SERIES ON PSALM 23
I "ON PERSONAL PROVIDENCE""
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Thanksgiving Sunday October 8, 2000
Text: Luke 11:3 and Psalm 23
The telephone rang. The young man on the other end had asked for me by name. While it was not the young man speaking but rather a nurse at the Montfort Hospital in Ottawa, she specifically asked that the young man would receive a visit from the Reverend Andrew Stirling. She said, "Are you he?" I said, "Yes I was." But when she told me the name of the young man I confess that I had never heard of him. Nevertheless having been asked for a visit I drove to the Montfort Hospital and went to the front desk where I was greeted by a nurse who informed me I was going to an area of the hospital known for its infectious diseases. She asked me to wear a mask and rubber gloves and to be very careful what I touched. So I put on my gloves and mask and went up to the centre for immunology and infectious diseases and walked into the room where there was a young man. He stared at me and smiled and even at that moment I still didn't recognize him. 'Who is this young man?' I thought. Clearly he was very ill and in the final stages of dying from AIDS. He looked at me and his eyes began to roll back in his head and he went into an almost semi-comatose state. The only words that came out of his lips after he had smiled at me were the following: "Le seigneur est mon pasteur." (My poor French was failing me at that moment.) What on earth is he saying to me? There was a long pause and still he seemed not to be recognizing me and then 'Le seigneur est mon pasteur' he cried out and it dawned on me! What he was saying was 'The Lord is my shepherd'. I fumbled in the drawer of the table next to his bed and tried to find the bible and when I opened it I found it was in French and I could not find the 23rd Psalm. I went back to his bed and again he said to me, 'Le seigneur est mon pasteur', so I just took him by the hand and recited in English from the King James' Version "The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want, he leadeth me beside still waters." There was a flicker of recognition in his eyes and then clearly he was overtired and I departed.
That evening I received another telephone call. It was from the young man's mother who said, "Reverend Stirling I want to thank you for coming to visit my son." I replied, "I must confess madam, I have no idea who your son is." She said, "You may not know him but he remembers you because you performed the wedding of his cousin a few months ago and you are the only minister he knew." Within twenty-four hours the young man's life had expired. Le seigneur est mon pasteur. The Lord is my shepherd.
Why is it that those words are so captivating? Why is it that they are so powerful that even people who seemingly have little or no contact with the church or the faith still nevertheless in their heart of hearts know that there is power in the words The Lord is my shepherd? Is it because of the magnificent cadence of the poetry? Is it because of the glorious language of our King James' version that still captures the words in a poetic form like no other? Is it because of me magnificent Scottish, lilting, tune Crimmond to which we often sing this psalm? Is it because people hear it at funerals? Certainly I know that during the past difficult times this summer at the death of my mother when I had no other words to say, almost like a mantra, when I was speechless I would recite 'The Lord Is My Shepherd and almost instantly feel this aura of comfort and power. Is it because these words are so universal that it really doesn't matter to what religion you belong, they still speak? In 1938 when King Farouk of Egypt ascended the throne, the Jewish community in Cairo decided to give him a gift. What they gave was an inscription on a piece of silver and it was the 23rd Psalm. King Farouk, himself a Muslim, said that of all the gifts that he was given to signify his new reign, the gift from the Jews was the one that he loved the most. There is power in the words The Lord is my shepherd and today, with thanksgiving, I have decided to look at those words in a new way.
I do so because the words of David have been used throughout the levitical tradition whenever the people of God give thanks to the Lord, whenever they have a great meal, they come forward with the meal and the words 'The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want'. They are the words of Jewish thanksgiving. So for you and me who are gathered here today it is a wonderful time to begin to look at these words afresh and anew and discover their power. In fact, the more I read the words of this Psalm, the more I realized I could preach for ages and ages and ages on these words. For your relief, I will not. I received a little story not long ago about a minister who came into the pulpit and had cut his face and was wearing a bandage on it. He appeared before the congregation and said, "Ladies and gentlemen I'm sorry but this morning when I was thinking about my sermon I cut my face." He went on and delivered his sermon and when the service was over he greeted a lady and she said, "Good morning, Reverend. Next time why don't you think about your face and cut your sermon instead?" I will not go on and on but I will preach three sermons on the 23rd Psalm beginning today. I do so because there is such power and a wealth of inspiration for all God's children in these words.
First they are words that speak about personal providence. The psalmist begins with the glorious words that define God like no other:The Lord is my shepherd. These are powerful, metaphorical words and for those who lived in Palestine in the time of David they would mean so much and have such meaning and purpose for really three basic reasons. First of all the psalmist understood that the first voice he should listen to is the voice of God. The sheep in Palestine were not in individual little farms, they were not neatly cut out in private ownership, rather the sheep of the farmers would roam around the fields almost at their will and it was up to the shepherds to make sure that all the sheep would return to the farmer who sent them out. So the only way that the shepherd could attract the sheep was for the sheep to know the voice of the shepherd so that when the shepherd spoke, those sheep that belonged to him would gather and follow him. That is why Jesus uses the illustration when he describes himself as the Good Shepherd as the ones who hear his voice are the faithful ones. So it is in this setting that the people of God are those who listen first of all to the voice and word of God. There may be other voices calling us, other voices demanding our attention and affection and obligation but the first voice, the dominant voice, the voice of our shepherd is the voice of the Lord to which we much respond. That is why it is important for us to worship in order that we might hear weekly, over again, the word of God and that we might recognize that the Lord is the shepherd and his voice calls us.
But this is also the shepherd who feeds his flock. The role of the shepherd is to make sure that the sheep do not go hungry, that they go to the proper fields where there are the proper grasses on which they can graze. So it is with the shepherd. I've been thinking a great deal about this recently for we as a nation in Canada have much for which to give thanks. I was talking to the Rotary Club about the things for which we should give thanks. When you think about it, the Lord has been good to us as Canadians. We have a magnificent land from the roaring Atlantic Ocean to the glorious plains of Manitoba to the high mountains of the Rockies to the clear crystal air of the Arctic; God has been good to us. Whether the settlers came from Prague or Paris or Portsmouth, they came to a land that gave them so much and provided for them when they were hungry. For those natives who were already here, they understood that this land is sacred and is majestic and marvelous. God has been abundant in feeding us and as Canadians we must ensure that all people of our land are given the opportunity to come to the table that God has set before his sheep, for the Lord is our shepherd.
There is one more point about the shepherd: not only does he feed us but as John Calvin said, even if we realize the abundance of all the food that we have been given, it pales in comparison to know that we are indeed 'one of God's flock'. There is a tremendous sense in which God feeds us spiritually, not only physically, that the abundance of God's grace is not only to prepare a table before us that we might enjoy later today, but God feeds our spirits and souls with the power and grace of his Holy Spirit. But the shepherd must do one other thing: the shepherd must at times protect the sheep. The way in which the shepherd protects the sheep is not always by telling them that the road is clear and everything is good and nice; sometimes the shepherd must warn the sheep and say, 'no, this is not the way you must go!' I read a story of a many who had been on the road selling things. It was late in the day and he was tired and so he stopped at a diner and when he was approached by the waitress and she said, "Now, what would you like to order?" He said, "I would like the pot roast and a few kind words!" The waitress wrote this down and walked away from him. He said, "Excuse me madam. What about the few kind words?" She said, "The only kind words I can think of right now, sir, are 'don't order the pot roast!'" Sometimes we sit down at the banquet that God has given us and it seems bountiful, glorious and wonderful but there are times also when God warns us like a shepherd and says, 'Here is a cliff, if you go too close you'll fall over. Be careful!' The word of the shepherd then is to protect the sheep, to feed the sheep, to speak to the sheep for they know the voice of the shepherd who calls them.
There is a second thing about the beginning of this psalm that so moves me. That is the personal pronoun that keeps running through it. Have you noticed how of all the psalms this is the one that is the most personal? The one that speaks of I, me. thy and thou. The one that says the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Oh it might be a psalm for the whole of Israel, it might be a levitical entrance to a great meal but ultimately more than anything else it is a psalm that speaks to you and to me. Martin Buber, the great Jewish philosopher, once said that the relationship between God and ourselves is a relationship between an Land a thou. It is an intimate relationship. This personal God is important to capture when so many people try to make God just a distant spirit or a cosmic energy or a force that is out there in the universe. The words of the psalmist say, 'No, he is more than that. He is the I he is the my. he is the thou. he is the one who identifies uniquely with us. He is the one who takes us through the journey of our lives and even if this journey goes through the darkest moments and we wander through the valley of the shadow of death or if we sit down to a table that is overflowing with goodness and grace, the I of God goes with us each and every step of the way. That is why when people are in times of need, when they find it hard in their hearts to be thankful, the psalmist says what they cannot say for themselves. That is why we repeat this psalm over and over again in our minds. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Even when all hell is breaking loose those words steer you through the journey of life like no other.
I have been going through some of the works of my greatgrandfather who I've mentioned to you before (a great Welsh preacher). He is a most inspiring man who tells a lot of stories about the Welsh who are a rather unusual group of people. He tells the true story from the 19th Century of two Welsh preachers who walk through the area of North Wales in the glorious hills. They came upon a young shepherd who looked at them and wondered who on earth they were because they were wearing their clerical shirts and he had never seen anything like this before. So the youth sat down with the two ministers and they began to talk and it was evident that the boy had a poor education, he had never been to church, never been given the privileges of a young man's life, he had simply, at a very young age, been sent out to care for the sheep. So trying to explain the faith to this young boy the two ministers used a phrase that this youth could identify with. They told him to do one thing. They said, "If you want to remember the faith all you do is this: hold up your left hand and with your right hand grab one of the fingers and say each time 'the Lord is my shepherd'" So they left this young man and returned home. The next year they came back to the very same spot and at the bottom of the hill there was an old house. They were hungry and tired so they went down to the house and were invited in to the front room by a lady who sat them down and pleased to see them as ministers. She said, "Would you like some tea and cakes?" As all ministers do they said, "Amen, absolutely!" As they looked up at the mantelpiece they saw a photograph of the young boy they had met the year before. They asked the woman, "Who is that young boy?" She said, "That was my son." "Was your son, they replied." She said, "Yes, this past winter on an icy day, trying to save one of the sheep he fell over the cliff and dropped and died." The ministers were most sad and said, "But we knew your son, we saw him last summer." The woman said, "Well, there's one thing, Reverends, that you can explain to me. I really don't understand. After he had fallen off the cliff and died it was evident that he was grasping the middle finger of his left hand with his right hand." The two ministers looked at each other and said, "The Lord is my shepherd." At the moment when this young boy was at his life's end these were the words he remembered. My friends, there is power in these words. The 23rd Psalm is universal, it is immortal, it is meaningful, it speaks to the you. and to the I and to the thee and the thou and whenever in your life you wonder if you have anything for which to give thanks, hold your left hand and remember the words, Le seigneur est mon pasteur and say merci. Amen
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.