Vulnerable Dining

Holden Village Sermon

Easter IV 5.11.14

Year A

Psalm 23

As we begin to reflect on the Scripture we have just heard, I would like to invite you to think about a time you last felt vulnerable – really out there without protection, or your heightened awareness of the shields we try to cover ourselves with are penetrable.  Maybe it was on a hike when you saw the cougar tracks in the snow, or a close call in your car, or a time when the tears just fell out of your eyes despite your best efforts to hold yourself together.  Think about a time you were aware of your frailty and remembered that even though we are cunning, crafty creatures – we are also vulnerable.  Do you have a time in mind? Is it accompanied with the nerves and shakes or the memory of feelings of honesty and exposure?

I remember last May in the village, when construction season was lifting off and I remember the sense of assurance I felt as village renewal volunteers came pouring off the bus.  Their new enthusiasm and desire to work and serve was like a breath of fresh air and their new faces and stories brought some life to a small, unsure community.  I have missed that this May – we are in this relaxed, waiting month – preparing for the work before us.  Yet, our numbers are not growing, the new wave of enthusiasm and energy has not quite hit us – as a community, I think we are more vulnerable than usual.  We are small, we have come out of a tiring and intense winter and we are staring straight into a summer of construction.  When numbers are down I remember the wildness of the wilderness, the reality of danger and crisis and I remember that we need each other…direly and urgently need each other as we exist as a vulnerable community (include mining community!).

Before us tonight is  the most well known psalm in Scripture, and perhaps psalm 23 is even the most well known passage of all of Scripture.  We hear it on this day, Good Shepherd Sunday, every year just a couple of weeks after Easter.  I would like to read it for you again, when these fresh images of living in a mountain valley and the feelings of being vunerable still in your hearts and minds.  Because, while the image of sheep and shepherd may not be a familiar image to many of us...the exposure that a herd of sheep experience, and the vunerability that is their reality is something we can tap into...and the promises of the Shepherd are soothing, protective words for all creatures gathered here.

1 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. 2   He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters; 3   he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths   for his name’s sake. 

 4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley,  I fear no evil;
for you are with me;your rod and your staff—they comfort me. 

5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow meall the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

The psalm begins with a statment of trust – "the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want".  Then the psalm ends with a declaration of faith – "surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life..." Maybe you have heard these beautiful phrases spoken at funerals, or having hanging somewhere in your home.  Psalm 23 is the Psalm we go to because these are the kind of reassuring words of faith we need to hear; guidance for our wobbly walking, rest for our weariness, God’s purpose for our self-centered priorities. 

In addition to being beautiful and reassuring, this psalm is also a run of paradoxical statements and tonight we center on verse 5: "you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies..."  this statement seems out of place in our beloved psalm filled with beautiful fields and streams and sheep.  Poor sheep, lured in to dine with the fox, unsuspecting child of God, seated at a table with the forces that move against us – now that is vunerability.  To be seated at a table feasting in the midst of enemies.

If this were your table, what enemies would be surrounding you? Would you be dining with shame or anger? Would broken relationships or addiction be at the table? Would an actual person be seated there or an injustice so cutting you know that experience would appear at the table of Psalm 23?

"you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies..."

When I was growing up my family did not have fine china.  But we did have a cherished set of dishes that always came out at Christmas and Thanksgiving and other holiday meals.  It was a simple glass setting, made in the 1930s and thus called depression glasseware.  During this time of great economic struggle and suffering this glassware was very inexpensive and was easily made and distributed around the nation.

The particular design of depression glassware that belonged to my family was called "Manhatten" and my mother began collecting it when I was a child.  Every road trip my family took always included stops at antique shops so my mom could see if she could find just one more piece of the collection – my brothers and I were less than patient with this antiquing.  My mother passed away a few years after she started the collection, so my father took it up.  Now he was the one stopping in every antique shop he could find to complete what my mother had started, and when I grew up and left home he passed this collection of depression glassware onto me.

The paradox of verse 5 led me to remember this glassware which my family has always used to celebrate...so every Christmas dinner, or Thanksgiving feast we were reminded my mother and reminded of her death.  I suppose setting the table had become an act of faith, because in the face of death...we live.  It seems ubsurb, paradoxical, yet this is the way of God.

"you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies..."

And what of your enemies? The powers or behaviors which compromise your life...that which leads you to death...that which hurts another and that which separates you from God.  Could you share a feast-meal with them? Could you engage in these paradoxical promises of God? Those enemies that we engaged with throughout this life are not for our conquering, we leave them at the cross of Christ and we come to the table prepared before us.  It seems upsurd, paradoxical, we should be going to battle taking down the enemy, fighting the good fight! However, when we surrender our enemies the Risen One it is not simply a letting go, we surrender our enemies to Christ because we are trusting in the conquering promise of Easter.  That life overthrows death, that ligh banishes the darkness, that mercy does cover the theives and bandits which destroy and kill, that Jesus lives to bring life abundantly for all.   We trust that God will do a good work in us, in our enemies, in our lives so that one day, we all will be able to say "surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of our lives".

In just a moment we will hear a beautiful and simple setting of Psalm 23 by Jon Foreman called "House of God Forever".  While the music plays you are invited to reflect on the enemies in your life, or the enemy you may have been for others.  Write down a word or prhase or list that captures the reality of enemies that you've experienced.  Then, when you come forward to the table that God has prepared, when you come forward to recieve communion leave your enemies here on this table, in the presence of God.  We will spend time in prayer after communion praying for these enemies, trusting that God really is preparing a table before us, a table before all the vunerable people of the world..

Come to the table and remember Jesus who stands up to our enemies and the powers of death in this world and responds with love.  Love so strong and so wide that it encompasses all of who we are.  And we remember Jesus who prepares this table through the enemy we will all face one day...the enemy of death, and we remember the promise of this Easter season which sets the table with mercy and goodness in the house of God forever.

5 You prepare a table before me
   in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
   my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
   all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
   my whole life long.

Thanks be to God, the Good Shepherd.  Amen.