Rehearsal Makes a Difference

The Rev. Kathi Johnson

Easter 4 – Good Shepherd Sunday – 7 May 2017

Text: Psalm 23

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

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Let us begin by reading together Psalm 23:

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

The Lord makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters.

You restore my soul, O Lord,

  and guide me along right pathways for your name’s sake.

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. 

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

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

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

  and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. 

How many of you have been to a wedding where one of the readings was 1 Corinthians 13?

How many of you have been to a funeral where Psalm 23 was used in some way?

So this is a familiar passage to many of us.

When I was on internship, the pastor and I would periodically lead Bible studies at one of the local funeral homes. Many of the residents didn’t remember much. But somewhere along the way, I began including Psalm 23. This psalm is so familiar to so many, that even in the residents with the strongest cases of memory loss, they could recite part or all of this psalm. It was remarkable.

As I hinted at the outset, these familiar words of comfort are often used at funerals. But this psalm is a prayer not for the dead, but for the living. And it’s a prayer not only for us to give comfort to those who are grieving in their time of deepest mourning, it’s a prayer we would do well to rehearse again and again throughout our lives. This psalm is a prayer for life, not only for death.

Have you ever thought of this familiar psalm as a prayer before? Rather than simply reading the words, have you ever expressed them to God as a prayer?

Let’s pray it together…

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

The Lord makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters.

You restore my soul, O Lord,

  and guide me along right pathways for your name’s sake.

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. 

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

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

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

  and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. 

Taken as a prayer, and not simply as a description of who God is and what God does for us, the tone changes. If we pray these words, suddenly, there is a hope to them, and a faith behind them. If we rehearse these words again and again as a prayer, they become a part of us – and a part of our hope and faith and trust in God.

I think I’ve shared with you before about an experience I had in the summer between sixth and seventh grades when our Minister of Music asked me to play a duet on my flute with a church friend who played clarinet. She mailed me the music – it was a setting of the hymn “Now the Green Blade Riseth” – a setting which included – I kid you not – a run of 32^nd notes that I found impossible to play. I tried and tried, rehearsing those stupid notes over and over. I’d get partway in to that run of notes and quit because it sounded awful and my fingers couldn’t keep up.

When it came time for my friend and I to rehearse the duet together, I was so embarrassed. Wendy could tell that I’d practiced – she could tell that I’d tried – she could also tell it was beyond my abilities at the time. So she gracefully took that section out of my part and encouraged me to play the rest of the piece. And I did, and it sounded beautiful.

Even though I struggled with that one part, the rehearsing made a difference, and that’s why musicians rehearse.

So, when I suggest rehearsing Psalm 23 as a prayer, this is the spirit in which I intend that to occur. Rehearsal helps us learn. In this case, rehearsal helps us learn the words on the page, but the more these words become a part of us, the more we can live in faith, rather than fear.

This psalm is counter-cultural. We live in a world that tells us that we lack everything – that we are always in want. Think about something as simple as advertising. Advertising’s very purpose is to point out where we are deficient and helpfully provide us with the answers to our deficiencies. And the advertising is everywhere.

This psalm, though, helps us realize that with God as our Shepherd, we don’t have to focus on what we don’t have in order to be content and fulfilled. With God as our Shepherd, we realize that we have what we need. We have God, who loves us, and will never let us go.

This psalm is counter-cultural also because we live in a world that tells us that we can find our own right paths. Recently, a survey of ELCA Lutherans showed that fifty percent of those surveyed believe that in order to be saved, we must do good works.

Now, I’m as big a believer in the power of good works as anyone. Good works help make the world a better place to live. But we don’t do good works to gain salvation of our souls anymore than we can find our own right paths. It’s God our Savior’s work to save us, just as it is God our Shepherd’s work to lead us along right pathways.

This psalm also helps us remember that God is with us each day of our lives. Like I said at the beginning – this is a psalm for our daily lives, not only for our deaths. So wherever it is that God has placed us for this season – whatever our work is, wherever we are in school, whatever it is we do in retirement, God is with us. God leads us, restores us, comforts us, and provides us. All out of mercy and love for us.

This past week, I was reading what writer, teacher, and seminary president David Lose has to say about vocation. Vocation is whatever it is that God calls you to do with your time, energy, and gifts. So think about that for a second…

Some of you might’ve come up with more than one thing, and that’s OK. God calls us to multiple vocations: I am a pastor, but I am also a wife, a stepmom, a dog owner, a family member, a friend. Each of these takes time, energy, and gifts, so each of these can in some way be considered a vocation.

Many of you, I hope, consider the volunteer work you do here at church to be vocational work, and maybe you even from time to time have a sense of God meeting you in the work you do here, whether that’s caring for the property, folding the bulletins, or assisting in worship in some way.

But Dr. Lose asks us to consider this question: Are we prepared to encounter God and be used by God in our everyday lives?

And to apply the filter of the 23^rd Psalm to this question: Are we prepared to encounter God as our Shepherd in our everyday lives? Are we prepared for God to lead us and care for us in our daily lives? Are we prepared to fear no evil – even though we may walk in the valley of the shadow of death? Are we prepared for God’s goodness and mercy to follow us all the days of our lives? Not just on Sundays or whenever we are at church – but all the days of our lives?

Let us pray together once more…

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

The Lord makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters.

You restore my soul, O Lord,

  and guide me along right pathways for your name’s sake.

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. 

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

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

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

  and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. 

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Psalm 23 - Faith Grows a Resting Place

The Rev. Kathi Johnson

21 April 2013 – Good Shepherd Sunday – C Easter 4

Text: Psalm 23

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

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This past week has been a tricky one. We faced the horrors in Boston last Monday and our hearts were filled with hurt as we watched a city suffer. I felt so emptied after the events in Boston. I felt so depleted by the pain of that event. I wrote on my blog that day, reminding others – reminding myself, too - of the steadfast love of God.

Then I preached on Wednesday evening about Jesus calming the storm and about the wonderful passage in Romans: “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

I had picked those lessons to help us, as a community, to work through some of our collective pain following Monday’s events. I didn’t know that evening just how quickly we would need those words again – because just when we thought our capacity for heartbreak had been met – we were met with more horror on Wednesday with the explosion in the town of West.

And then, just two days after that, an entire metropolitan area was locked down - watching, waiting, unsure, terrified once again. And right as the manhunt was winding down, we began hearing word of an earthquake in China. More loss. More destruction.

It has been a really difficult week for us. Events like these have a way of seeping into our souls – making us fearful, making us angry, making us weep with heavy sadness.

It seems particularly helpful, then, for today to be Good Shepherd Sunday – and for us to have Psalm 23 as one of our readings. Many of us in this room could probably tell about a time when this psalm has been particularly meaningful or comforting.

There are many musical settings of this psalm, and our Hymn of the Day today is one of them. It’s one of my favorites: “The King of Love My Shepherd Is” (#502). I’d like us to sing it now before I continue with the sermon…

This hymn has been a favorite for as long as I can remember, but it became all the more important to me after we sang it at Mom’s memorial service. When planning her service, I remember picking this hymn because I love the melody, but also because I love the words of this particular paraphrase of our beloved Psalm 23.

How many of you have read or sung Psalm 23 at a funeral or memorial service? It’s commonly used at these types of services. Somehow, because this psalm acknowledges that sometimes, we do, in fact, pass through dark valleys, many people find the words of Psalm 23 very comforting during times of grief or times of struggle.

To be honest, I never really understood why that was, until about a year after Mom died. One evening, Steve and I were thrust into what felt like a deep and dark valley brought on by an expensive car repair. I felt panicked and overwhelmed that night, and this is the hymn that kept coming to mind.

What I felt that night was empty, depleted, lacking – in spite of what this hymn claims.

I lay in bed that night, trying to make sense of Psalm 23. I kept thinking: we are God’s people. We know that he will provide for us, and yet there are times when we are lacking. There are times when money is short, or tempers are short, or energy runs short. Sometimes, our cups do not seem full at all – so how on earth do we reconcile this with the psalm, which says that our cups overflow?

As I turned these thoughts over and over in my head that night, I looked up at a plaque that was hanging by my bedside – I think I’ve mentioned it before. It reads, “Faith grows a resting place.”

I figured out that night that faith is the bridge between our lacking and God’s grace. Faith – which is God’s gift to us – given to us at baptism and nourished in us each time we receive Holy Communion with our sisters and brothers in Christ. Faith - that moves us beyond our fear of empty cups and dark valleys. Faith - that moves us into a willing and hope-filled trust in God.

This hymn’s been running through my head a lot this past week, as I’ve tried once again to make sense of the contrast between feeling empty, depleted, and lacking, and the promises of God: that my cup overflows, that God journeys with me through valleys filled with death and darkness, that I will dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

Here’s something that has given me so much hope this week: I have had so many reminders that, like sheep following a shepherd, we do not wander alone. We are gathered into a flock of others to follow our Great Shepherd together. Together, we learn about the love of God for us, and for others. Together, we face fear and anger and sadness head-on – and we face them with love. Together, we pray for those affected by tragedy, and together we reach out to help them.

The Lord is my shepherd, and the Lord is our shepherd. He gathers us together, as sisters and brothers. He welcomes us to his table, meeting us there with goodness and mercy. And so, especially when we feel our cups are empty – when we feel we are lacking - let us come to his table often, and then let us take his goodness and mercy out to the world.

Amen.

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