Psalm 23
1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will 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 your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
I love a good story. Books. Movies. TV Shows. Essays. It doesn’t matter how a story is told. I just love listening to a good story. I love stories because stories help me reflect on my own life. Stories also help me make sense of things happening in the world that I haven’t personally experienced. In Christian community, we have a fancy name for storytelling. We call it testifying. To testify is to share with someone else what God is doing in our lives and in the world around us. Our Psalm for this morning, Psalm 23, is a testimony to what one individual pilgrim has seen and experienced in her life.
This morning I want to reflect with you on the role of testimony in Christian life. Testimony is how we share with other people the hope we have in Jesus. I thought I’d do something a little bit different this morning. I’m going to use the language of Psalm 23 to structure my testimony. Like the Psalmist, I want to share with you about a time I experienced God’s presence while walking through a deep valley.
The Psalmist begins: The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me besides still waters. He restores my soul. He guides me along the paths of righteousness for his names sake.
This past year has been hard for all of us. For me the hardest part of this pandemic. Was when my gym was shut down for three months last spring. I missed not being able to see my gym friends. I missed having something to do outside of my house. I missed having one hour a day where I could think about something else other than Covid case numbers and test positivity rates.
When the governor closed gyms in Pennsylvania, I went through an I’m- very- angry -with- God phase. I live alone. And let me just tell you that living alone not during a pandemic is fine. But living alone during a pandemic is the worst. Particularly when it’s not safe to do the things that bring you joy and peace and community. It’s was probably a good thing I lived alone last spring. Because I was not fun to be around during the early months of this pandemic.
The Psalmist continues, Yeah, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
Then one Saturday in April 2020 I fractured my foot. It was completely my fault. I know I shouldn’t have been doing box step ups on living room furniture. The fracture was so bad, my doctor said I couldn’t drive for two weeks. When I called my mother to tell her this, she insisted that she come and pick me up. And I stay with her until my foot healed. I was now a 30-year-old woman, with a fractured foot, about to move back in with my mother for the foreseeable future.
The Psalmist goes on: You prepare a table before me, in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.
Honestly, I think staying with my mother for a couple weeks is what kept me from going completely insane during those early days of the pandemic. It was nice to have someone to talk to. Someone who didn’t spend her entire day reading scary articles on the internet. Someone to cook for. And to go for walks with after dinner. Plus we made all of the really hard decisions about when and how we were going to reopen the church when I was staying at my mom’s. She gave me a lot of good wisdom about how to maintain public safety during in-person worship.
The psalm ends: Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
We can’t always see it in the moment. But when we look back over the course of our lives. We can clearly see God at work during the difficult seasons. To this day, my mother swears God caused me to lose my balance. So that I didn’t become agoraphobic. And so that I would have a little bit more compassion. As people made different choices that I did. As we all figured out how to live amidst a pandemic.
One of the things I’ve always appreciated about this Psalm is its assurance that life is a journey. A journey where we will pass through quiet waters and deep valleys. God never promises us only quiet waters. But neither does God promise only dark valleys. God promises to be with us the way a good shepherd tends to his sheep. Patiently shepherding them from one location to another. Making sure there is time for rest. And making sure they don’t wander off and get eaten by wolves. While all of our unique journeys are a little different, we have the same shepherd.
One of the reasons everyone loves Psalm 23 is because everyone can identify parts of their stories in the story of God the good shepherd. Everyone has moments or experiences they can point to that shaped the person they are today. The moment when you knew you were going to marry your spouse. Or when all of the sudden you knew what you wanted to be when you grew up. Or the moment where you knew you had to quit your job. But you weren’t quite sure what your new job would be yet.
Just as we have moments in our personal lives that shaped the people we are today. We can also look back over our lives of faith and identify moments that shaped it. The moment where we accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior. The moment where we decided we wanted to come to church. The moment where we found hope in the midst of profound personal suffering. These moments shape the type of Christian we are, but also the type of community of faith we are. And the best way to get to know ourselves, and our communities of faith is to share our testimonies with each other.
As we enter into this fourth week of Easter, I want to encourage you to find someone to share a part of your testimony with. When we listen to and share our testimonies with each other, we live as resurrection people. As people who wait with eager longing for the promised Kingdom of God. Testimony doesn’t have to be a formal thing. I’ve heard powerful testimony’s while in line at the grocery store. Or sitting next to someone on an airplane. My hope is that testimony will be one way that we can all, like the psalmist, bear witness to our hope, as we journey with Jesus to Galilee.
Thanks be to God!
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.