A Return to the Shepherd Psalm

Communion Meditation

April 20, 1999

October 11, 1992 (pm)

Psalm 23

Jesus said, "I AM the Good Shepherd." John 10:10

The phrase in the 23rd Psalm, "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies," is somehow comforting and at the same time mysterious. I often think of it as I approach the sacrament we call the Eucharist, or Communion. And then the phrase takes on an almost immeasurable depth of meaning. This is the table of the Lord!

A TABLE GOD HIMSELF PREPARES

Jesus is the Good Shepherd. A good shepherd knows his sheep; knows what they need, and provides for them. If we are His sheep, then we need to believe that He knows what we need and will provide for us.

What we need is not always what we are most concerned about. I am pretty sure that if a flock of sheep caught wind of a wolf in the vicinity they would be very apprehensive. They would have reason to be worried if their shepherd either did not know about the wolf, or was unable to deal with the wolf. But the shepherd might not be quite as concerned, knowing exactly what he was going to do to protect his sheep.

Jesus knows we need food and fellowship and refreshment. He knows that we are human and frail.

God Himself has provided strength for our journey. Our meat and drink come from the very life of our Shepherd, who lays down His life for the sheep.

A TABLE IN DEFIANCE OF MANY UNCHALLENGED SO CALLED FACTS OF LIFE

Life is filled with "enemies.

The Psalmist speaks of the "valley of the shadow of death." Life at times is harsh, and dark, and foreboding. We shrink back from that which would destroy us. The only thing that kept the Psalmist from a death of shattering fear was the Presence of the Shepherd. For the presence of the enemies was evident!

Personal enemies! David had real enemies, people who wanted to do him in, to kill him. We have real enemies, too. Life is NOT a game, it is for real.

We have personal enemies; that which would keep us from believing that God really will guide us into abundant life. The Table of the Lord is a corrective that says, What I need more than anything else is You, O God!

Enemies of the CHURCH! The very spirit of our age is corrosive to the spirit of the church, and vice versa. And some of our worst enemies are attitudes from within, attitudes that can be corrected at the table of the Lord. [Perhaps you may think I'm "reaching" to include this, but it needs to be said:]

In the book Resident Aliens William Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas list some rather unconventional "enemies of the church" which may be present as we partake at the Lord's Table:

1. One such enemy is SENTIMENTALITY. Commenting that "exciting services" and "good feeling" have become ends in themselves in the ministry they write; "When that happens the church and ministry cannot avoid sentimentality, which we believe is the most detrimental corruption of the church today."

   Sentimentality, after all, is but the way our UNBELIEF is lived out.

   SENTIMENTALITY, THAT ATTITUDE OF BEING ALWAYS READY TO UNDERSTAND BUT NOT TO JUDGE, CORRUPTS US AND THE MINISTRY. This is as true of the conservative churches as it is of the liberal. Sentimentality is the subjecting of the church year to "Mother's Day" and "Thanksgiving."

   Sentimentality is the necessity of the church to side with the Sandanistas against the Contras. Sentimentality is "the family that prays together stays together."

   Without God, without the One whose death on the cross challenges all our "good feelings," who stands beyond and over against our human anxieties, all we have left is sentiment, the saccharine residue of theism is demise. [1]

2. A second enemy is LETTING THE WORLD DEFINE THE CHURCH; or accepting conventional definitions of the church. If the church accepts the values of our rotten culture, then (and I quote again:)

   (The) church will be a source of conventional, socially acceptable answers, a place to reiterate what everybody already knows, even without the church. We shall die, not from crucifixion, but from boredom.

   (We especially pastors are conditioned) "to think in terms of what the church can do to help people but within parameters set by a society that does not know God. In that myopic world view, solutions to what ails us will be petty. WHAT SORT OF COMMUNITY WOULD WE HAVE TO BE TO BE THE SORT OF PEOPLE WHO LIVE BY OUR CONVICTIONS? [2]

3. A third enemy of the church named by Hauerwas and Willimon is UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS: We try to make the church whatever WE think it ought to be, or what we think the WORLD wants it to be to meet their perceived needs. Hauerwas and Willimon are speaking especially of pastors, but this truth applies to us all. We must focus in on what GOD wants us to do, and then we find we have peace with Him, and with ourselves! Listen to what they say about pastors, and see if there is an application for you in this enemy of "Unrealistic Expectations":

   Pastors come to despise what they are and hate the community that made them that way. Because the church is not a place to worship God, but rather a therapeutic center for the meeting of one another's unchecked, unexamined needs, the pastor is exhausted. Only a few months into his or her first pastorate the new pastor realizes that people's needs are virtually limitless, particularly in an affluent society in which there is an ever rising threshold of desire (which we define as "need." There is no job description, no clear sense of purpose other than the meeting of people's needs, so there is no possible way for the pastor to limit what people ask of the pastor. Not knowing what they should do pastors try to do everything and be everything for everybody. The most conscientious among them become exhausted and empty. The laziest of them merely withdraw into disinterested detachment. Not knowing why their pastor is there, the congregation expects the pastor to be and do everything. They become unrealistic critics of the clergy rather than co workers, fellow truth tellers."

   Self hatred is inevitable in someone who feels abused, prostituted, unfairly criticized. The burden of being a generally good person, open and available to people of unbounded need is too great for anybody to bear. Self hate and loneliness result. [3]

IN THE PRESENCE OF THESE ENEMIES, as well as all others, we have THE TABLE OF THE LORD, which is prepared for us by the Shepherd Himself! And, how does this truth apply?

A TABLE OF BOTH PROTECTION AND WITNESS PROTECTION

By coming humbly to partake of the Blood and Body of the Lord, in obedience and in faith, we find the strength to obey, to take daily direction, to keep in the Path of Righteousness for His Name's sake.

We find that our enemies are powerless to keep us from the Pathway, so long as we are careful to stay in His Presence. Have you read or re read Pilgrim's Progress lately? Remember the lions that stood by the pathway just ahead? Remember how they were chained, and could not reach to the center of the path?

WITNESS

On November 16, 1989, members of the church family met in the gathering room after the funeral of Donna Bowers. (She had been cared for for weeks in Esther Sanger's living room in a hospital bed.)

The church family sat around tables, and then one after another Donna Bowers' friends stood and told stories of her kindnesses.

Later four of us made the trip to? Attleboro? for the interment. John, Janice Nielson, Esther Sanger and I. We sang, four part harmony, "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness... On Christ the solid Rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand."

The cemetery workers were amazed. "Do you always do that?" they asked.

WE COME TO THE TABLE, TO THIS SACRAMENT, FOR STRENGTH IN THE MIDST OF OUR ENEMIES. BUT AS WE DO, THE CHURCH ITSELF IN A SENSE BECOMES THE SACRAMENT

If a definition of "sacrament" is an outward and visible sign of a spiritual reality then is not the church to be a living sacrament making visible the love of THE GOOD SHEPHERD WHO CARES FOR HIS OWN?

Our first concern is not what other people may see, but what in fact we ARE, and what we are TO BE and TO BECOME. But what other people may see is not unimportant; as we pay attention to the reality, then what three worlds observe will be the gratitude and worship and appreciation and love of a people who have a God they call "Father" and whose love makes them truly "family." Is there any reality in this vision? This table may well be a key to true evangelism!

Finally,

A TABLE OF PERPETUITY

God will provide for us, as family, in HIS house where we shall dwell with Him, for ever!

[1] Resident Aliens, Hauerwas & Willimon, 121

[2] Resident Aliens, 122

[3] Resident Aliens, 124