SERIES ON PSALM 23
III "GUIDANCE THROUGH THE MAZE"
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday October 22, 2000
Text: Isaiah 25:1-10 and Psalm 23
The temperature was 40 degrees Celsius and I was struggling to find one little patch of shade to enjoy a respite from the searing heat. I was visiting the cottage of one of my closest friends who lived in a little village called Langebaan, which is on the coast of Southern Africa. When the wind blows in off the desert even the cool ocean breezes cannot match the searing heat of the desert wind and on that particular day the wind was at its strongest. I sat down with a glass of cool, refreshing liquid, let my friends do whatever they wanted, took out a good book and sat under the shade of a glorious willow tree. As I was enjoying myself, contemplating the virtues of life and thinking that this was a wonderful life, my friend all of a sudden appeared from around the comer of the building. His face looked as if he had seen a ghost! He exclaimed with the loudest voice I've ever heard, "Andrew, for God's sake, don't move!" I realized that with the shrillness in his voice that this was not some silly game or prank of a university student; he looked terrified. He said, "Andrew, under no circumstances must you move one muscle in your body. In the next few minutes some things are going to happen over which you have no control. I want you to do absolutely everything I tell you. I couldn't be more serious. All I can tell you is that it's a matter of life and death." I sat there absolutely rigid. My afternoon of relaxation under the willow had been shot to pieces.
I sat there not even moving my eyelids for the look on his face was so scary that I realized something unbeknownst to me was occurring all about me. Within a matter of seconds I heard alarms and sirens and police trucks rumbling down the street and suddenly they pulled into the driveway of the cottage and out popped two police officers with R-l rifles in their hands. I thought, 'Oh my goodness, have they really found out what I've been doing in my spare time?' The police officer looked at me and in broken English, for he was Afrikaans, said, "Young man I don't want you to move one single muscle? Do you understand?" I said, "Ja, I understand." He said, "This may seem very strange but you're not to make one single move." I got the message. He picked up the rifle, aimed it right above my head and fired. Within split seconds there was an awful smell of burning flesh and all around me I could see that what he'd shot was scattered. Hanging on the very limb, right over my head, was a snake called the Boom Slang which is one of Africa's most deadly snakes. Paralysis within seconds if you're bitten.
Isn't it amazing how a wonderful afternoon in the shade can all of a sudden change your life once and for all? How when you're thinking you're living a life of relaxation and peace all of a sudden some news breaks into your life over which you have absolutely no control whatsoever and from that moment on your life is changed. Is this not how some people feel when they get news from a doctor that the illness that they had and thought was transitory was something that would be with them for the rest of their lives? Isn't it like when you get the news of the sudden death of someone that you had loved? Isn't that the same feeling when you get a letter from your accountant telling you you're going to be audited by Revenue Canada? You're going along in your life thinking everything is fine and you are sitting in the cool of the tree when all of a sudden your life changes.
So it is with the psalmist of the 23rd Psalm today. All of a sudden the mood in the psalm changes dramatically. Last week we had the psalmist being led as a sheep beside the still waters and green pastures but now the whole mood of the psalm changes. The metaphor, the language changes. All of a sudden the shepherd is leading the sheep through the valley of the shadow of death. (In the literal Hebrew, the 'valley of deepest darkness'.) Suddenly three images start to appear in this great psalm. Images that I think all of us in our lives can identify with, moments or passages in our journey of life through which we have walked at one time or another or we will walk sometime. The first of these places is the valley. As you know it is the job of the shepherd to make sure that the sheep stay on the path. It is the job of the shepherd to make sure they don't wander into the hillside to where there may be desperately dangerous terrain. It is the shepherd's job to make sure that the sheep stay on what is known as the straight and the narrow path. But sometimes when we walk through our lives the psalmist is realistic. He knows that there are moments when even that very path is a path that goes through the valley of the deepest darkness. No matter how optimistic one might be, no matter how much you may believe in the providence of God, there are moments when we are confronted with the valley of the shadow of death and the only way to see ourselves to safety is actually to walk through it!
Sometimes, however, the sheep place themselves in that valley of the shadow of death by virtue of their own decision and making. Sometimes, unlike Robert Frost's wisdom to 'take the road less traveled', we take the road most traveled and we find ourselves walking into the abyss, into even greater darkness. I see that all around us in the society in which we live. I see people living through the valley of the shadow of death when they take the road of sheer secularism. This road is a dangerous one because it presumes that there is no guide along the way. If you believe that the only source of inspiration, the only guidance that we can receive is that which we generate ourselves, then there is no place for a guide who will help us through the valley of the shadow of death. I see many people living with great stresses in their lives because when they go through the valley of the shadow of death they don't believe that there is anyone else going with them. They think that if they face an illness or a crisis at work or poverty or danger that they are on their own with only their own resources to guide them, nurture and sustain them. The road of the secular mind as far as I'm concerned is a stressful one for there is no guide to see us through it, no place for us to find a home. In the passage read from Isaiah the people of Israel are scattered in exile. We read that they are despondent, their oppressors rule their lands, they have no knowledge of Zion and do not know the way home. Isaiah, as only he can do, says, "0 Israel don't you worry. When you are hungry God will feed you; when you are thirsty God will give you something to drink; when there are wild beasts around you God will protect you." As he says later in chapter 35, "The Lord will find a highway to holiness for the people of Israel to find their way back to Zion, even when they have lost their memory." The vision of Isaiah is the same vision as the psalmist's. There is, in fact, a guide. Even in moments of exile and despair and destruction and sorrow, still in the midst of it all there is the divine hand of God's guidance.
There is also another path we sometimes choose, an equally dangerous path: it is the one of unsanctified ambition. This is when on our own we declare independence and we will walk our own path and will be true to ourselves. Life all 'half-truths' there is an element of truth to that. There is the element in which we must take sometimes the road less traveled and make a decision that we walk on that path, but very often it is just an expedient means of taking an unsanctified ambitious step forward, of our own making, without ever consulting the guide who is with us. I see that all around us in our world. I was reading recently the story of the famous Louisiana politician, Huey Long, who is known for being perhaps the most expedient politician the world has ever known. One of the things he did was, being very clever, whichever community he went into he made sure he always presented himself as the candidate for that community. Whether or not he believed what he said was immaterial; the fact was that he wanted to win their votes by trying to woo them. One day Huey Long, who was a Protestant, went to a very Catholic community. At the end of his speech he made an appeal to the people there. He said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I want to tell you that when I was a young boy I used to hitch my horse to the buggy and take my grandparents to Mass every Sunday morning." One of his colleagues came to him afterwards and said, "Huey, I didn't know you had Catholic grandparents." He said, "I not only didn't have Catholic grandparents, I didn't have a dam horse, you fool!" Isn't it amazing how we find our politicians wandering from community to community always making sure that they target whoever they are with, with a message that they think will sit well with their audience? I'd probably do the same.
But it is so easy to take that path of unsanctified ambition;when we find ourselves in the valley of the shadow of death just simply to go by our own virtues rather than following a true path. This past week I received a delightful CD for my birthday. It is of an Irish group of singers called The Corrs in Blue and they have some wonderful music. One particularly touching song attracted me when I was listening so I wrote the words down because it is a story of a young girl who has found herself in the valley of the shadow of death. The only way she thinks she can get out of the valley is by selling cocaine. These words seem to sum up unsanctified ambition; they go like this: There's a deep girl in a corner shop selling sugar for money in the dead of the night, And her soul's in the sugar and her heart's in the mud. And she's crying with a stranger for someone to love. My friends, there are many people who go through the valley of the shadow of death crying out for someone to love. Psalm 23 tells us that the Good Shepherd is that som eone and that God wants to be our guide. He implores people, it is the greatest passion in the heart of the psalmist. 'Even though I go through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.'
There is a second image: that of the table. The psalmist goes on and changes the metaphor completely now. God is no longer just the shepherd; God is actually the host of the meal. When the sheep have come home and the crop has been gathered in there is a table prepared for us. The psalmist in the most eloquent words says 'thou preparest a table before me'. In other words. God provides nurture and sustenance, spiritually, physically, for his people. But even more, listen to the words. He not only calls us to sit down at the table but he does so 'in the presence of mine enemies'. In the face of those who are going to be the greater source of danger, those who might even want to take the life of the sheep, even in the presence of the enemies, the darkest of all places, God prepares a table for us.
There is a story of a church in London which was bombed during the bombing campaigns of 1943 and 1944. One such Methodist church was gathering in the evening, having blacked-out the building, and right in the nave, in a place like this, the people were sharing in the sacrament of Holy Communion. As they gathered in fellowship at the table and broke the bread and drank the wine a bomb landed outside the building. Immediately half of the church was destroyed, the part away from where the people sharing communion were gathered. The minister, during this service, didn't even flinch; he said, "We will continue to dine at this table until everyone of us has been fed." At the end of the service they got up together and read the 23rd Psalm. "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies." The greatest sense of defiance, the greatest sense of God's providence and God's sovereignty is that even when the foes are all around us, even when there are difficulties facing us in our lives, even in the midst of that we sit down and dine at the table of the Lord.
One of the most inspiring books that I've ever had the privilege to read is by Debbie Morris entitled Forgiving Dead Man Walking. It is the story of what many of you may have seen in the movie Dead Man Walking, but it is from the point of view of the victim. It is the story of a young woman and her husband who had their car hi-jacked in Louisiana. They were pulled over to the side of the road where she was raped and he was murdered. It is the story of what unfolded in their lives and the moment of decision that Debbie Morris had to come to. Here she was bitter, angry, hurt, frightened and terrorized by what had happened in her life. The story of Dead Man Walking is the story of how the man who committed the murder was ministered to by a spiritual advisor when he was in prison. The story of Forgiving Dead Man Walking is the story of the decision by Debbie Morris to forgive the man who had raped her and murdered her husband. She wrote these words near the end of the book. They are words I think all of us should take to heart in our own lives: If we say that monsters are beyond forgiving we give them a power they should never have. Monsters who are too evil to be forgiven set a stranglehold on their victims. They can sentence their victims to a lifetime of pain. If they are unforgivable monsters they are given a power to keep their evil alive in the hearts of those who suffered the most. Debbie made the decision to forgive her enemy for she did not want the enemy to have the power over her life. That is what the psalmist is getting at when he says, 'thou prepares! a table before me in the presence of my enemies'. The path that the sheep should tread, even when they face danger, is a path of holiness and of forgiveness and righteousness. It is a path that says to all oppressors 'I have a greater power than your oppression. I have the power to forgive because the Good Shepherd leads me through even that travail!' Such is the power of the table. When Jesus sat down with his disciples knowing that Judas was in his midst, I am sure that he must have been thinking 'thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies'.
There is one last image: it is of the house. The psalmist goes on with the immortal words 'but I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever'. When I have gone through the valley, when I have been beside the still and quiet waters, when I have eaten at the table and my head has been anointed with oil and my stomach is full, I know from that moment on that I will still dwell in the house of the Lord forever. A famous composer was once asked of the four hundred pieces he had composed, which one he would chose to take to a desert island. He said, "None. I would take a blank piece of paper for the best composition is the one that I will write tomorrow." Why? Because he believed in the future, because he believed that even in the great unknown, even when there are great surprises and Boom Slangs hanging on branches above our heads, still, at the end, there is God.
Over the past two weeks I have been greatly troubled and frightened. One of my best friends had contracted a virus which had gone into his lungs, his heart had stopped, his lungs collapsed and he was placed on a ventilator. This man is the father of our godson; that's how close he is to us. There was a feeling ten days ago that he could very well die. Every night I prayed for him, every night I called his family and spoke to my godson about him. Last night he phoned me up —— he's home! I asked Jim, "What went on when you were going through your suffering?" He said, "Oh Andrew, it was marvelous! I had the most incredible dream. I dreamt that I was James Bond and I'd won $1.75 million dollars and was traveling all over the world. Then I came to and realized that I was back in reality. My family looked at me and I looked at my sons and wife and they were crying for me." I asked, "What is the lesson you've learned from this, Jim?" He said, "It is two-fold: even when we're going through the valley of the shadow of death and we don't know it, someone else is with us. The second is that when you come out of the valley of the shadow of death the greatest gift that you have is 'tomorrow'."
Take your mind back to the first words I uttered in this series on the 23rd Psalm. The young man who was dying of AIDS in an Ottawa hospital, the man who cried out to me 'Le Segneur est mon pasteur'. I cannot help but think that when the journey that the sheep have trod is finished, when the valley has been walked through and the table has sustained us, at the end of the road there is the Good Shepherd who says 'Welcome home'. May we dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.