May 6, 2001
Rev. Eugene Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
Psalm 23
Charlie Brown
and Lucy are standing outside at night, under a canopy of stars. In a reflective
mood, he says, “You know what I think? I think that there must be a tiny star
out there that is my star. And, as I am alone here on earth among
millions of people, that tiny star is out there alone, among millions and
millions of stars.” He pauses as they both gaze skyward. “Does that make
sense, Lucy? Do you think it means anything?”
“Certainly,” she responds, “It means you’re cracking up, Charlie Brown!”
Ah, Charlie
Brown. I do identify with his wonderings, his yearnings. “I think there must
be a tiny star out there that is my star.” So often it seems he
is searching, hungering for something - something more than this, and not even
the constant put downs of Lucy, the practical, sensible, often harsh even
cynical voice of the world, can deter him. He responds more to the words of
John Lennon, “You say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.”
Do you recall
that moment in the powerful play, Death of a Salesman, when Willie
Loman’s wife is struggling to understand, to come to terms with, his suicide.
Why would he do such a thing? In her words, “For the first time in thirty-five
years we were just about free and clear. He only needed a little salary. He
was even finished with the dentist!”
But Charlie
Brown would understand that for many of us, life has to be more than just a
little salary, or a new car, or a paid off credit card, or a job or title or
bank account. Certainly life is meant to be larger, deeper than that. The
Psalmist understands this as well.
“The Lord is my
shepherd, I shall not want.” I shall not want. What do you suppose that
means? Does it mean anything to us? While most of us might not describe
ourselves as wealthy, the fact is that most of us really do not want for much,
at least in the material sense. Unlike millions of our brothers and sisters
around the world, most of us do not go to bed hungry every night. When they
hear the Psalmist speaking of not wanting for anything, it means something very
different to them than to us. Something very immediate. And yet, I want to
suggest that we still need to listen very closely. For the Psalmist seems to
know that we might have full bellies and full refrigerators and still find
ourselves feeling strangely . . . hungry.
“The Lord is my
shepherd, I shall not want.” Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann, calls
these words a stunning statement of “focused trust.” He argues that the term,
“shepherd,” when used in this context is far more political than pastoral. It
means king, sovereign, lord, authority, the one who directs, the one to whom I
am accountable, whom I trust and serve. The Lord is my shepherd. For the
Psalmist there is God and no other. It is “focused trust.” The focus is on God
and only on God. In Brueggemann’s words, “There is no rival loyalty, no
competing claim - not economic or political, not liberal or conservative, nor
any of the other petty loyalties that seduce us.” The Lord is my shepherd.
But don’t make
this affirmation lightly or unadvisedly. Taking God as our shepherd, God as
our center, has significant implications for how we live. Preaching professor,
Tom Long, shares this story from his life: “Many years ago, when I was just
beginning my ministry, I managed to save a few dollars from my first paycheck.
I decided that the wise thing to do was to invest it in the stock market.
Inexperienced in such matters, I simply walked into the local Merrilll Lynch
office and told the receptionist that I was there to make an investment.
Quickly sizing me up as a small account, she shuttled me off to the greenest
broker in the place. Evidently he had been trained to make a little small-talk
at the beginning with a client, so he asked me what I did for a living.
“I’m a
minister,’ I said, ‘pastor of a church.’
“The young stock
broker turned a bit pale. ‘Give me a lawyer, a dentist, a life insurance agent,
anything but a minister!’ he seemed to be thinking. ‘What can you say to a
minister?’ Finally, and with some relief, he thought of something. ‘I read the
Bible when the market’s down!’ he announced triumphantly.”
Says Long, “This
broker no doubt thought he was doing a righteous thing - reading the Bible when
the Dow dropped. But the presumption was that religion’s task - and God’s - is
to make his life better, to hold him together when the market faltered, or even
to turn the bears into bulls. We do the same thing when we assume that God's
role is to make the life that we have designed and planned work out smoothly. ‘
God,’ we pray, ‘I have these plans. Make them work.’”
But the Psalmist
points us in a radically different direction from this kind of consumer
religion. I was not feeling well for a couple of days week before last, so I
spent some time at home watching television. I watched a lot of commercials.
And there is one point that TV advertising drives home in as many different ways
as possible…namely this: we always must want one more thing, we are entitled to
it, and we must get it no matter what. There is always more to want. There can
never be enough. Sort of the world of that stock broker.
But what does
the Psalmist say? “I shall not want.” Is he trying to destroy the market
economy? I shall not want. What God gives will be enough for me and I shall
not have any other yearnings or desires that fall outside the gifts of God.
Says Brueggemann: “This is a statement of enormous confidence in the generosity
of God. The one who knows what we need can give well beyond all that we ask or
think. But notice at the same time that this phrase, ‘I shall not want,’ is a
decision made against the greed and lust and satiation and aggressive ambition
of a consumer society.” I don’t know about you, but I never really realized
that the beloved, comforting 23rd Psalm had such an edge to it.
If my focus is on God, then that means I will not be focused on all those other lusts and greeds and yearnings and desires that keep me busy and anxious and selfish and envious. We are so driven, so anxious, and so many of the wants and needs that drive us and make us anxious are contrived and imagined and phony. What might it mean if I allow God to be the Lord of my wants and needs instead of Madision Avenue? Adlai Stevenson once said, “A hungry man is not a free man.” I used to think he was talking about starving people in Africa or Asia. Could he also have been talking about me? My life is filled with so much, yet still I remain so hungry, like Charlie Brown, yearning for something larger, something deeper. Do you suppose there is a tiny star out there that is my star?
In her book,
Stripping Down, Donna Schaper sounds a lot like the Psalmist when she
writes, “The first thing people do when restoring old chairs is to strip right
down to the bare wood. They do this to see what the original might have looked
like and to determine if the thing is worth doing over. They strip away all the
years of grime, the garish coasts of paint piled one on top of the other. They
get rid of all the junk that’s been tacked on through the years and try to find
the solid simple thing that’s underneath.”
She continues,
“I’m like an old chair needing that stripping process. Every now and then I
have to take a really hard look at the illusions I’ve built up in myself…all
that keeps me living off center too long. It’s hard work…I have to discover the
original under all these coats I’ve added, strip away all the cynicism and anger
I’ve built up, get rid of the junk I’ve taken on, and find what is real again.”
“He makes me lie
down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.”
These are images of abundance - good food, good water, restoration. And notice
that the sheep does nothing. Because the shepherd is generous, the sheep lives
a safe, trust-filled life, surrounded by generosity. All because there is ONE
shepherd who can be trusted; one who can fill our desperate hunger within.
Concludes
Brueggemann: “I invite you to see differently - to see past your anxiety, your
greed, your fear, your control. See yourself as the sheep of this good
shepherd, as the traveler in God’s good valley, as the citizen at home in God’s
good house. You will, when you see truly, be free and joyous and generous,
unencumbered and grateful. Desire one thing: God’s presence. And you will be
less driven by all those phony desires that matter not at all.”