Pentecost 11 (NL2) John B. Valentine
Psalm 23 – Week #1 August 16, 2020

“THE GOD WHO PROVIDES”

Good morning ... and welcome!

If you haven’t figured it out by now ... today we’re starting in on a series of sermons focused in on what is one of the most beloved ... the most well-known ... pieces of text in the whole of the Bible.

• Psalm 23 ...
• “David’s Song” ...
• “The Shepherd’s Song” ...
• “The Lord is My Shepherd.”

Now I don’t know rightly know when and where it was that you made your acquaintance with the 23rd Psalm ...

But there was a particular moment in my life when I came to realize just how big a deal these words were and are.

You see ... my grandfather had passed away of cancer back in like 1981 ... and a church full of fresh-faced Californians had gathered to say their farewells.

And ... as a part of that service ... I had been asked by my grandmother to read the 23rd Psalm.

So I thought I’d read that text from one of those trendy new translations of Bible that was all the rage back in those days ...

And I began to intone those words: “The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing..”

But as I continued reading ... I realized that mine was not the only voice in the room.

No ... my grandfather’s brother ... my great uncle George ... a petite pipe-smoking Englishman in the middle of his ninth decade ... starting speaking those words with me ... by heart ... and he did so in a rather loud voice.

“The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.”

And so my solo reading became an awkward duet.

• My young voice and his old one ...
• My accent from California and his from the west Midlands of jolly ol’ England ...
• My trendy new translation from the text before me ... and his King James Version dredged straight from the recesses of his mind ...

But together ... each of us ... in our own way reached out a hand to the Shepherd ... to recall some of the most pointedly personal promises in the whole of the Bible.

Each of us ... in our own ways ... finding comfort in those words.

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You see ... over the course of the next four weeks ... I hope that you’ll get to know the 23rd Psalm just a little bit better ...

And I hope that perchance you’ll find a way to let those words do a deep-root watering of your soul ...

For there are few pieces of Scripture more poetic and poignant than the words of Psalm Twenty-Three.

So let’s get on with it!

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Actually ... let’s start with a question that seems particularly suited for these days that we are living through right now ...

Where are you getting your food from these days?

If you were here in the Sanctuary ... I’d suggest that we do a “show of hands” thing ... and consider the variety of ways and places from which we access foodstuffs amid these days of COVID-19.

For ... obviously ...

• Some of you are getting your food from the grocery store ... be it Safeway or Whole Foods or maybe Diablo Foods ...

• And others of you ... like me ... are still making a weekly trek out to Costco ...

• And a few of you trying to venture out for a bit of outdoor dining at one of our local restaurants ...

• And others of you are doing take out ... letting someone else do the actual cooking while you just take it home and dish it out ...

• Then again ... I know that a couple of you have experimented with the grocery delivery services which Amazon and Safeway are offering ...

• And some others have found a child or a neighbor who is willing to do your grocery shopping for you ...

• And a few of you forward-thinking types actually planted extra-large gardens this year ...

• And ... maybe one or two of you have even tried Blue Apron or Hello Fresh or one of those other meal-kit-delivery service things that seems to be advertised just about everywhere these days.

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Actually ... let’s pause there and think about THAT for just a minute!

HAVE you tried one of those meal-kit delivery services during these days of COVID-19??

We tried one once or twice in the past ... but not since the coronavirus showed up.

But basically what happens is that you get this box that shows up at your door ...

• And the servings are already pre-measured ...
• And the spices are already pre-mixed ...
• And food prep requires a pair of scissors and maybe a knife ...

• You open the box ...
• You follow the recipe .... and
• You dig in!

But Blue Apron and Hello Fresh didn’t INVENT the idea of meal-delivery service.

Actually ... the story of the first meal-delivery service ... at least the first recorded meal-delivery service... is found in the Book of Exodus of all places ... that book that you THOUGHT we put to bed for a while after last week!

You see ... one day ... when the people were wandering in the wilderness ... they got to complaining about their lack of food ....

To the point that they started whining and complaining that God only brought them out of Egypt so that they would DIE in the wilderness!

But then ... one morning ... they woke up to the sight of ‘manna’ ... literally just ‘stuff’ ... that covered the ground near their camp.

And this ‘stuff’ ... they discovered ... was ‘bread from heaven’ ... and like the boxes from Blue Apron and Hello Fresh ... it came on a regular basis ... not once a week, but every morning!

And every day ... without fail ... this stuff showed up ... and the Israelites would scoop it up ... and form it into cakes ... and it became the ultimate convenience food for this band of refugees.

The point being ... God provided what they needed to make it through another day.

But actually ... ONE of the subtexts of the whole of the Book of Exodus was and is that God provided what it was that the people needed:

• When they couldn’t figure out which way to go ... God provided a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

• When they were thirsty ... God told Moses how to strike a rock with his staff and call forth a bubbling spring.

• When they got sick of eating just that manna stuff ... and longed for a change in their diets ... flocks of quail appeared near their camp to provide them with the protein they’d been missing.

And so it has come to pass ... over the years ... that that word “manna” ... which originally in Hebrew just meant ‘stuff’ or maybe more literally ‘what is it?’ ...

Has come to mean not just that ‘stuff’ ... but rather all sorts of thing that come to us as gifts to strengthen and preserve our lives.

The assertion that something is ‘manna’ ... as it were ... is this affirmation that God is a God who provides.

But isn’t that precisely what the opening verses of Psalm 23 do as well??

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.

He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.

That God is the One who gives us what we need from day to day? That God is the one who provides.

THAT GOD IS THE ONE WHO PROVIDES.

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Providence ... provision ... that God is the God who provides is the FIRST thing that we need to take note of in Psalm 23.

For God didn’t ‘just’ provide food to the Hebrews in Exodus and God doesn’t ‘just’ provide food to people like us.

In fact ... I LOVE the way that Martin Luther defined ‘daily bread’ when he wrote the Small Catechism.

It wasn’t JUST food ... or even just FOOD AND WATER.

It was EVERYTHING we need to live from day to day.

“What is daily bread?” ... the good doctor asks ...

“Daily bread includes everything we need for life in this world ...

• Food and clothing ...
• Home and property ...
• Work and income ...
• A devoted family ...
• An orderly community ...
• Good government ...
• Favorable weather ...
• Peace and health ...
• A good reputation ...
• True friends and neighbors.

ALL those things are things which God provides.

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Speaking of “Providence” ... that’s not really a word we hear too much of anymore ... unless you’re talking about the capital of Rhode Island.

But that city was so named “Providence” by its pious founder ... Roger Williams ... who was giving thanks for “God’s merciful providence” in leading him and his followers to that location.

You see ... they’d been driven into the wilderness by the governing authorities of the Massachusetts Bay Colony back in the day ... because those Puritans didn’t like Williams’ unorthodox theological views.

And while the early settlers of Rhode Island didn’t discover any flaky white stuff on the ground ... they did find plenty of game in the forest and fish in the streams ... and it was manna enough for them.

It wasn’t necessarily the manna they expected to find ... but it became their daily bread.

But isn’t that so often the way it is with us ... in times when we feel trapped by dire circumstances?

• When jobs are lost ....
• When relationships fail ...
• When cancer invades ...
• When a pandemic takes hold ...
• Even when we’ve locked the keys in the car ...

We may not think ... at the time ... that God is close at hand, guiding our circumstances.

But then ... wonder of wonders ... we discover that we have what we need after all.

And we give thanks ... for we come to see the providential hand of God active in our lives in the most remarkable ways.

And when that happens, the place we once imagined to be wilderness turns out to be a place of blessing after all.

For the Lord IS our shepherd ... and we shall no want.