| Note: No sermon is quite the same when you read it. You miss the inflections, the expression that you gain in the hearing. The words below are only a close approximation of the sermon, taken from handwritten notes. Nevertheless, the words (as best as can be deciphered!) are shared with you here. The Webmeister |
Fourth Sunday of Easter In the brightly-lit emergency room inside of Johns Hopkins Hospital, I pulled out my prayer book and opened to the 23rd psalm. I looked into the eyes of a woman standing a few feet away from me and watched as tears dropped from her face and towards the floor. Together, the woman and I began to say the words of the 23rd psalm, that one psalm that so many people know by heart, whether or not they are Christian or Jewish. The words jumped from the page and took on a life of their own as we read "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want, he makes me to lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters; he revives my soul and guides me along right pathways for his Name's sake. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil." And on we went until we came to the end of that psalm. The woman had difficulty saying some of those words in the midst her tears, in fact to say most of them was a challenge for her. But when we finished the psalm, there was a sense of peace to her that I did not see there before. A sense of peace, as if the Holy Spirit had descended upon her, and calmed her very soul. We were both quiet for a moment. After all, what does one possibly say to follow those words? The woman looked at me, her eyes still wet from tears, and she said "thank you" and immediately I thought, for what? But then I realized, she wasn't thanking me, she was thanking God for the words of comfort contained within that psalm. She was thanking God for the beauty of those words and for their ability to inspire hope within her even when everything seemed hopeless. And as the nurse there draped the sheet back over her friend's calm, still face, we watched as she was taken out of the room. And I stood there with that woman, who I had only met moments before, and wondered what had exactly happened. That psalm had happened. Those words came alive as we read them, displacing what was negative in our hearts with God's boundless love. God was present in those words in that room, just as present as when the author first penned them on parchment or an animal skin thousands of years ago. And God is just as present in those words when we said them moments ago. I've never preached a sermon on a psalm before this morning. And I'm not sure why, because all the psalms, not only the 23rd, speak so clearly the full range of human experience, from despair to joy, from hopelessness to hope, from anger to love. Like the teary eyes of that woman in the emergency room, this psalm brings us to death's door. We walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but we do not stay there. Because like the woman's soft words "thank you" we are reminded that if our faith is in God, then goodness and mercy, as the psalm says, will follow us all the days of our lives. My wife and I are in the process of buying a house right now. And going through this process, I think that I can safely say that the great Italian poet Dante, were he alive today, certainly would have included in his work the Inferno the process of buying a house as one of the most terrible punishments. The process certainly drains the life out of you. You walk through house after house, seeing many things you don't like, many things you do, and then one day…it finally happens. You stumble upon the house that you and your spouse have been looking for for months. You've found it! And you look into the excited eyes of your spouse and … the real estate agent tells you the house already has an offer on it. Back to square one. The process continues until the seemingly impossible happens. A house appears, and amazingly, you and your spouse both like it. This happened to us recently, and we made an offer on a house, and it was accepted. God does work miracles! In this whole process we've gone through, looking at house after house, I've learned something. That God prepares a home for us. The home that God prepares for us is not just in heaven, but it is also here, on earth. The author of the psalm prefers the word "table" to home, and writes "You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me; you have anointed my head with oil, and my cup is running over." In the midst of all the houses we walk through in life that don't seem to fit, in the midst of everything in our lives that doesn't seem to be going right, God pulls the branches aside to show us the table or house he has prepared for us. And that house is in a very unlikely place—it is, as the author of the psalm writes, in the presence of those who trouble us. That house, that table that God has set for us, is right in the middle of the chaos of our lives. That is where your table is that God has prepared for you. That is where our house is that God has prepared for us. And it is upon that table, or inside that house, where we are anointed by the Holy Spirit, and where our cups overflow with abundance. Last weekend when my wife and I were in New York city, I heard the news about the great and terrible tragedy that struck our city that affected the lives of millions living here. Of course I am talking about the Houston Texan's owner Bob McNair's decision to pick Mario Williams instead of Reggie Bush in the NFL draft, allowing Reggie to be picked up by the New Orleans Saints. Now, I'm not one to incite controversy from the pulpit, and I'm sure Mario will be fine for the Texans, but you might agree with me that that decision was somewhat…unexpected. When I asked Ryan DeRocha, a parishioner at Epiphany, his thoughts on the matter this weekend, he replied: "I don't care, I'm a Saints' fan anyway." I was amazed that even thought he didn't grow up in Houston, how much he sounded like every other Texan's fan I knew. Who gets who or what, whether in football or in life, is of little consequence in the grander scheme. And they don't matter because we know that God gets all of us. We all belong to God, and because we belong to God, God will always be with us, leading us beside still waters, and through green pastures. And it is through belonging to God that our souls are revived. They are given life. This psalm has traveled a great distance to meet you here this morning. God is present in these words, just as God was present in them inside of that emergency room. God is present in these words which remind you that your table, your house is actually right before your very eyes, in the most unlikely place. It is amidst those things that make you the most uncomfortable. If you look there, you will find the table, or the house God has set for you. And God is present in the words which remind us that God has chosen all of us, and we dwell with God in green pastures and beside still waters. And because God has chosen us, we belong to God forever, and God will always restore our souls. All we need to do is open our eyes. Amen. The Reverend James M. L. Grace May 7, 2006 *Past sermons may be found here. |
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