Calm Down

Lately, it seems like my life has been pretty hectic.  Not that there’s anything really unusual about that—my life always seems to be fairly hectic.  But it seems like lately it’s been hectic-er than normal.

I’ve been thinking about that, and I’ve been praying about it.  It seemed to me that maybe God was trying to tell me something through all this hectic-ness.  Maybe God was telling me that I was doing too much, and that I needed to drop some things to simplify my life.  But which things?  I thought about the things I do, and there really aren’t any of them I want to drop.  In fact, I wish I had time to do more.  And if that wasn’t what God was trying to tell me, then what was God trying to tell me?  Or was this all just a coincidence, and God wasn’t trying to tell me anything?

Well, as I said, I’ve been praying about it.  And the other day, I felt like God gave me an answer.  The answer I felt like I got from God was “Calm down.”

And I said, “’Calm down’?  Seriously, God?  That’s all you’ve got?  ‘Calm down’?

And the answer I felt like I got from God was, “Yep, that’s it.  Calm down.”

So I said, “Well, okay.  I mean, I was really hoping for something a little more profound than that, but I guess if ‘calm down’ is the message, then that’s what I’ll do.  I’ll calm down.”

And I have been.  Or at least, I’ve been trying to.  Sometimes I do a better job of it than other times.  But overall, I think I have calmed down some.

Here’s the point.  When we pray to God about something, we want an answer.  But we don’t want just any answer.  We want an answer that’s going to solve our problem the way we want it solved.  I thought my life was too hectic, and I wanted an answer from God that was going to make my life less hectic.  Instead, I got an answer that was not aimed at changing my life at all, but was aimed at changing my attitude toward what’s going on in my life.

We tend to think that, if we hear a message from God, it’s going to be something deep and profound.  And sometimes it is.  But sometimes, God’s messages are simple.  As simple as telling us to calm down and not let the hectic pace of life get the best of us.

So, if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed by life, maybe God’s message to me will work for you.  Just calm down.  It may not change your life, but it’ll change your attitude toward what’s going on in your life.  And sometimes, that’s the most important change of all.

Strength and Love

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, October 16, 2016.  The Bible verses used are Philippians 4:10-20.

            We’ve been doing a sermon series on “The Bible’s Greatest Hits”, and last week we mentioned a couple of the reasons we’re doing it.  One of them is that they’re great verses so we should talk about them.  Another is that, because these verses are our favorites we’ve heard some of them pretty often and so we don’t think about them as deeply as we should.  

But today’s verse reveals a third reason for doing this sermon series.  That is that, sometimes, we take these favorite Bible verses out of context.  That means that we don’t get as much out of them as we could.  I think our Bible verse that we’re looking at today is an example of that.

We’re looking at number three on the biblegateway.com list of most popular Bible verses.  Philippians Chapter Four, Verse Thirteen.  The Apostle Paul writes “I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

Now, even if we just look at that verse, there are good things we can get out of it.  One is that it’s God who gives us strength.  And that’s an important point.  So many times, you and I are tempted to rely on our own strength.  We want to try to do things ourselves.  We think it’s up to us to make things happen.  We think we can do it ourselves, when in fact it’s God who gives us the strength to do things.

And that’s true whether we realize it or not.  Most of us have had times when we thought we accomplished something by ourselves.  We did not ask God for help, we did not ask God for advice, and yet we got it done anyway.  But the fact that we did not ask God to help does no mean we did it ourselves.  What it means is that we did not realize God was helping us.  We did not understand that God will sometimes help us even when we don’t ask for help.  It is God who gives us the strength to do things, whether we know it or not.

Another thing we can get out of it is that there are all kinds of things we can do when we rely on God to give us strength, rather than trying to do things ourselves.  And that’s an important point, too.  When we think we have to do things ourselves, we limit what we can accomplish.  We know what our weaknesses are.  We know what our limitations are.  And so, too many times, we don’t try to do things.  We forget how much strength God truly has, and we forget that we can rely on God’s strength.

But here’s what we miss, I think, if we don’t look at the context.  Look at how our reading for today started out.  The Apostle Paul is writing a letter to the people of the town of Philippi, known as the Philippians.  He writes:  “I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me.  Indeed, you were concerned, but had no opportunity to show it.”  Paul goes on to write that he was not really in need, because he can be content under any circumstances.  That’s where he says he can do this through God, who gives him strength.  But then, Paul writes this:  “Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles.  Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only; for when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid more than once when I was in need.”

Think about this.  Paul knew that with God’s strength he could handle anything.  He believed that, with God’s strength, he could be content in all circumstances, whether he had a lot or whether he had nothing.

And yet, what does Paul do?  Paul goes out of his way to thank the people of Philippi for all they’ve done for him.  He “rejoiced greatly” that they were concerned about him.  Paul specifically wants them to know that they were the only ones who helped him when he set out from Macedonia.  Paul tells them that he knows that, when he was in Thessalonica, the Philippians sent him aid numerous times.

Paul knew God was with him.  He knew God would take care of him.  He knew he could rely on God so much that he could be content in all circumstances.  And yet, he was extremely grateful to the people of Philippi for all the things they did for him on his travels, when he was in need.

I think putting the Bible verse in that context tells us something more than just looking at the verse itself.  Yes, we ultimately get our strength from God.  And yes, that strength will sometimes make it possible for us to do things we did not think we could do.  But even for Paul, just knowing he could rely on God’s strength was not enough.  He also needed to be able to rely on the help of human beings.  He needed the help of the Philippians.  He needed the love of the Philippians.  And Paul knew that.

Now, don’t take this the wrong way.  I am not telling you that there are limits on God.  God has unlimited strength and unlimited power.  But God often acts through human beings, through you and through me.  What I’m saying is that God’s Spirit acted directly through Paul to give Paul strength.  But God’s Spirit also acted for Paul indirectly, through the people of Philippi, to give Paul strength.  And Paul needed both.  Paul needed to get God’s strength directly from God, and Paul also needed to get God’s strength indirectly, through the help and the love he got from the Philippians.

That’s what we all need.  We need to get strength directly through God’s Spirit acting in our hearts and in our souls.  But we also need to get strength indirectly, through God’s Spirit acting in the hearts and souls of others.  And of course, sometimes we need to be those others, allowing God’s Spirit to act in our hearts and souls so that we can give strength to someone else.

Jesus said, as you know, that the two greatest commandments are that we love God and that we love others, and he said those two commandments are like each other.  In other words, we cannot love God without loving others, and when we show love to others we show our love for God.  

I think there’s a corollary to that.  I think we also need to feel love from God and that we need to feel love from others, and those two things are like each other, too.  In other words, we are not likely to feel God’s love if we don’t feel love from others, and when we feel love from others we feel love from God.  And that love is what gives us strength.  And with that strength, the strength that comes from God and the strength that comes from the people who love us, we can do all kinds of things, things that we never would’ve thought we could do.

You and I need God.  And you and I need each other.  We need each other just as much as Paul needed the people of Philippi.  All the people in this church need God, and we need each other.  All the people in this community need God, and we need each other.  All the people in this parish need God, and we need each other.  All the people beyond this parish need God, and they each other.

That’s true whether they know it or not.  That’s true whether they want it to be true or not.  It’s true even if people reject God and reject others.  They still need God, and they still need each other, whether they know it or not.

Now, I’m not saying we should force our help on someone who does not want it.  God allows people to reject him.  We need to allow people to reject us, too, if they don’t want our help.  But God also does not give up on people.  And we should not give up on people, either.  Again, we should not force our help on anyone.  But we can let them know that, if they should change their minds, we stand ready to help.  And we should let them know that, no matter what happens, we still love them, just as people who reject God are still loved by God.

Our strength comes from God.  Sometimes that strength comes directly from God’s Holy Spirit acting in and through us.  Sometimes that strength comes indirectly, from God’s Holy Spirit acting in and through others.  And sometimes, God acts through us to give strength to others.

Let’s use all of that strength.  Let’s use the strength God gives us directly.  Let’s use the strength and love we can get from others.  And let’s be there for others, giving them God’s strength and God’s love.  When we use all of God’s strength and all of God’s love, we will be able to do things we never imagined.

Let's Make It Personal

I went to a meeting a couple of weeks ago about church leadership.  One of the best things I got out of it did not come from one of the speakers.  One of the best things I got out of it came from a discussion at our table.  

We were talking about trying to reach more people, which is something pretty much every church wants to do.  What was said was that, when we talk about church growth, we tend to talk about programs and events that are designed to draw people to church.  The discussion went on to say that there’s nothing wrong with programs and events, but if we really want our churches to grow, there’s nothing that beats a good, old-fashioned one-to-one personal invitation.  

That’s really the primary way to draw people to church:  give them a personal invitation.  The events and the programs can help with that.  They can be a hook:  “Hey, we’d love to have you in church this week.  And by the way, this is going on right after the service.  You’d really enjoy it.”  But the most important thing is not the event or the program.  The most important thing is the one-to-one personal invitation.

Why don’t we give more of those personal invitations?  Well, we’re afraid.  But what are we afraid of?  Mostly, I think, it’s two things.  One is that we’re afraid of being rejected.  And the other is that we’re afraid that someone will be offended.

On the first point, I understand.  No one likes to be rejected.  But I remember a friend I had in Wessington Springs, a man who went to a different church than I do.  He said his church believed that, most of the time, it will take twenty invitations before someone actually starts coming to church.  So, if he asked someone and they didn’t come, he was not bothered.  He figured maybe that was the fourth invitation, or the seventh, or the thirteenth.  So, he had not failed.  Instead, he had succeed!  He had moved that person that much closer to the time when they were going to say yes.

On the second point, I think we make more of that than we should.  Is anyone really going to be offended that we invited them to church?  Sure, if we do it so often that we make a nuisance of ourselves, I suppose possibly someone could be offended.  But to just ask them once in a while?  What could be offensive about that?  I mean, is someone really going to get all upset and tell everyone, “Do you know what those church people did?  They invited me to one of their services!  How dare they!”

It doesn’t seem very likely.  And besides, what’s the risk?  They’re not coming now.  If someone gets offended, what are they going to do?  Really, really not come?

This is something everyone can do.  We all know people who are not going to church anywhere.  They may be our friends.  They may be our neighbors.  They may be our co-workers.  They may be people who don’t see a lot, but have gotten to know through social media.  They may even be people in our own family.

This is something anyone can do.  You can do it even if you’re a shut-in.  You may not physically be able to take someone to church with you, but you can still personally invite someone to church.  Do you have children who are not going to church?  How about grandchildren?  How about great-grandchildren?  Do you ever talk to them?  Well, then invite them to come to church.  Do you have people who come in and help with your care?  Invite them to come to church.  If you need a hook to invite them, invite them when there’s something special going on at the church.  If you don’t know what’s going on at the church, give me a call.  I’ll be happy to let you know.

This is something we all can do.  It’s something we all need to do. Jesus told us to go and make disciples of all nations.  The only way we can go and make disciples is to talk to people.  The only way we can reach more people is to personally invite them in.  So let’s do that.  

Remember, this is not something we do for ourselves.  It’s something we do for others.  Think about how much being part of a church helps you.  Do you think other people would be helped in that same way?  I do.  When we think of it that way, inviting people to come to church, inviting them to hear God’s word and to feel God’s love, is the nicest, most loving thing we can do for anyone.

Think of some people you know who are not going to church anywhere and give them a personal invitation to come.  Don’t be afraid, and don’t give up.  If we all do this, God will bless our efforts.  And we will be making disciples of Jesus Christ.

God In All Things

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, October 9, 2016.  The Bible verses used are Romans 8:18-28.

            There are a couple of reasons we’re doing this sermon series on “The Bible’s Greatest Hits”.  The first one is obvious.  These are the most popular Bible verses for a reason.  They’re great verses.  They have a lot of meaning.  It’s important that we look at them.

            But another reason for doing it is that sometimes these are Bible verses we take for granted.  We read them without actually thinking about what they say.  Sometimes, we’ve heard them so many times that we don’t even think about whether we really believe them.  We say we do, but do we really, at bottom, believe them?  Or do we just say we believe them because it sounds good?

Our Bible verse for today is number four on the biblegateway.com list of most popular Bible verses.  It’s Romans Chapter Eight, Verse Twenty-eight.  The Apostle Paul wrote, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

            “In all things God works for the good of those who love him.”  Do we believe that?  Some of us, at least, would say that we do.  It sounds good.  We’d certainly like to believe it, right?

            But then we think about things.  Just this week, there was Hurricane Matthew, which killed hundreds of people in Haiti and did a lot of damage in this country.  Is that one of the things God is working in for the good of those who love him?  Just a couple of weeks ago there was terrible flooding in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  Is that one of the things God is working in for the good of those who love him?  We hear about all kinds of things like that all the time.  Fires, storms, earthquakes, all kinds of things.  Do we really believe that God is working in those things for the good of those who love him?  Can we have that much faith?  Can we have that much trust in God?

            We can bring it closer to home, too.  I know some of you in our parish have lost children.  Others have lost spouses.  Others have lost brothers or sisters or other people close to you.  Do we really believe that God is working in those things for the good of those who love him?  I mean, we’d like to.  It would provide an explanation for something that we’d like an explanation for.  We’d like to think that, when something terrible happens, there is some way in which God is going to bring good out of it.  But do we really believe it?  Can we have that much faith?  Can we have that much trust in God?

            Now, we need to pause here for a minute and note that there’s a difference between saying that God caused something and saying that God is going to bring good out of it.  I’m not saying that God specifically decided to make a hurricane hit Haiti.  I’m not saying that God specifically caused any of us to lose a loved one, either.  But as we’ve said before, if we believe in an all-powerful God, we have to believe that God could have prevented all those things, and in fact that God could prevent all bad things from happening, if God chose to do so.  And God, sometimes, does not choose to do so.

            Sometimes we explain this by saying God allows us free will, and that does play into it, but Hurricane Matthew was not the result of some human being’s will.  So how do we explain that?  Well, sometimes we say God allowed it to happen because God is going to bring good out of it.  That’s a comforting thought.  It makes us feel better.  It makes us feel like, well, there is a purpose to this terrible thing that happened, even if don’t understand what that purpose is.  But again, the question is, do we really believe it?  Do we really think that’s true?  Can we have that much faith?  Can we put that much trust in God?  Or is this just something we say because we’re trying desperately to cling to something that might give us meaning to a situation and give us hope for the future?

            We know that there are a lot of things about God that we don’t understand.  We know that God is good.  We know that God sees the future and we don’t.  We know that God thinks long-term.  After all, the Bible tells us in a couple of places that a thousand years are like a day to God.  And so, we’d really like to think that somehow, in the long run, all these terrible things we see and hear about--whether we’re talking about the world or our country or our friends or our families or even our own lives--we’d like to think that somehow, all these terrible things make sense in the grand sweep of eternity, and that somehow God is going to use it all for good and for God’s glory.  But again, is that actually true?  Do we actually believe it?  Can we have that much faith?  Can we put that much trust in God?

            Well, I want to tell you a story.  It’s a true story, a story that happened in my family.  Maybe you can think of a similar story that’s happened in your family.

            My mother was born in Youngstown, Ohio in 1925.  She was the fourth of five children born to Josef and Mary Nadenicek, immigrants from what is now the Czech Republic.  Her father, my grandfather, Josef, was a Presbyterian minister in Youngstown.

            On January 1, 1929, Josef Nadenicek passed away.  My mom was three years old.  She has no memory of him whatsoever.  That, in and of itself, left a hole in my mother’s life that she has never really been able to fill, even all these years later.  My grandmother did not want to talk about him a lot--I suppose the pain of it was very hard on her, too--but my mother has tried to learn all that she could about him, trying to fill that hole in some way.

            And of course, along with the emotional pain, think about the family situation.  There was my grandmother, a single mom with five kids to raise.  And of course, less than a year later, the depression hit.  And there was my grandmother, doing everything she could to try to scrape up enough money and enough food to raise five children in the middle of the depression.  She did all kinds of things.  She took in washing, she looked after kids, she did anything she could to get enough money for her family.

            Eventually, she moved the family to South Dakota, where she had relatives.  They settled in Yankton.  That’s where my Mom grew up.  She went to college in Springfield, got a teaching certificate, and got a job teaching in Delmont.  That’s where she met my Dad, who was farming with his father about five and a half miles west of town.

            Well, you can probably figure out the rest of the story.  My mom and dad met, started dating, and eventually got married.  They had three sons, one of whom, obviously, is me.  They have had seventy years of married life together so far.  Mom and Dad have a wonderful love story.  But without my grandfather dying young, none of it would have happened.

            When my grandfather died, on January 1 of 1929, my grandmother must have thought it was about the worst thing that could’ve happened.  Now don’t get me wrong, my grandmother was a woman of great faith.  But still, she would not have been human if sometimes she had not asked God, “Why?  Why did you let such a terrible thing happen?  Why did you not heal my beloved Josef?  He had so much to offer, not just to me, not just to our family, but to his congregation and beyond.  Why did you let it happen this way?  Why did you not do something?”

            I don’t believe for a second that God is responsible for my grandfather dying.  But God did bring something good out of it.  The good God brought out of it was not apparent right away.  In fact, it was seventeen and a half years after my grandfather died that my mom and dad got married.

            Seventeen and a half years is a long time, by human standards.  How different was your life seventeen and a half years ago?  That’d be early 1999.  I was a lawyer in Wessington Springs and had no thought that I’d do anything else.  How different will your life be seventeen and a half years from now?  That’ll be early 2033.  Some of us won’t even be here.  If I’m still around, I’ll be seventy-five and retired.  Seventeen and a half years seems like a long time to you and me.  But as we said, God thinks long-term.  That seventeen and a half years between my grandfather dying and my mom and dad getting married was nothing to God.

            It can be hard to believe that God will bring something good out of every situation.  It’s especially hard when we don’t see that good right away.  And of course, sometimes it takes even longer than seventeen and a half years for it to happen.  Sometimes it takes a lot longer.  We may not even live to see the good that God is going to bring out of a situation.  But that does not mean the good will not come.

            Can we trust that?  Can we have that much faith?  Can we have that much patience? 

The Apostle Paul wrote that “hope that is seen is no hope at all.  Who hopes for what they already have?  But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”

            It takes patience.  It takes hope.  It takes faith.  And it takes trust.  “In all things God works for the good of those who love him.”  The Bible says that.  The Apostle Paul wrote it.  Can we believe it?  Can we trust God that much?

Solving the World's Problems

I’d like you to try something.  Think of an issue that’s making national headlines right now.  There are all kinds of them, of course, and for the purpose of this exercise, it really does not matter which one you choose.  Just pick one.

Whatever it was, I suspect there’s one thing that’s true.  There are a whole lot of people on one side of the issue, and there are a whole lot of people on the other side.  And some of those on the one side are completely convinced that they’re right and that the people on the other side are not just wrong, but are stupid and/or evil.  And some of those on the other side are just as convinced that they’re right and that the people on the one side are not just wrong, but are stupid and/or evil.  And the two sides don’t even really talk to each other, they simply talk at each other or across each other.  There’s no attempt at compromise or in finding a way to work together for a common solution.  Each side is simply trying to win and make the other side lose.

That’s not a good thing.  Now, you may say at this point that there are some things that should not be compromised, and I agree with that.  I can think of things that should not be compromised.  But not very many.  And even then, we should treat those who disagree with us with respect and with love.  We should not just talk at them and call them stupid simply because their opinion is different from ours.

We could spend a long time discussing how we’ve reached this point, but I don’t know that we’d accomplish a lot.  What we do need to discuss, though, is this:  What can we do about it?  How can we stop everything being about winning and losing and make it be about working together for common solutions?

I think there’s only one way.  I think we need to stop putting our faith in people, in governments, or in other institutions.  We have to stop putting our faith in “our side”.  Instead, we need to put our faith in God.  We need to be on God’s side.  And the only way we can do that is to truly open ourselves up to God.  The only way we can do that is to ask God to come into our hearts and into our minds.  And we need to ask that frequently, because it’s very likely that, when God does try to come into our hearts and minds, we will resist.  And God will allow us to resist.  God wants to come into our heart and our minds, but God go there by force.  God waits for us to allow it.

Does that sound simplistic?  Well, maybe it is.  Does it sound far-fetched?  It might be.  But I’m convinced that it’s the only way.  We are not going to solve our problems by talking at each other or across each other.  We are not going to solve our problems by calling those who disagree with us stupid and/or evil.  And we are not going to solve our problems by “winning” and making the other side “lose”.  We will only solve our problems by working together.  And we will only start working together if we open ourselves up to God’s Spirit, because it’s only then that we accept God’s leadership and God’s guidance.

And you think, okay, that all sounds nice and everything, but how can the relatively few people who are reading this letter make any difference in the world?  Even if all of us reading this open ourselves up God’s Spirit, how will that matter to anything?

Well, maybe it won’t.  But consider a couple of things.  One is that every great movement started with just a few people, a few people who were determined and dedicated to making it happen.  All great movements start small and spread.  And the other is that we’re not going to be the only ones who have this idea.  I’m quite sure there are lots of other people who realize that the only way to solve our problems is by God’s Spirit working in and through us.

Again, I realize how utopian all this may sound.  But the continuing polarization of our society is not going to solve anything.  The only way we can move forward is to come together and work for the common good.  And the only way that’s likely to happen is with God.

So please pray.  Pray that God’s Spirit will come into your heart and into your mind.  And keep praying that way.  No matter what the issue is, we will never go wrong if we follow where God is leading us.

Dreams of a Bear

I originally wrote this five years ago.  I republish it after every Twins season, with necessary tweaks.

            T.C. Bear sat by his locker. As he took off his uniform for the last time this year, he reflected on the season just completed.

            The boys had not had a good year, of course.  In fact, it was the worst record the Twins had ever had.  He felt bad about that.  Still, T. C. had done his best, and for him personally, it had been a good season. He had entertained lots of people. He seemed to be as popular as ever, especially with the kids. The new chief of baseball operations, Derek Falvey, had assured him that the club would pick up his option for 2017. So, all in all, not a bad season.

            Still, now it was over. Time to lay in some supplies and get ready to hibernate. Oh, he'd set his alarm to get up for TwinsFest and the Winter Caravan. He might even make a personal appearance or two. For the most part, though, it was time to rest after a long season.

            That was okay. He didn't mind sleeping through the long Minnesota winter. Except for one thing. Except for The Dream.

            It wasn't a bad dream; quite the opposite, in fact. It was always pretty much the same. The Twins were playing in the World Series. It was Game Seven. It was the bottom of the ninth, and the Twins trailed by three runs. The first two batters went out. Then, a rally. A bunt single, a strikeout/wild pitch, and a hit batsman loaded the bases. A home run would win the game.

            Paul Molitor needed a pinch-hitter. He looked down the bench. Then he looked up the bench. Then he looked under the bench. Then he looked into the stands and pointed. "T.C!" he shouted. "Grab a bat! You're in the game!"

            T.C. clambered down the stairs and leaped gracefully over the railing--as gracefully as a bear can leap, anyway. He grabbed his trusty bat, the bat with which he had won so many mascot home run derbies. He stepped into the batter's box. He worked the count to three-and-two. Then, BAM! He connected and sent the ball high and far, over the fence and into the Minnesota night. It was a grand slam! The Twins won the World Series!

            It was a wonderful dream, really. Except....

            He had talked to Paul Molitor many times, and the answer was always the same. Bears were not allowed to play in the major leagues. Nothing T.C. said could change his mind. He pointed out that such blatant discrimination was against the spirit of the Constitution. He pointed out that times were changing, and that many people now considered being a bear to be a legitimate lifestyle choice. He pointed out that, after all, David Ortiz and Pablo Sandoval were allowed to play. None of it mattered. Molitor stood firm. Bears could not play in the major leagues, and that was that.

            Someday, T.C. vowed, this would change. Someday he would live in a world where a creature was judged, not by the texture of his covering, but by the content of his character. Someday he would live in a world where bearophobia was a thing of the past. Someday.

            Now, though, he was getting sleepy. It was time to hibernate. Because you can discriminate against a bear, you can try to keep him down, but there are two things you cannot do to a bear. You cannot break his spirit, and you cannot take away his dreams.

The Courage to Follow

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, October 2, 2016.  The Bible verses used are Psalm 23:1-6.

            The twenty-third psalm is one of those Bible passages that almost everyone has heard of.  Even people who don’t go to church much have heard of it.  In fact, a lot of people who don’t believe in God at all have heard of it.

            Part of the reason for that is that it gets used at funerals a lot.  But another part of it is that some of the phrases from it have moved into common usage.  Phrases like “walking through the valley of the shadow of death” and “goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life” are used in stories that have no religious content at all.

            And so, as we continue our sermon series on “The Bible’s Greatest Hits”, looking at the most popular Bible verses as determined by searches at biblegateway.com, it’s kind of surprising that the twenty-third psalm is not higher on the list than number five.  The ones ahead of it are good verses, but I’d have thought this would at least be in the top three.  Maybe it’s a little lower because so many people know it that they don’t have search for it, I don’t know.  After all, I suspect some of you may even be able to recite it from memory.  I won’t ask anyone to, but I’m pretty sure some of you could.

            Whenever I read the twenty-third psalm, though, there’s something that strikes me.  It seems to me that a lot of times we think of this as a psalm about God.  God is the shepherd.  God is the guide.  God is the protector.  And that’s not wrong.  This short psalm, which only has six verses, makes thirteen references to God.

            But you know who’s referred to even more than God?  Me.  I mean, not me personally, but humans.  You and me.  There are sixteen references to I, me, or my in those six verses.  It seems to me, then, that this is not just a psalm about God.  It’s also a psalm about us.  It’s a psalm about God, about us, and our relationship with God.  And that’s why it’s kind of too bad that we sometimes associate the twenty-third psalm with funerals.  It’s important that we have a relationship with God at our death, but it’s at least as important, if not more important, that we have a relationship with God during our lives on earth.

            So what does our psalm say about our relationship with God?  Well, it says it in the very first sentence.  It says God is the shepherd and, by implication, you and I are the sheep.

            Now, when I grew up on the farm between Delmont and Armour, we did not raise sheep.  We had cattle and hogs, and when I was little we had chickens, but no sheep.  But my understanding is that it’s not really a compliment to us that we’re called sheep.  Sheep are not the brightest animals around, or at least that’s their reputation.  In fact, it’s been said that sheep are basically caught by surprise when the sun comes up in the morning.  The reason sheep need a shepherd to take care of them is that their really not smart enough to take care of themselves, at least not the domesticated sheep.

            And when we look at our relationship with God, there are at least times when we have to admit that’s about right.  I’m pretty sure all of us can think of some pretty dumb things we’ve done over the course of our lives.  I sure can, anyway.  There are things I’ve done that I wonder why in the world that did not get me into all kinds of trouble.  And the only reason I can think of that it did not is that the Lord, the shepherd, was taking care of me.

            And the author of this psalm seems to know that.  Look at what he says in verse two.  “He makes me lie down in green pastures.”  Now, we hear that, and we imagine this incredibly peaceful pastoral scene.  But think about it.  If God has to make us lie down in green pastures, what does that mean?  It means we’d never do it on our own, right?  Either we’d never be able to find the green pastures in the first place, or we would not be smart enough to stay there once we found them.

            Can you think of times that’s applied in your life?  I suspect some of us can.  We’ve had times when we stayed too long in a place we should’ve left, stayed in a “brown pasture”, rather than looking for something better.  And we’ve also had times when we did not realize how good we had things, and we refused to stay in a “green pasture” and instead left it for something not nearly as good.

            But what does that show?  It shows that there are times we need to have the courage to leave a place to find something better, and it shows there are times we need to have the wisdom to stay in a good place rather than taking a foolish risk.  So how do we tell the difference?  How do we know whether it’s time to move on or time to stay?

            Well, look at verse three.  “He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.”  The way we tell the difference is by letting God guide us.  God will let us know whether it’s time to move on or time to stay, and if it is time to move on God will show us which way to go.  We know we’re always on the right path when we follow where God guides us to go.

            And that sounds good.  But we say, “How do I let God guide me?  How do I hear God telling me whether to move on or stay?  How do I know what God is guiding me to do?”

            Well, how do the sheep know?  The sheep know by staying close to the shepherd.  If the sheep wander too far off, they won’t see or hear what the shepherd wants them to do.  But if they stay close to the shepherd, the shepherd shows them where to go and gently nudges them back onto the path if they start to stray off course.

            So how do we stay close to God, the shepherd?  You know the answer to that one.  We pray.  We read the Bible.  We don’t just do those things once in a while, when we get into trouble.  We do them every day.  We make God a constant part of our life.

            But of course, it’s one thing to know where God is guiding us to go.  It’s another thing to actually go there.  Because sometimes, if we follow God, God is going to take us out of our comfort zone.  God is going to ask us to do some things we’ve never done before and some things that we really don’t want to do.  In fact, God may ask us to do some things that scare us.

            And the author of our psalm recognizes that.  Look at verse four.  “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”  See, the psalm recognizes that following God is not always going to be easy.  Following God may take us to some really dark, scary places.  It may take us to places where all kinds of things could happen.  And yet, we don’t have to be afraid.  Why not?  Because God is with us.  And God will protect us.

            So the question is, do we trust God enough to follow even when God guides us into those dark valleys?  Are we going to follow even when God guides us to places that scare us?  Will we trust that God will bring us through those dark valleys?  Or are we going to leave the shepherd and go our own way?

            God leaves that choice up to us.  But the psalm gives us some incentive to follow.  Because what happens when we follow God through those dark valleys?  God leads us out to the other side!  God leads us out of the darkness and into the light!  And when that happens, God’s goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives.  And we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

            But we only get there if we follow the shepherd.  The only way we get to those green pastures is if we follow God through the dark valleys.  So, really, it comes down to two things.  Are we willing to do what it takes to stay close enough to God to know where God is leading us?  And if so, are we willing to trust God enough to actually go there, even when it’s a place we don’t want to go?  We need to answer that question in two ways.  We need to answer it as individuals, and we need to answer it as a church.

            So, I ask us all to make God a constant part of our lives.  I ask us all to pray for God’s guidance.  Pray for God to guide us as individuals, and pray for God to guide us as a church.  It’s going to take some time, probably.  But if we consistently pray for God to help us open our hearts and minds to God, again both as individuals and as a church, God will hear, and God will respond.

            And also pray that God will give us the trust and the courage to follow where God guides us.  Pray that we will trust God enough to follow God even when God is leading us to do things that make us uncomfortable, even scary.  Pray that we will trust God enough to believe that, if we go where God is leading us to go, we will eventually get to those green pastures, even if we don’t see them right now.  Pray that we will do that as individuals, and pray that we will do that as a church.

            God is our shepherd.  If we sheep will follow the shepherd, the shepherd will provide us with everything we need.  If we all make God our guide, and if we all have enough trust to follow where God guides us, you and I and our entire church will get to those green pastures.