The Whole Story (A Sermon about David, and a whole mess of other stuff)

The text for this sermon was from 1 and 2 Samuel and Psalm 51.  In worship, we read the story of Samuel anointing David, from 1 Samuel 16.  Those of you who know David's story might remember that it got a little....complicated.

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Oh, it started out well. The story begins so beautifully. David has a lovely pedigree:   The son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz. A good line, people who made good decisions, wise decisions, people with generous hearts who worshipped the Lord. On the women’s side (they don't make it easy to find, but it's worth knowing...), there was Ruth, the savvy widow who secured a future where there seemed to be no hope. There was Rahab, the woman who welcomed everyone into her apartments (even the spies sent to scope out her city) and who wrangled a promise of protection from them.

Read between the lines. We’re supposed to fall in love with David. Everyone does, in the end. God has an eye on the runt of the litter, a shepherd, at work as the story begins, and unable to join the party. The others were invited in to worship. The others were invited to meet the prophet. But David, the youngest, was left out. And so because God loves the outcasts, we know that good things are in store for David.

Oh, we love the story of this beautiful, ruddy youth, love the youth himself. Love what he represents: tan from his time in the sun, strong and fit from all that wandering after sheep, and a musician, too. What’s not to like? Practically irresistible. Of course God would call him. How could he not be called? (David, the beautiful youth – scripture tells us he was not chosen for his beauty, but the writer takes such pains for us to know just how handsome he was, this king-to-be, hero-to-be…so we know better, don’t we.)

So when Samuel has him kneel – Samuel, the prophet, the one who hears God calling in the night. – when Samuel has him kneel we know the oil is going to pour down and we are witnessing a great day. A GREAT DAY for the nation of Israel. A GREAT DAY for the line of Jesse.

(Mind you, there’s already a king in Israel. It’s probably a good thing he doesn’t know what’s going on yet.)

David doesn’t disappoint. He soothes King Saul’s restless sleep with the strings of his harp. He becomes fast friends with Saul’s son Jonathan (perhaps more than friends, if you’re reading between the lines). He confronts a giant, armed with a sling and a stone, and wins. When the king dies in battle, when his line is extinguished, David is ready. Battle-hardened, and politically savvy, a musician, handsome as all get out. He brings the Holy Ark of God to Jerusalem. God makes a covenant with him, establishes the House of David.

Oh, how we’re supposed to love him.

You know it can’t last, right? Somehow it’s all going to come crashing down. And so it does. There are only so many praise songs one man can write; at some point, things begin to get complicated. The war goes on, David’s cooped up in his palace, and a pretty woman catches his eye. Except that pretty woman, Bathsheba, is actually married to another man. David didn’t let “thou shalt not covet” stop him. He got the woman pregnant, and he had the man killed. And what he had done was evil in the Lord’s sight. The story that began in such promise, went spectacularly off the rails when David saw Bathsheba and made his terrible choice.

And when he was called on it, he wept in anguish:

“Have mercy on me, God, according to your faithful love!  Wipe away my wrongdoings according to your great compassion!” (Ps 51:1) 

This is where the story breaks open. This is where it actually begins to get interesting, where it begins to matter, intensely, to those of us who understand the broken bits.  We know David’s desperation. At some point in our life, we have all prayed – or will pray – his prayer:

 “Create a clean heart for me, God; put a new, faithful spirit deep inside me!” (Ps 51:10)

We treat these times of brokenness as if they represent a discontinuity – as if they somehow sever the beginning of the story from the present and the future. We see this in our common life: we put people on pedestals, and when they show a sign of their humanity, exhibit a flaw, we tear them down with glee. But they are one life, one person. Inseparable. Light and dark, sunshine and shadow, glory and pain. One gives definition to the other.

David who is anointed, and David who makes both wise and questionable choices, and David who repents with bitter tears – all of these are one person. The handsome shepherd and the beautiful singer, the warrior and the husband, the king and the lover – all of these are one.

There is no human being who has a straight path home into the heart of God. You were born the apple of God’s eye, precious, beautiful, beloved. Yet from your first moments, you caused pain. You received pain. You have been shaped by love and loss and day-by-day choices. Some of them pleasing to God, and others, well…. Not so much.

God does not claim only the beautiful parts of your story. God claims the whole story: the parts that were created whole and holy, and the parts that are broken and need to be redeemed.

Wherever your life has gone off the rails, whether it is by your choices, or someone else’s choices, or sheer circumstance, know this: You are the same child who was once - and is forever - washed in the water of divine love. You are the same youth called in from the wilderness and invited to kneel – even though you barely had a clue what was happening, what you were in for. And precious oil anoints your head, always, and you are called beloved, chosen of the Lord. That holy moment overlays every broken moment that brings you to your knees. They are, together, the fabric that makes up human existence, the pattern of our relationship with God.

Life didn’t get any easier for David. War and family strife followed him all of his days. But even so, the shepherd king kept singing:

“The Lord is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer…

my stronghold and my refuge, my savior.” 

(2 Sam 22:2-3).

“In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I called…

he heard my voice, and my cry came to his ears.” (2 Sam 22:7)

He did not forsake the holy moment that still sang within him. He made his offerings to God.

In his old age, the stories tell us, David still found the company of a young woman a pleasant way to keep warm.

Shall we speak of what is holy, and what is broken?

 “O Lord, open our lips, and our mouths will declare your praises.” (Ps 51:15)

Hallelujah?
Hallelujah. 
Amen?

Amen.

  

The Whole Story by Rev. Kerri Parker is licensed under a 

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

It was preached at McFarland UCC on October 20, 2013.

Midnight Reunion Communion

And Jesus taught them in parables, saying,
Imagine this: you are not alone.

A friend arrives in the middle of the night.
Gift number one: a friend
Gift number two: delivered safely to your door!
Two gifts.   Me, and you.
A third gift: the connection between us.

Jesus taught them in parables, saying,
Imagine this: the cupboards are bare.

You have no stomach-filling gift
 To offer a road-weary traveler.
You are embarrassed.  You are tired.
It is beyond late, too late.

But rather than keeping your sorrow
Hidden, and your secret emptiness,
You go out.   Down the steps (shabby slippers and all)
Shrugging the back-door coat over your shoulders,
Through the yard to the neighbors.’

A motion-activated light does its work
Illuminates the developing hole
Above your big toe, as you stare –
Hard – at the cement, at your slippers,
Willing this asking moment to be
– well – less awkward

[Knock, knock]
Again, with urgency
[Knock, Knock]

Jesus taught them in parables, saying,
Imagine this: the neighbor comes.

Gift number four reveals itself:
Neighbor!  Neighbor awake! Neighbor listening!
And the words tumble, inelegant, from your lips:
Gift number one: a friend
Gift number two: here!
Good friend, dear friend.
Problem: no food.

Query: Help??

Jesus taught them in parables, saying,
Imagine this: the answer is yes.

The answer is yes
Merely because the question is asked.
It is not a frivolous question.
You had the guts to ask for bread.
You knocked!  You woke the neighborhood!

And here we are racking up gifts.
Have you lost count yet?

Gift number one: a friend.
Gift number two: here
Gift number three: the connection!
Gift number four:  a neighbor
Gift number five:  who gives!

And there is a miracle at work here,
As the gifts rain down from heaven.

The miracle is not that a friend shows up at your door, safely.
It is not that your neighbor hands over the bread,
Despite sleeping children and cautious eyes.

It is not that you, nighttime companions,
celebrated kitchen-table reunion communion
Nor, that you finally, hours later, slept.

No, the miracle is this:
You asked.

Jesus taught them in parables, saying,
Imagine this: you are not alone.
Imagine this: you are not alone.
Really, you are not alone.
This is the gift.  This is the good news
the reign of heaven revealed,

Imagine this!  You are not alone.
This surfeit of gifts, close and distant relationships,
Midnight wakings and moving feet and asking lips and bread.
A tumbled-out story and moths fluttering in the porch light,
The asker and the asked, the seeker and the sought.

Who is the midnight traveler?
And who is it that wakes?
Whose cupboards are bare?
And just who is knocking on whose door?

He taught them in parables.
It made them think.

Ask, and it will be given.
Seek, and you will find.
Knock, and the door will be opened.

Alleluia!
Amen?
Amen.

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Preached at McFarland UCC on July 28, 2013 (Pentecost+10, Year C).  Text - Luke 11:1-13

The Shepherd's Song

Shall we just acknowledge, right up front, that it was a HELL of a week? Any week that starts with taxes and goes downhill from there deserves that recognition.  Let’s be honest with ourselves and with God, that this was a week when we needed to lean on something, someone bigger and broader and deeper and stronger than ourselves as we navigated a relentlessly violent news cycle.

In Boston, death and destruction on what should have been a day of celebration. An industrial explosion in Texas that partially leveled a town. Poisoned letters through the postal service. A gun control vote that brought back the horror of December’s school shootings. An earthquake -- did you know there was a major earthquake in China while all this was going on? The manhunt for the bombing suspects in Boston, a major metropolis in lockdown, a city living in fear. Our collective post-traumatic stress from 9/11 was triggered once again.

And closer to our own geographic location, personal dramas gripped us all the while – finances, health, work, school, relationships – because those things never stop coming either. And the rain. The seemingly-never-ending, spirit-flattening cold rain that has only been interrupted by April snow. We ran out of adjectives and resorted to expletives. Dear Jesus, can you please send us puppies and rainbows and unicorns next because we’re drowning in bad news and there is no ark in sight.  How long, O Lord? How much do you expect us to take? We address the questions to God, not because God did it, but because God is the only thing we know on this scale.

Heaven help us, this has been a week of God-sized terrors, which take our fiction of being independent, self-guided and self-actualized and make of it a mockery. This has been a week of being reminded that “independent” doesn’t preach when the blast has knocked you to the ground and you need perfect strangers to tie a piece of cloth tightly around your leg, carry you away in their arms and save your life. Self-guided and self-actualized doesn’t cut it when you’re stunned by the rapid swirl of events, when a misfire in your brain has left you foggy and confused and you desperately need someone to take your hand and help you keep walking through the valley of the shadow lest you fall down and cry your heart out there in the valley and never get up again.

Dear God, we need a shepherd. We need Holy Words and a Holy One, a Holy Resurrected One, because the terrors of the week were quite enough, thank you, and we need somebody bigger to be in charge. We need someplace safe to lie down. We need a drink of cool, healing water. We need green things and flowers and beauty and softness and birds twittering like they do in the animated movies, not that other Twitter that this week carried violence and rumors of violence to us minute by minute, scrolling by on electronic streams.  

Among the oldest depictions of Jesus is the image of the Good Shepherd, a fresco on the ceilings of the catacombs, the burial places of the early Christians near Rome.  We have always needed a shepherd.  Oh, dear God, we need a shepherd. Because to be shepherd-less is terrifying, wandering aimlessly, stumbling near the cliffs in the night. Because without a shepherd, we’re not a flock, not really. We’re just a buffet dinner in wooly clothes waiting for the next wolf to walk by. We need your Holy Words and Holy Nudges and the comfort of learning your songs because you need a song to sing in a time like this.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. The odds are good that someone, somewhere taught you that. You learned it in Sunday School or Religious Education or by recitation at countless funerals, or perhaps from your grandmother. There are other Holy Words too, touchstones, sacred songs from scripture and tradition, songs that you lean on because they are heart-songs, heart-prayers, borne of constant repetition.

A woman with dementia in the hospital where I did my chaplaincy, who had witnessed violence in her own home, was practically nonverbal until the day I said the 23rd Psalm alongside her, mumbling along until we came to the valley of the shadow of death where she proclaimed triumphantly with a prophet’s voice so the entire wing could hear, “I will fear no evil!”

My Catholic grandmother used to say the rosary when I was in her cool apartment on a summer’s day.  And though I was raised protestant, my heart knows the words.  Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death, Amen.  I know this, from hearing my grandmother recite it countless times. It was, and is, a heart-prayer.

I was scared of the dark as a child, scared to go down the dark hall to turn on my bedroom light, scared to get out of bed in the night to use the bathroom, and I remember running down the hall reciting the Lord’s Prayer at lightning speed as if it were a talisman against terror, leaping onto the safe haven of my bed. “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”

Maybe it’s not Psalms or the prayers but more recent songs you sing in these times. Maybe it’s from the hymnal in your childhood church where the spine cracked open to “Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.” Perhaps it is Jesus Loves Me, Amazing Grace, or “Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, help me stand, I am tired, I am weak, I am worn… through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light, take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.” Perhaps it is the echo of an organ resounding with the great chords of “A Mighty Fortress is Our God, A Bulwark NEVER failing…” and a congregation, a cloud of witnesses singing in four part harmony.

"For still our ancient foe, doth seek to work us woe…” When we are scared, when we are terrified, when we are wounded, sick in body or spirit, what Holy Word, what Holy Tune is so deeply ingrained in us that it comes to our lips, unbidden? It is that tune, that prayer, that story, that we learned in childhood. It has been said that in singing songs to our children, we are preparing them for their deathbeds. Such are the songs they will sing, the songs and prayers and theology that will pulse through their heart, be breathed through their lips in their last days. Such were the Psalms offered up by the wounded and dying in Boston, by the first responders, by the ambulance drivers and trauma surgeons, by the police officers in their cruisers, on their house-by-house search, by those behind locked doors and drawn shades, and even by those watching their televisions and computer screens with bated breath. 

And though it makes this mother ache to think of, in a time of terror, these are the songs that our children will someday have to draw on.

So I ask this body of Christ, on this Bible-giving Sunday, on this Sunday following terror (not after, never after, not until the last trumpet sounds) on this day where we talk of sheep and shepherds, I ask you parents and you grandparents, you aunts and uncles, you Godparents and faith friends and adoptive and surrogate parents, you brothers and sisters in Christ, you baptismal promise-making, flock of Christ-following ones: How are you claiming your promises?  How are we preparing our children to walk through life? How are we preparing them to walk through the valley of the shadow of death? With what holy words and sacred songs, with what heritage are we equipping them?

How is this flock showing its children that this is the Shepherd and you can trust his voice? How can we teach them the song the shepherd sings and how good it is? How do we set the table for their adulthood?

Oh, dear God, we need a shepherd. The adult sheep, every one of us, and the adolescent sheep and the young sheep and the stumbling, toddling baby sheep who have just come into the flock, those whose little legs can’t hold them up yet, the eldest sheep full of life experience, having seen a lifetime of wolves and valleys and shepherds and streams. Dear God, we need a shepherd.

Let us pray together:

I believe I need a shepherd.
Because I am sometimes timid and other times overconfident,
because I often don't know the best path yet pretend I do,
because I rush into dead ends or lead others into hazardous places,
because my brightest ideas are seamed with darkness,
because the things I crave may not be what is good for me,
I need a shepherd.
I believe in Jesus, the best possible shepherd;
his wisdom leads me to the best opportunities,
his word comforts me when I'm anxious or afraid,
his arm steadies me when I feel weary and heavy-laden,
his wounded body displays the cost of my rescue,.
I believe in Jesus, the best possible shepherd.
I believe that I do not find him but he finds me,
that I live under his care by virtue of sheer grace,
the love he gives me is to be shared with others,
that he treasures my name and prepares a place for me,
that his fold transfixes earth and heaven.
I trust Jesus, the good shepherd. Amen.

"I believe I need a shepherd" (c) Bruce Prewer, used with permission of the author.  Sermon preached at McFarland UCC on April 21, 2013 by Rev. Kerri Parker.   From the Revised Common Lectionary texts for Easter 4C, Psalm 23 and John 10:22-30.  With the exception of the previously stated copyright, this sermon is under a Creative Commons license.

The Shepherd's Song by Rev. Kerri Parker is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.