Normally, when I preach I focus on the gospel reading, but that’s not the focus today, even though there is a lot we could discuss in this gospel lesson about healing, testimony, and trust. There’s a lot that could be said about our first reading and the selection of David, the least of the sons to be King.

Today, we also have psalm 23, which is for many people essential scripture for getting through life with its ups and downs. It’s so central that people at the end of their lives, who may not even recognize loved ones anymore, often can still recite or recall parts of the text, just like they can the Lord’s prayer.  

This Psalm 23 has also brought up memories of the beginning of COVID lockdowns, which began 3 years ago this week. Or at least that was the case in Nevada. These memories have really hit me, because the lectionary texts for this Sunday are the same as that first Sunday we couldn’t go to church 3 years ago. I am struck by just how much has happened in 3 years, all that we have experienced. I’m so grateful to be with you in person, singing with songs with lots of air, and having a real gathering after service today.

I don’t know if you Celebration’s first service at home is really memorable for you. It probably is for Pr Dave and Leann. It certainly is for my church in Reno, Faith Lutheran. Faith is a small church with only one ancient computer in the office that barely worked. Unlike Celebration, there was not a camera, laptop, or livestream account in sight.

So, for that first Sunday, it was a big question, what do we do for service? Our pastor at the time was an interim who had come out of retirement to be with us. We were so blessed by him, but technology was not his strong suit. He wouldn’t mind me telling you this at all, by the way. He’d laugh and say the same thing. He was unsure about the whole idea of remote worship, yet we knew we had to do something. People were scared and alone.

We settled on doing a conference call, since that was something everyone could do. Mostly, I don’t remember the service. But what I do remember is when Pastor Stan read Psalm 23, all of us who were at the church or at home were so gathered in together by these words, it’s like you could feel the hearts of the congregation beat together through the cell network. It was saving grace in that moment. We were all so in need of that psalm because it promises God’s presence with us in our darkest valleys. And it promises that these valleys do indeed end.

As he read the psalm, I was surprised to find tears rolling down my cheeks. Like a lot of people that week, my work at my nonprofit had exploded in intensity and chaos. And then we had to put together a service for church. I had not been reflective about my own state of being. However, this psalm stopped me in my tracks, allowed me to feel my fear and deep sadness about what was happening. At the same time, we were wrapped in each other’s presence, God’s presence, and the gift of hope.

There’s a lot of grace packed into these six lines of psalm 23.

I was actually at church because I was the tech person. Talking with the pastor afterwards, he was as floored by the intensity and beauty of the psalm as anyone. And he laughed and said, “Well, I guess you can worship over the phone.” We found out over the coming months and years there are a lot of things you can do remotely. We also found how good it is to come back together.

Psalm 23 is a prayer expressing trust in God and God’s promises. Like all of the psalms, psalm 23 is a prayer, so the direction of communication in the psalms is from humans to God. This prayer resonated like a bell at Faith Lutheran 3 years ago, because we were in a place, along with everyone else, where we needed to experience trust and faith that God is with us, caring for us, loving us, and bringing about new life from the darkest days. We all had the same prayer in our hearts that was said in psalm 23.

So, what is it in this psalm that is so soothing to us? I have shared about this before during a preaching series on psalm 23 during Lent, so this might sound familiar to some of you. We walked through that psalm line by line for 6 weeks. When we got to line 4, it dawned on me why I love this psalm so much. The fourth line (in the King James Version) is, “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”

This line is the reason why this psalm is so beloved and important for people during hard times. It’s because, if you take a look at the text, you may notice that if we lift this one line out, the psalm is essentially describing a nice picnic in green pastures. Yes, there’s some enemies, but you still have a banquet where you are honored and there’s a place to have a quiet nap next to a stream. It sounds quite nice. But we don’t reach for this psalm because the picnic sounds nice. We don’t have tears roll down our cheeks because of the picnic. We reach for this psalm because of the valley of the shadow of death.

We have all had hard moments, some of which we share with our community, our country, or even the world, like the pandemic. That’s why our shared experience at Faith Lutheran with Psalm 23 felt so powerful. We were all in a very similar place.

However, there are other times in our lives when we are in the valley by ourselves, while it feels like the rest of the world just continues along in picnic land.

We may spend a lot of our lives in picnic land ourselves, and that is a good thing. There’s snacks and naps and overflowing cups with the promise of mercy and goodness. This is good stuff. But then something happens. Maybe it’s a death, a diagnosis, a recurrence of depression, or some ongoing struggle or trauma. A chasm opens up in our picnic land and we fall into that dark valley, while others continue on.

I used to work close to a funeral home. Fairly often, as I was coming and going for meetings or whatever, I would see families dressed in black on the sidewalk out front. I would say a little blessing for them because I knew they were having a very different experience that day than I was. I’m sure we’ve all been part of grieving families standing on sidewalks in cities and towns that did not stop because our loved one was being buried that day. We can feel so alone, living such a different reality than those surrounding us.

This is why this psalm 23 is so important. It names that very real and very hard experience of feeling like you’re isolated on another planet due to grief or trauma. The Hebrew word for dark here is hoshek, which isn’t just the dark of night, but more like a primordial darkness where there is no star light and no moon. It is darkness with a capital D. And yet, we fear no evil, because the shepherd is with us, even in that primordial darkness.

This is important because we may not be able to return picnic land right away again. Afterall, we walk through this valley and it might take a while. But the promise is that the Shepherd is with us and that the darkness will end. In fact, the banquet and the honoring of anointment comes after the valley. The promise of goodness and mercy is for all the days of our lives, all of them…even the ones we spend in the valley of the shadow of death.

This is a prayer that has saved people’s lives. It is a prayer that can bring hope and consolation for when we find ourselves in our valleys. So, my prayer for all of us is that we remember this psalm for our darkest days.

If this psalm speaks to you, as it does millions or even billions of people around the world, it is yours to keep, read, recite, and ponder. It is yours to pray, even if you are struggling to feel the trust that this psalm expresses. The promises of God are still there; an end to the darkness, new life, rest, goodness, and mercy all the days of your life. These promises are for you.

AMEN