May 7, 2017 - Sermon - Rev. Susi Kawolics & Chris Ludwa

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(Susi Kawolics)

 

Some years ago, I went to a worship workshop led by Musician Adam Kukuk who began his presentation like this:  One can say “I was speechless at your recent generosity toward me, it felt like a choir singing at the end of a movie. Ahh-ahh. I was really confused which way to go, but you helped me and gave me directions, even though I wasn't looking too pretty at the time. I just couldn't find my way, but you got me back on track and got me through, thanks so much.”  Yes – one could say all that in those words, or one could simply say – or sing: Amazing Grace- How Sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.  I once was lost and now am found – was blind but now I see.

 

Somethings are just better said in poetry. And this is the way I feel about the 23rd Psalm.  The way its writer, presumably King David, expresses himself gets at the deepest emotions and spiritual experiences of his life back some 3000 years ago, and of ours today as well. So rather than analyzing, dissecting, or expounding on this beautiful, much-loved Psalm, I thought I would tell you a story from my own life about how this Psalm really came alive for me about nine years ago.

 

Until that time, I had always liked the 23rd Psalm, had even memorized it in Sunday School, and could say it in my head with the preacher every time I went to a funeral or heard it in church. But that’s just it – even though I knew if BY heart, it wasn’t IN my heart. Then in 2008, I happened to have been teaching a class on spirituality, and was going to be talking about walking meditation and labyrinth.  I was also going through a particularly anxious time in my life because my sister, who is single and lives in Switzerland, was experiencing some serious health issues and was hospitalized.  Although I have some extended family in Switzerland, none lived close enough to her to support her through this, so I had purchased an airline ticket to go and help her out for a week.  My apprehension about the trip was building as I prepared for my teaching presentation just a few days before I was to leave.

 

I had been preparing my notes on what I would say about the labyrinth – that it is a beautiful metaphor for our seemingly chaotic life paths that actually have an order to them, even if we don’t see it.  I was also going to be sharing my belief that our experiences sometimes lead us to walk through confusing or dark times, and that while we may not see the light ahead of us, we trust in God’s promise to travel beside us no matter where we journey. And then, somehow, the morning of the class, these thoughts must have converged with verses from 23rd Psalm, and I was inspired to write the following prayer:

Beloved, you are my shepherd-

You provide me with all I need.

When my mind is anxious, and my heart is troubled,

Lead me to green pastures for rest,

Renew and calm my spirit beside still waters,

Restore my soul.

Guide me in the path of goodness so I may follow your way.

When my life journey takes me through the valleys of darkness,

Reassure me, help me not to be afraid.

Encircle me so I can feel and know your constant presence, your strength and comfort.

When my enemies, my fears, my anxiety, my anger threaten to overtake me,

Lead me to your table.

Let me feast on your peace, your compassion and forgiveness,

Anoint me and bless me so I may live and act in your goodness and mercy.

You lead me, oh gentle shepherd, you go ahead of me.

I will never journey to a place where you are not already there.

You travel beside me, accompanying me every moment of my life.

And you follow me, supporting every step I take.

Before, beside, behind me O beloved,

You surround me-

I dwell in your heart now and forever. Amen.

 

I shared this prayer with my class, and then to help me stay calm before leaving for Switzerland, I walked the labyrinth at the FLC.  When I got Europe, and to the hospital, I was told my sister could be discharged the next day since I was there to help her. So then she came home, only to have an even more serious health crisis the next day, which landed her in a different hospital further away.  I felt very alone and anxious as I traveled daily over an hour on public transportation to visit her, and tried to navigate a healthcare system I knew nothing about, all the while in very broken French, a language I hadn’t spoken since my college days! And through this, though my mind knew that God was with me, it was having a hard time convincing my heart and soul.

 

Then one of my cousins with whom I am close called me and offered to meet me one day after I had visited my sister, so I would have some support and company.  She told me to think about what we might like to do together. I told her I wanted to walk a labyrinth, and after some searching, I found one nearby that we could walk. Who knew that Switzerland had more labyrinths per capita than any other country in the world?!

 

So she came, and we made our way to this very rustic, natural labyrinth

 

 behind a monastery in Fribourg, and walking it put me in a more centered place. Maybe you can tell that the path is mown grass, and there are a few rocks marking the way. And that walk brought me such peace, and would have been assurance enough that God was with me - but sometimes God’s generous cup of blessing overflows. When we had finished walking and I looked up, I noticed right next to the labyrinth was …

 

a pasture with sheep.  The Lord is my shepherd – who makes me lie down in green pastures… And that’s when the 23rd Psalm truly moved from my head to my heart, and I could really trust and believe that God’s promise was true – that God was with me all along this difficult path I was walking.

 

It has been said that the scriptures are God’s love letters to us. The 23rd Psalm for me is truly that, and because of my experience, I always connect it with labyrinth. So with this in mind, I want to briefly share with you my latest experience. As you can probably guess, this past week has been a bit stressful around here at Federated Church.  But THIS Sunday, the 4th Sunday after Easter, is always Good Shepherd Sunday, and the lectionary Psalm is always the 23rd Psalm. And it just so happens that I’ve been thinking about labyrinths for a few weeks, because I am doing a presentation on labyrinth for our Stephen Ministers this Wednesday. And… just last Saturday, I happened to have received a phone call from a Clive Johnson, an Englishman who is on a journey of “Labyrinth Across America,” taking his 24 square foot canvas labyrinth around the US to give people all over the country an opportunity to walk it – and he randomly called me to ask if he might stop at Federated Church. So I invited him to our Wednesday morning prayer group this past Wednesday, and he came and joined us and shared with us about this remarkable calling he feels to help heal this country through his project.  And then he opened his labyrinth in our FLC gym,

 

 

and I had the chance to walk it, and in doing so thought of all the convergences – my preparation for Stephen Ministry presentation, the lectionary reading on the 23rd Psalm, and Clive showing up out of the blue with his labyrinth – and somehow I sensed that all would be well, indeed, somehow, all would be well, because I believe the quote by the great theologian Albert Einstein that says: Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.

May we trust always in God’s promise that God is shepherding us through all our twists and turns of our lives, and that our Good Shepherd will never, ever let us walk alone.

I now invite Chris to share some of his reflections

 

(Chris Ludwa)

I thought I would look for just a moment at this metaphor for some wisdom to help us all make sense of this as I wind down my tenure here at Federated.

I know that my departure has come as a shock, even to us to be frank, as it has been such a good fit here. 

 

The Psalm 23 is the perfect text for today, as it was Bobby McFerrin’s concert with Amanda that made me aware of Federated in the first place, and that was the piece we were singing.

 

I have never viewed my role as a conductor like shepherd, despite the fact that being a choral director sometimes feels like herding, whether sheep or cats. I have seen myself as God’s tool, even two weeks ago when the choirs so gloriously sang their way through Jesus life in song and image, THEY were the ones doing the work. I was the staff. God, the shepherd.

 

What I want to do is encourage each of you, each of us, to spend less time thinking of ourselves as wayward sheep, wandering about the country about to stumble into danger, and to begin thinking about how can God use ME? For those who lived under Kennedy, does this sound familiar?

 

Let’s play this out a bit, and see what the church would look like if we each viewed ourselves as a tool of God’s. I mean, many of us have been coming to church for 50, 60,70 years. At what point do we “graduate” in our perspective so that we ask how God is using us? Not just what are we getting out of this whole thing spiritually, but what are we GIVING ?

 

The shepherd's staff is normally a long, slender stick, often with a hook on one end. It is selected with care by the owner; it is shaped, smoothed, and cut to best suit his own personal use. I think of my own boyhood, finding the perfect stick and whittling it down. God as shepherd has taken each of us, and shaped and smoothed us to be the right person at the right time in the world.

 

I was shaped and whittled to be ready to come here over three years ago and bring together what those before me had created, shaped, and molded. 

 

In a world of brambles manifested as terrorist attacks, vitriolic political speeches, and our tendency to focus on what makes US comfortable in our lives rather than seeing the deeper need and addressing it, God needs US to be the beautifully carved staff.

 

Imagine God scrambling about using just his hands to do his work on earth. God’s omnipresence is based on his using all of us as his crook. God’s plan was always about US doing the work on his behalf in the world. If we are to be his staff, let’s look at how the crook is used…

 

The first is to draw sheep into an intimate relationship. The shepherd will use his staff to gently lift a newborn lamb and bring it to its mother if they become parted. He does this because he does not wish to have the ewe reject her offspring if it bears the odor of his hands upon it.

 

...It is also used to reach out and catch individual sheep, young or old, and draw them close to the shepherd for intimate examination. The staff is very useful this way for the shy and timid sheep normally tend to keep at a distance. Sound like us?

 

The staff is also used for guiding. Again and again I have seen a shepherd use his staff to guide his sheep gently into a new path or through some gate or along dangerous, difficult routes. He does not use it actually to beat the beast. Rather, the tip of the long slender stick is laid gently against the animal's side and the pressure applied guides the sheep in the way the owner wants it to go.

 

So you see, my work here, just as yours and yours the choirs, and the pastors, is to change our perspective and realize that sometimes we are the sheep, but God’s plan was always based on US getting out there and carrying out his plan. If we all viewed ourselves as The Shepherd’s tool instead of the sheep, imagine what a VIBRANT, COLORFUL, ACCEPTING world we would be. Imagine what a VIBRANT CHURCH we would be.

 

So take heart, my friends. God has given YOU a gift, and is giving you a gift in each new moment of your life, a chance to be God’s tool in this world of nudging others toward greener, more nourishing pastures, a place where ALL are LOVED and ACCEPTED wherever they are.

 

 (Susi Kawolics) 

 

The 23rd Psalm so beautifully says, “You prepare a table before me, in the presence of my enemies.”  So while some of us may see these enemies as actual people, I understand my enemies as my fears, my anxieties, my thoughts that take me down rabbit holes of catastrophizing. And so I trust our gentle shepherd Jesus, to take his shepherd’s crook and gently hook me back to center, back to dwelling in God’s peace, goodness and mercy, back to this Communion table overflowing with grace, with peace, with nourishment for the journey, no matter where it takes us. May this be a time of goodness, and mercy, and of restoring our souls in this dwelling place of God. Amen.