Wadhams United Church of Christ
2569 County Route 10, Wadhams, NY 12993
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Sermon by Steve Smith Order of Service
The Shepherd’s Keep: Soul-Keeper
February 3, 2008 Psalm 23
Last week we started our series on the 23rd Psalm by looking at the first few phrases: The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. From those phrases I drew some focal points for shaping our thought patterns and our attitudes: Our God is a nurturing shepherd who is genuinely and perpetually interested in our welfare. Because God is my shepherd, I shall not want for what I need in order to survive this current crisis or ordeal. I can reassure myself that God wants to work things out, and that God wants to create a safe place in our midst where nurturing love can flourish among this dissimilar group of people. And when it feels like we’re in over our heads, we can go looking for our Shepherd to help us regain our perspective on life. For God has not brought us to this point in the journey to slaughter us, but to help us find what we need in order to thrive and survive.
Today, we pick up where we left off: He restores my soul. Once again, I’m struck by the revolutionary nature of our Psalmist’s approach to God. Where many ancient religions, including Judaism, were focused on what its adherents had to do in order to please or appease God, these startling words suggest that God is interested in doing something to care for us. It’s not just the ancient religions that got stuck on their notions of earning the favor of God, either. Many of us grew up in a religious atmosphere that required us to dress or act a certain way on Sundays, or that frowned on many kinds of behavior, or that focused almost exclusively on how sinful we are. The end result was a guilty conscience that became, for some of us, hyperactive in its vigilance of our behavior, condemning us for every real or imagined infraction, no matter how slight it might be.
For a good many people, that experience of guilt became the defining focus of their religious experience. The rigid piety of our ancestors was their answer to the inner voices of temptation, chaos, and unseemly urges or impulses. The downfall to such an approach is that it can stifle the soul with its constant emphasis on all the “don’ts” of religion’s restrictions. While we might consider ourselves blissfully liberated from such a rigidly structured approach to God, the reality for many of us is that we have internalized an approach to God that mimics the Protestant work ethic. We constantly remind ourselves that we are supposed to be doing something for God.
I’ve never seen myself as a “works oriented” Christian who seldom if ever left room for the gracious mercy of God. My conversion experience was focused on the nurturing love of God setting me free from the hyperactive vigilance of a guilty conscience. But I clearly remember being startled by something very similar to these words in the 23rd Psalm. I had been counseling someone who was still recovering from an abusive marriage. Her former husband had very nearly beaten her to death with a baseball bat, and she had escaped with some broken bones and a shattered soul. As we neared the end of the counseling, though, she turned the tables on me and made several very perceptive remarks about my attitudes toward life and God.
In the midst of those penetrating observations, she zeroed in on one of my areas of spiritual pain. “What are you doing to renew your soul?” She asked me bluntly. Very few people in my life have ever asked me that question, and I was quite taken aback by her candor. I’ve never been able to find a formula that works well for me in that regard, and I admitted as much. Nothing seems to hold my interest for very long, and I quickly tire of rote and routine. I mumbled and fumbled something about trying to sing hymns, or meditate on a few verses or words of scriptures. She was starting to get a little frustrated, and what she said next was like a lightning bolt shooting out of the storm-clouds of my spiritual gloom.
“I’m not talking about you trying to do something for God,” she said with her exasperation giving her voice an inspired edge. “I’m talking about God doing something for you. When do you ever let God do something for you?” She had me there, and her question still brings me up short, because I’m so focused on doing something for you, for the church, for the people dying with hospice support, or the families whose loved ones have died under hospice care, or for Betty, and so the list goes on. With tears pouring out of my eyes, she led me in guided prayer imagery beside the still waters of ocean’s surf pounding the shore in its rhythmic intensity. She brought me to the green pastures where God’s love abounds for me always, and where God finds delight in this precious lamb.
Out of her brokenness, she was a shepherd to me that day, and God used her to restore my wounded and weary soul. But it’s a question that bears repeating this morning: what are you doing to renew your soul? Our Protestant work ethic wants to roll up its sleeves and start listing all the things we do for God and for others in service to God. While each and every one of those good deeds is further evidence of the Spirit’s work within us, still the question echoes through the cavernous longing we feel to know beyond all doubt that the love of God for us is real. Still the question resounds in the aches and pangs of loneliness that make our nights seem so long. Still the question reverberates as we survey the browning pastures of winter’s gloom. It shakes the very ground beneath our feet as we hustle through our laundry list of everything we need to do and everyone we have to care for.
Our own exasperation and frustration with life lends an inspired edge to the whisper within our souls: “I’m not talking about you trying to do something for God. When do you ever let God do something for you?” I know, we’re not used to thinking about God or life that way. We’re not accustomed to the notion that God might want to do something to renew our sense of humanity and soulfulness. We’re not altogether comfortable with a mental picture where we sit back and let the Almighty God do the work, are we? Somehow, that feels lazy or disrespectful, doesn’t it? And that’s exactly why these words were so revolutionary back then, and why they startle me still. He restores my soul. To be perfectly honest, I still have a hard time answering the question: What are you doing to renew your soul? I still struggle to find ways to let God or others care for me.
The very question and the struggle it generates within me then become the inspired edge of a divine call to come to the Shepherd and let the Shepherd find ways to renew me and restore me. My frustration becomes the inspiration I need to let my Shepherding God bring me to the greener pastures where I know that I am lovable in the eyes and heart of God. My spiritual gloom becomes an all-pervasive persuasion that this Shepherding God knows how to guide me to the next watering hole, so that my dry and thirsty soul can drink its fill. The lightning bolts that shatter the darkness with their penetrating brilliance serve to lift my earth-bound gaze toward the God who has so patiently been trying to get my attention and yours.
Even as the Shepherding God leads the flock toward greener pastures, so our Good Shepherd would lead us toward the table where the bread of heaven has been set aside to feed our souls. Even as the Shepherding God skillfully guides the flock toward still waters, the blessing cup has been filled to overflowing so that this thirsty flock can drink and be satisfied. So we come to the Table of the Lord.
Order of Service back to sermon
"NC" refers to The New Century Hymnal, The Pilgrim Press (1995)
February 3, 2008
Welcome, Announcements & Prayer Requests
A Candle for Peace NC #575, verse 1
Call to Worship
Leader: We come together to worship you, O God.
People: Send your Spirit upon us, that we may worship you in spirit and truth.
Leader: Holy One, we come to you, listening for your word of compassion.
People: Heal our broken hearts and bind up our wounds, so that in your presence we become healthy and whole.
Leader: Help us to discern your greatness, as we honor the power and glory of your love.
People: We lift up our souls to you, and praise you always.
Hymn NC #478 I’ve Got Peace
Responsive Prayer
Leader: Loving God, all of us are imperfect and crippled by our self-seeking thoughts and attitudes.
People: We fail to live in ways that would bring honor to your name. We fail to call upon your name or trust you with the troubles of our days. (Silence)
Leader: But through your love for us, you sent Jesus, to forgive our sins, to heal our ills, and to bring us to new life in you.
People: Have mercy upon us and forgive us. We pray that your presence at your table today will open our hearts to receive the blessings you desire for us.
Leader; May we be constantly searching for the ways in which you are present, and for ways in which we can bring your love to a hurting world.
People: Lord God, we pray for our nation. As we vote for the candidates who will run for president, we ask you to bless them and give them wisdom. Help us to listen to them carefully and to take seriously our right to vote.
Leader: We pray for our families and friends. We pray for those who depend on us and on whom we depend. We pray for those struggling in the midst of poverty, violence, racism. Help them find strength in you and support in community.
Pastoral Prayer, Lord’s Prayer
Hymn NC #518 Father Almighty
Psalm 78:40-55, Jeremiah 31:7-14, John 10:22-30
Sermon The Shepherds’ Keep: Soul-Keeper
Service of Holy Communion
Offering, Doxology, Dedication
Hymn NC #193 In the Cross of Christ
Benediction
Leader: Gracious God, as you have met us at the table through this service of Holy Communion, meet us now to renew us with your strength.
People: As you came to us through the breaking of the bread, come to us now to empower us with your love. Guide us in your ways, that we may know you near and worship you every day of our lives.
Leader: As you spoke to us through the Blessing Cup, speak through us, Loving God, that our lives and our words may proclaim your good news.
People: Help us to go forth, showing your love to all who search for you.
Leader: May you run and not be weary. May you rise up on the wings of grace. May you know without doubt that the everlasting God goes with you.
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