This morning we are going to begin by reading together yet another scripture, perhaps the most well-known scripture of all: Psalm 23. … In the King James Version that I grew up with (and every generation has its most formative version), it goes: The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want./ He maketh me to lie down in green pastures/ He leadeth me beside still waters,/ He restoreth my soul.
These verses have been said and prayed and remembered in so many settings: In prison. At the end of one’s life with family close by. In hospital rooms. In quiet moments at home. In the midst of holocaust. In moments of celebration. At church.
And today I am asking us to thinking of especially one of the phrases of this beloved passage: He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. Green pastures. What is my green pasture? What is yours? Do we see them? And what are our green pastures here at St Andrew’s? That is the question that I want to pose for us today? What are the seeds that the Sower is sowing into our collective soil as a congregation? What are the green pastures that are being offered to us today, into which we are being led, pastures green and verdant into which we are shepherded?
Yesterday I went back to a local mechanic shop to retrieve my car after an oil change and when I arrive my car looked like it hadn’t been moved. It hadn’t. Instead one of the lifts in the shop failed with a ton and a half truck on it—a truck loaded with tools and compressors caused the lift to fail and it all came down. The young mechanic underneath managed to roll out at the very end—almost pinned. He was standing there smoking a cigarette just outside the shop, his life in front of his eyes. And this led another to tell me the story of a recent close call while hauling 12,000 pounds of hay, the trailer jackknifing and then the whole rig doing a 360 on the side of the hill while the husband, following with the tractor, watched, thinking the worst and then unbelievably the truck did not roll and the driver survived. This led to talk about the proverbial man upstairs. And through it all a profound sense of presence, protection, gratitude. Yea, though I travel through the valley of the shadow of death/ I will fear no evil,/ Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
Sometimes we begin again. Sometimes we remember a presence surrounding our lives – even in the midst of a harrowing journey. Sometimes the green pasture is elemental. The chance again to breathe. The freedom from catastrophe, where the simplest thing about our lives is a green pasture.
But we were supposed to be speaking of green pastures collectively. Our green pastures here at St. Andrew’s. Or, put it another way, the places in our collective experience where the supreme Sower has tilled our life together and sown some seeds. What, where are our green pastures?
But first, here comes another cow story.
We carved out some more of our pasture last week and got the electric fence set up on a particularly muggy and buggy day and the herded our group, nine now with the presence of a bull, into the new pasture.
The cows walked in right away and began walking the perimeter and eating grass and young tree leaves, but the calves were lying down and didn’t have a clue. This led to herded the calves into the new pasture, but they wound up on the other side of the creek. This led to a lot of moo-ing – moo/maa action across the creek until finally all but one crossed over then the last one crossed. Marilee heard the last one coming over. She couldn’t see it in the brush but said there was a lot of crashing around and splashing….
And so eventual victory. The next morning I came back and looked to see all of the group in the new stuff, but boy was I wrong. Nope. There they were in the old pasture, thistles and all. Preferred the old pasture. You see, life was easier in the old pasture. Life was comfortable in the old pasture. And so I learned. Sometimes—even though the grass is green—you have to fence them in in the new pasture.
Why is this true? Well, perhaps because cows and humans alike we do not always recognize a good green pasture when we see it. And also, perhaps because some green pastures pose some challenges in the midst of offering green grass in which to lie down. Some green pastures come with different sometimes even difficult terrain. Rocky places. Steep slopes.
What are our green pastures here at St Andrew’s? Do we recognize a good pasture when we see it? What do we see collectively and individually…?
One thing that I see that is a green pasture for us comes in terms of vision. The willingness to look out, outside, rather than just look within.
This past week I have been thinking of four churches—all of them our size or larger—and all these four churches closed their doors–or are about to. Some could have easily kept going. One church needs simply to define its relationship with its pastor on a part-time basis to keep going with its funds for another 5 years. Or longer. But here is the point: All of them have or had one common thread and one outstanding problem. They all were holy huddles. Holy huddles of faithful people who never had the courage, the will to look out. To look outside their little interior world and form some connection with the community. The only green pasture they could see was the one inside the church building and that one was drying up. Put it another way. When the seeds of the Spirit were sown, their soil was the one where the seeds were received with joy but soon the weeds sprang up and chocked the good seeds out. No go. No vision. Nothing green and verdant into which to be shepherded outside the doors.
We’ve been there before in our church history. If our fate were in the hands of some church administrators from other denominations (I am thinking here of Catholic congregations so much larger than we that have been forced to combine with other churches and of Methodist churches of about our size), we would have been forced to close. But the Holy Spirit is not through with us. The Shepherd is still guiding. Outside these doors there is apparently something yet to do collectively in terms of mission. And we are being given the great good gift of a green pasture which simply comes in the form of the willingness to look outside.
But here is another green pasture that we have been given. And the terrain here is a little more difficult. This is the green pasture of size – the size of our church. The green and verdant part of this pasture is the fact that we are known here. We can share life together. We can listen to one another respectfully when approaching difficult choices or subjects. We can reach out to the community together in mission. We can lift up and encourage and support and challenge each other in terms of being together in fellowship. Yes. We are a diverse extended family and when you come here you are known and welcomed and the pasture is green.
But…but the terrain can be a little steep. Stewardship in terms of time and talent and treasure can be a little difficult. The priestly provides a part-time presence. Programs and activities are limited. When a few people do not come on a given Sunday we see our small numbers. And so we are challenged—challenged to become stronger not just spiritually, not just in terms of individual faith or in terms of collective mission, but in terms of numbers. We are challenged here—in the midst of green pasture—to grow numerically, to develop intentional strategies to grow numerically, to pursue a long-term strategy to see us into the future, to walk into the difficult steep terrain of our small size and to claim it as something that the Shepherd is offering us and asking us to be willing to change.
This week we will be submitting our application for aid—funding that will support my ministry among you and our ministry together. Today we will be going over the form during coffee hour and making final changes before sending it on. And we know that someday the funding will not be there. Someday the funding will be reduced.
In our second reading this morning, St Paul says this: For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To se the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. To live in the flesh is to be content to see things from a limited point of view. To see things selfishly. To see things cynically. To restrict the world to just me and my pet projects. To take no risks. To live for pleasure or sensation or enjoyment. And notice that Paul uses the term set the mind on the things of the flesh. In our culture, to set the mind on the flesh for me is represented in a bumper sticker that reads the one with the most toys wins.
But to set the mind on the things of the Spirit. To see things selflessly. To see things hopefully and with expectation. To unpack the world to embrace more than just me and my pet projects. To take risks. To live for the other, the holy, the Lord and giver of all. To live beyond oneself—these things are the things of the Spirit. Outcomes of the Spirit. Here in our reading this morning from Romans 8 they are described as life and peace. In other letters they are described more concretely as love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness. In another place: compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness and patience.
How do we develop these things? Certainly not by ourselves but in the presence of the Spirit, the counselor and advocate and comforter. Here is where we set our collective mind: not on ourselves but on the Spirit. Put another way, in the green pasture that we have been given, we can not afford to be content with our numbers nor to merely think in terms of ourselves. I think that we are being asked to open these doors even wider; to look beyond ourselves, and to live in terms of the Holy Spirit who speaks to us here and who leads us still.
The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.
In the name of God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.