Library
Sunday, July 12, 2009
YOU GUIDE ME IN THE RIGHT PATH—WHEN I AM PAYING ATTENTION!
Fourth in the Psalm 23 Series
By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
Psalm 23 New International Reader’s Version: 1 The Lord is my shepherd. He gives me everything I need. 2 He lets me lie down in fields of green grass. He leads me beside quiet waters. 3 He gives me new strength. He guides me in the right paths for the honor of his name. 4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid. You are with me. Your shepherd's rod and staff comfort me. 5 You prepare a feast for me right in front of my enemies. You pour oil on my head. My cup runs over. 6 I am sure that your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life. And I will live in the house of the Lord forever.
In a series of sermons this summer, we are reading through Psalm 23 and I want to look at three words that are most important: God leads me in paths of righteousness.
Let me start by telling you about the guide that we will be utilizing again in Israel in a few months. I have a picture of our guide, Hana Kessler. She has been our guide in all of our four trips to Israel. There are about 3000 certified guides in Israel, and Hana was described by one of our Methodist bishops as one of the top two or three. She and her husband Hillel have become our good friends over the years, and in the trips we have made there over 100 of you have met her.
She is Jewish. She is so well educated in the entire Bible that she knows the New Testament about as well as any minister I have met. She was born in Israel after her parents left Poland at the beginning of the Nazi threat. Her grandparents were killed in the holocaust in Poland.
Each time we get to Israel, I have confidence that we are in good hands with Hana. Judy and I and Jerry Herships are going again in three and a half months and there are still a few spaces left for you. She guides us to the places of the Bible and explains to us what we need to know. She even gets us into some places like the very private part of the Garden of Gethsemane where most pilgrims don’t get to go. She keeps us on track. Each time we are there, she cares so very well for our group. She is all the good things that a guide should be.
Perhaps you have been on trips or pilgrimages where you had a guide who did all the right things that a guide should do, a guide that was excited to lead you and who kept you on track. I want us to keep the image of that kind of guide in front of us as we look at this line in Psalm 23. There is a poem in your bulletin insert about guidance that we will look at in a moment.
The writer of Psalm 23, perhaps it was King David, has made some serious promises. He says that God cares for us like a shepherd, God leads us to places of nourishment and rest, and God restores and revives our life when we are faint and dispirited. And today, God leads us and guides us in the path of upright living.
Most of us have chosen someone to do that. Most of us have promised to follow Christ and to let Him be our savior and lord and Guide and mentor, our life coach if you will. And even if we have, there are others who want to do that who will not keep us on the right path, on a healthy path. I shudder at the culture of celebrity that can seduce so many people, younger people, to follow a crooked path (to use some Bible imagery).
Marcus Borg reminds us that for so many people their real gods are not the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and Jesus, their real gods, what they truly worship, are the idols of affluence and appearance and achievement. We think that when we have pursued those gods, those idols, as the Bible calls them, we will be living the good life. If you watched even five minutes of the coverage of Michael Jackson’s life and death and funeral, you saw that celebrity culture of appearance, affluence and achievement at its worst.
This psalm reminds us that God is the one who leads us on the path of authentic life, upright life. And when we pay attention to God as our guide, we won’t be disappointed. The way we pay attention to God and let God guide us on the right path is by taking time for God, as we do for anyone important to us, and listening through worship, prayer, reading scripture, and hearing the counsel of others whom we trust. That focused listening and prayer and reflection was being practiced intensely this week by so many of you as you signed up to be in prayer in our chapel or at home so that we together could listen and discern God’s guidance to keep us on the right path, the path that leads to what Christ calls abundant life, life in all its fullness.
How are you feeling about the path you are on right now? Where is it taking you? Our book is full of stories of people who took some time or were confronted with an opportunity to evaluate their life and their path. These are people who looked carefully and were not pleased with what they saw and were willing to let God guide them into a new direction. Who do you think of in the Bible?
Jacob in the Old Testament comes to mind. Jacob whose path of deception and greed began when he was still at home with his family and deceived his blind father and cheated his older brother out of his birthright. Jacov in Hebrew means “grabber” or cheat. He had to leave immediately so his brother wouldn’t kill him. He went to a different region where his mother had some relatives. He ran up against a father-in-law who was as devious as Jacob was, but when Jacob finally managed to outsmart his father-in-law, Jacob had to leave that region as well so his father-in-law wouldn’t kill him. He went back to Canaan where his brother still was furious, had a wrestling match with God beside a river, and let God lead him on a new path, a new direction.
Can you think of anyone else who was given a chance to look at the direction they were heading, the path they were on, and then chose to change direction? Some obvious New Testament examples would be Zaccheus, the hated tax collector, who made a fortune by cheating his fellow Jews. He had a chance to change when he felt the grace and compassion of Jesus who just invited himself to Zaccheus’ home for lunch. Another is the apostle Paul who did an even more radical turnaround. Paul, who never knew the man Jesus of Nazareth, had a transforming encounter with the risen Christ, an encounter that took him off the destructive path and led him to the right path.
What path are you on this morning?
Who do you think of as an example of being on the right path, the right track? Our second group of young people has returned from Belize, Central America, where they were constructing a school for the children there. It was hot work, so hot that they started early in the morning so they could finish before the hottest part of the day. They were learning the importance of being a servant, working on a team. They were learning the value of unselfishness and kindness and humility. They were practicing the words of our guide and teacher who told us that he had come not to be served but to serve and who invites us to join him on that path of service and unselfishness and compassion for others.
Who do you think of as examples of people who are trying to walk that path of self-giving instead of self-promotion? I thought of another youth who is the granddaughter of a family in our congregation. She is a middle school student in a Methodist church in Colorado Springs and was nominated for a leadership award. Her grandparents let me read some of the nomination letters sent by her teachers and her youth director and they contained glowing tributes to her servant leadership spirit which she learned from her family and her church.
Who are your role models for walking the right path, the path of upright and unselfish living? I think of the 24 members of our building committee who have spent hundreds of hours over the past two years in bringing their recommendations to us today so we can continue to fulfill our purpose to: INVITE, RECEIVE, NURTURE, CHALLENGE AND SEND FORTH COMMITTED DISCIPLES OF JESUS CHRIST. It is the unselfish service of those members and leaders that lets us participate in the fourth pivotal congregational vote of my fifteen years in the St. Andrew congregation. I think we are in a powerful window of opportunity today as we vote on whether to keep expanding our work, to keep inviting and reaching out to people to offer abundant life in Christ to all people.
I think our role as a congregation is to do what the Psalmist says, to encourage other people to let God guide all of us in paths of upright living. Are you on that path?
Here is one other question. When have you said to yourself that you really feel like your life is on the right path, going the right direction? Perhaps that is right now. Perhaps that has been at a time in your past but now you feel like your life has gotten off track.
Where is the path you are on right now going to take you? How are you feeling about it? Are you willing to let God guide you through Bible study in a group and through discussion with other pilgrims and travelers on a spiritual path? That is what churches are for, and that is what this congregation does so well. I believe that is what God is calling this congregation to keep doing and to keep expanding so that others can be invited to let God guide all of us in paths of integrity and compassion and humility and service.
Let’s conclude by looking at the word in this verse that might be a troubling word for many of us. God leads me in the paths (more than just one) of “righteousness.” Some of us hear that word with negative meanings. We may think of self righteousness instead of what the text first meant. The word in the Hebrew Bible is very important and very common. In fact the word appears 525 times! I hope there is a way for us to recapture what the word meant originally. To be righteous meant to live by God’s guidelines, God’s covenant, to live with justice and humility and compassion and an ethical heart, to live an upright life. I hope that we can restore that word so that we can all aspire to be righteous, not self righteous, but righteous. Psalm 23 promises that God will guide us in the path to right living, abundant living, if we will take time for God.
I want to end with the image on the insert about dancing with God. By the way, there are lots of references in the Bible to dancing as an act of worship. The author of the poem says that we can look at the word “Guidance” to mean that God, you and I dance.
Dancing with God By Elaine L. Guercio As I lowered my head, I became willing to trust That I would get guidance about my life and once Again, I became willing to let God lead.
My prayer for you today is that God’s blessings And mercies are upon you this day and every day May you abide in God, as God abides in you. Dance together with God Trusting God to lead you and guide you through Each season of your life.