Sunday, May 3, 2020 (the Fourth Sunday of Easter) (today’s lectionary)
Prayer service at the News-Gazette
Peter is not alone. With the other Eleven he raised his voice and shouted, “Let the whole house of Israel KNOW!”
Those crowds called Peter and his friends their brothers. And Peter told them what to do. Repent and be baptized, my brothers, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ.
Then I confessed my sin to you, and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
There are promises here. To you, to your children, and to those far off from here.
Peter pleaded with them. Save yourselves! Leave behind this corrupt generation!
On the day following two jet planes crashing into and collapsing both towers of the World Trade Center, Betty the HR director at the News Gazette asked me to lead a prayer service for employees. In the years before, no one had much remarked on my being ordained.
For the most part we read Psalm 23. I don’t remember if I said much. We read a verse and someone prayed. At least that’s how it should have been. Maybe it was.
The Lord is my shepherd and I shall not want.
Stretch out your hand, Lord and protect us from ourselves, and from those who hate us. Protect us most of all from hate. You are the only one who can lead us home.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
The grass beside the river is always more lush than the grass at a distance. Lord, let me stay close to the river, close to you, close to life.
He leads me beside still waters, and he restores my soul.
What do I need, God? To be led by you, and not another, to be free from my own fear and worry and indecision, to hear the lapping of the sea on the shore, the rustle of the river on the rocks, and to breathe deep, restoring breaths all the way down into my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
We need to love one another more today than yesterday, Lord, or so it seems. So much hatred and so much fear, blaming and shaming and holding others up to be looked down upon. But what about me? And what about OUR country? Do we never do anything wrong? Why would anyone want to kill us? Are we so righteous? The righteousness you speak of, Lord, the paths upon which you would have us walk are signed and marked with mercy and justice and humility. That is the path we seek, Lord.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, yes, they comfort me.
Well, yes, Lord, if I need a good talking-to, give to me. If I need a prod from your rod or a shove from your staff, settle me and move me into whatever you know I need. I have never been obedient, not as a student or a son or a husband or an employee. My obedience always insists on being filtered through my own reason and experience. I am perpetually too caught up in my own perspective. And because of it I’ve camped out in the valley, felt the shadow, known the nearness of death.
If I did not fear evil, too often it was because of my own blind arrogance. But I need fear no evil because YOU ARE WITH ME. That’s a whole different menagerie. You are so good, O Lord. Your mercy endures even with me, with my fallen-ass self, on and on into forever.
You prepare a table for me in the presence of mine enemies.
Who can eat at a time like this? Well, of course we need to eat and sleep. Elijah in the midst of the desert, of his depression, of his involuntary fast, on his journey into the center of his soul? You put him to sleep, your angel fed him, you put him to sleep again. No use crying over spilt milk, Elijah. Jezebel has no power over you when I am with you.
AND I AM with you. So relax, sit down, live to eat. Feel the burn of my rich olives and taste the sweetness of my milk and bread.
At Mom’s farm today I watched John care for his prize pig, won by his granddaughter Mia last summer at the fair. This once-upon-a-time cute greased piglet has grown into a white, short-haired baritone who jumps snorting right up on her fence hungry and thirsty every day.
John fed her water and well-ground corn. She snorted, she ate, she drank, she grew. One of these days, sweet pig … one of these days …
You anoint my head with oil, and my cup overflows.
Pressed down, shaken together, running OVER. All in good measure. All in good time. All in good life made by and through and for you, God. You ARE the goodness, you are the horn of plenty, you are the sunshine of my life, you are all I will ever need.
Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.
What do I need to do, Lord? How is that you will bless me and all of us in this way? Your goodness and your mercy? Your guidance and your song? I see how a mustard seed can grow into a plant that eventually crowds everything else out. And my faith is like that too, Lord? Just a little will grow into a faith that crowds everything else out. Faith is not the point, exactly, as much as it is who I have faith IN. You are the sunshine of my life!
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord. FOREVER.
My mortal fascination with time, my own personal birth and life and death, how we each start and stop, how we each begin and end … you promise that there is more than this, and this MORE is your gift to me if I would only say YES and receive it.
Say, yes, David. Just say YES.
By his wounds you have been healed, after going astray like sheep you have been returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls. Not only keeping me in line with your rod, but you also release me to return to you, replacing my sin with your own wounds. Lord, the thorns that stuck so hard into the skin of your forehead, the whip cracking exactly on the skin of your back. Four nails and a spear, your bloody ruined body raised into the darkening Friday sky until you died in an instant, and the earth broke open.
Whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber. Jesus is the good shepherd, and the Pharisees are the thieves and robbers. Well, Lord, not just the Pharisees, there is me, too. I climb over elsewhere, I’ve climbed over elsewhere forever, not really listening to the rules, just making them up as I go along. Are you still coming back for me, lost out there in the darkening night? Will I feel your arms holding me, softening my bleats and cries? And by the way, will you help the Pharisees through the gate one of these days? Your gate is coated with honey from the honeycomb. We can’t all help but come that way in our time, can we? Oh, Lord, I hope that’s true.
You watch too many movies about gangsters, David. Of course it’s true. Under all those bravados are little boys and girls made by Yours Truly. They all, everyone of them, most of all the murderers, need my bread and milk, and they will eat and drink it still.
I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.
Say yes! (Acts 2, Psalm 23, 1 Peter 2, John 10)
