sick, especially of those afflicted by the plague, skin diseases and ergotism, an illness that produces horrible convulsions and deformation of the limbs.

The painting was a source of great comfort to those suffering with the plague who saw their wounds in Christ. The artist chose to paint Jesus suffering our passion: his sores and blisters are those of the plague; his hands are feet are convulsed as were those suffering ergotism. 

We can only try to imagine the power of the words of Isaiah resounding in that monastery chapel: “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Solidarity.

In solidarity on the cross, Jesus speaks the language of love. 

I remember many many years ago going to the MAYC London Weekend and the worship in the Albert Hall, that May weekend as a teenager was the highlight of the year as we invaded London with a mass of green and yellow. For some reason one sermon I think from about 1984 has stayed with me. There was a huge cross placed at the front of the hall, and in front of it, the preacher described Good Friday love as “anyhow love” – she said this is what love is, no matter what you do to me, I love you anyhow. Beat me, condemn me, ridicule me, hang me on a gibbet, take my life, I love you anyhow.

Solidarity. The suffering servant despite our part in his death still serves us. The one who has been condemned says “father forgive them for they know not what they do.” The way of the world is met here by the way of God, which Jesus has tried to show in the way he has ministered and cared in the streets of Galilee. Here, he says “it is finished” – this is how far in love I will go. No wonder we call what’s going on here atonement – at one ment – a world, a people who’ve done nothing but nail him to this barbaric instrument of torture and execution, are brought back into the enfolding arms of God who can despite ourselves never give us up. Solidarity. To know a Christ who suffers with us today is a huge comfort. Imagine a God who doesn’t enter those unspeakable places in life. Not a lot of use really.

 

Solidarity. For me today is all about God’s power being able to pick up the shattered pieces of our life and make something holy of them – not from a distance but close up. That’s what the church is for, isn’t it? On Good Friday we look at the blood of the cross – and we thank God for Jesus, who for us put his body where his mouth was. Here is solidarity. This is love.

The Collect for Good Friday:

Lord Jesus, help us follow in your steps,
for by your innocent suffering and death,
you have opened up the way to the Father for us;
you live and reign, now and forever. Amen.