Text: Psalm 23 and Psalm 98:1-3
In May of this year, my family gathered in northwest Iowa to bury my grandpa.
I stood in front of those loved ones and recited those familiar words of the twenty-third Psalm.
The Lord is my shepherd…
You know, we imagined that this was a temporary act of closure… a private graveside service that would give way to a much larger celebration of his life once the danger of the coronavirus subsided.
We are still waiting for that celebration.
I’ve walked beside so many of you through the valley of the shadow of death this year.
Your grieving, like mine, has often felt incomplete.
And I think part of the “incompleteness” is that there is so much to grieve.
There is so much we have lost…
So many we have lost…
So many ways of being that have been taken from us…
We have felt isolated.
Uncertain.
Alone.
And yet, we are not alone.
We are not alone in the sense that we are all going through this experience together.
And as a congregation, we are trying our hardest to help each one of you to feel connection in one way or another.
Whether it is a Zoom coffee time or a card from a child or a call from a staff member or a caring connection buddy, our hope is that you know that you are not alone.
But we are also not alone in the sense that the people of God have faced difficult times like these before.
We can often be so focused only on this moment in time, but if we zoom out and capture the larger picture of the biblical narrative, we find ourselves written into their stories.
Think of the ancient Israelites enslaved in Egypt…
Or the time of exile in Babylon…
Imagine what it must have been like to live through the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans…
The heartbreak and disorientation, grief and doubt, suffering and loneliness…
We hold those things in common with these faithful ancestors.
And it was in those trying moments that the people of God needed to remember that they were not alone, because God had never left their side.
And they turned to songs like those familiar words of comfort from the 23rd Psalm.
This hymn is not simply a text for funerals.
It is something we pray when we are in the valley.
In the depths of despair.
When evil and death and enemies surround us.
It is a wilderness song.
Even the imagery of the shepherd, the rod and the staff, remind us of trouble:
After all, a shepherd’s rod would hold off predators;
A staff would hook around the neck of a sheep caught in a crevice or bramble.
It is a promise that in the midst of whatever difficulty we might face, God was there.
God is there.
God brings hope and comfort and restoration and hope.
It is a hymn, a poem, a song that we use to cry out from those difficult places and imagine a way forward…
Imagine the joy…
Imagine the abundance…
Imagine the possibility…
All by the grace of God.
I’m reminded of the words of Sandra McCracken as she explains what it is like to sing our way forward:
I wrote the title track for the album, God’s Highway, with a friend of mine, Thad Cockrill and playing through the song it was actually a really dark season for me. I was kind of in a fog. And as we were writing, I remember trying to write and express how I was feeling. Thad, very pastorally, said, “You know the old spirituals would sing not about where we are in the moment. Not ‘my feet are tired’ and you know ‘I’m in a fog,’ but ‘My feet are strong. My eyes are clear.’” This way of singing ourselves forward. Sometimes with tears, sometimes with defiance, sometimes with great celebration.
When we find ourselves in the valley of the shadow of death we have to find ways to sing our way forward.
Sing our way forward with celebration and with joy.
All of which brings us to Psalm 98.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be exploring this hymn, this prayer, as we think about what it means for us to be “together for joy.”
And we start with just the first three verses.
Like Psalm 23, when we read behind the lines, we remember that life was not always so grand for the people of God.
Why else would we need God’s right hand and holy arm to bring us victory?
Robert Alter notes that this word, victory, is actually rooted in the Hebrew word for rescue, which reminds me once again of the Shepherd’s rod and staff. (The Hebrew Bible – The Writings, p. 231)
While the specific enemy might not be specified, we are singing a new song because God is the one who can rescue us from the chaos, the struggle, the uncertainty, the despair.
In the face of these enemies…
In the face of the nations…
In the face of all that would destroy us…
we experience God’s bounty, God’s abundance, God’s restoration.
It’s like a table, prepared for us, in the presence of our enemies.
Anointing and blessing and overflowing…
How could we not sing when we remember God’s marvelous love?
How could we not rejoice in the face of God’s kindness and faithfulness?
Praise lifts us up from the valley…
Raises our spirits from the mire…
Sets our eyes on the truth of who we are:
Beloved children of God.
“Praise is a ladder for our spirits, a gift to help us climb up out of the shadows and into the light to get a new perspective on things, if only briefly. Praise brings us back in touch with the truth of our situation.” (Together For Joy)
I love that line… praise brings us back in touch with the truth of our situation.
It reorients us.
It helps us remember what is precious and what is essential.
And that, simply, is God.
A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Leadership Institute through the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection.
One of our keynote speakers was Ronald Heifetz.
Now, if you have ever read anything about adaptive leadership in the secular world… Heifetz was probably behind it.
For nearly twenty years, he has been consulting and teaching about what it means to lead in the world today… especially in the midst of difficult circumstances that require us to build new capacity and change the way we operate.
What I really appreciated about this particular lecture, however, is that he shared from his own faith tradition.
Heifetz talked about how the Jewish faith adapted after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem because of the leadership of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai.
In this valley of the shadow of death, the Jewish people turned their eyes in praise towards God and discovered the truth of their situation.
They had to figure out what was precious and essential to their faith to carry forward.
They had to figure out what was no longer serviceable and needed to be discarded.
And that had to figure out what innovation would allow them to take the best of their history into the future.
Heifetz went on to talk about how the Rabbi helped the people to sing old familiar songs in new ways.
With the Temple destroyed, the sanctuary of God moved from a physical to a spiritual structure and became centered on the home. Wherever the family was, there would be a sanctuary.
The priestly functions were taken on by the parent in the home, who would recite the blessings upon the family.
Rabbis took on greater authority in interpreting the text for the time and place.
Prayer that was built upon sacrifice and petition became a matter of the heart and a personal experience of God.
In the midst of their crisis, in the midst of the valley, they learned that what was precious and essential was not the Temple itself, but their relationship with God.
The God who spoke creation into being.
The God who led them out of Egypt.
The God who had been with them through every valley and time of exile and trouble.
And that God was leading them into a new future.
Turning their hearts to praise, they knew they could trust in the marvelous things God had done… and would do… for them.
They discovered new ways of being together for joy.
In the midst of this moment in the life of our church, we are discovering what is essential and precious as well.
The love of Christ that binds us together.
The grace of God that overcomes our failures.
The challenge of the Holy Spirit that pushes us onward to the Kingdom.
We are discovering what old songs we can sing in a new way.
Next week, we’ll talk more about some of the joyful things we are discovering, but for today, let me simply say this:
You are not alone.
In the midst of the grief…
In the midst of the valley…
When you aren’t quite sure where you are going…
Fix your eyes on God.
Cling to the one who has never left your side.
And sing.