My Cup Runneth Over
(based on Psalm 23)
When we hear Psalm 23 read aloud, many of us
immediately have a memory or a determined understanding of what the text means.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
want…” This Psalm evokes something in
us.
What
is it about this psalm that makes it so beloved? Perhaps many of us were taught to memorize the
psalm when we were younger. Maybe some
of us can remember our mothers and/or our grandmothers whispering it by our
bedsides before we went to sleep. Is it
the simplicity, the ease for memorization? Besides the Lord’s prayer and John 3.16, “For
God so loved the world”, this is perhaps the best known of all Christian
scripture.
I believe what makes this psalm so compelling
is not so much its brevity, but instead its realism. This is no happy-go-lucky, “everything is
awesome,” kind of passage. Rather, it
faithfully faces the dark realities of what life is really like, while at the
same time calls us to honestly remember the delights of life. It has become so popular and beloved that many
of us can recite it from memory, but we may have lost touch with what the
passage is actually saying. Every verse
contains a wealth of theological treasure waiting to be uncovered and enjoyed.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” We of course remember immediately that Christ
is the good shepherd. God in Christ is
the guardian of the church. The great I
AM shepherded the Israelites through the wilderness, delivering them from
slavery and captivity to the promised land.
The Lord was the shepherd to the prophets who proclaimed the Word to the
lost Israelites. God helped shepherd
Christ throughout Galilee, even to the cross. Our Father was the shepherd to the disciples
as they spread the gospel throughout the world. The great shepherd is now with us, guiding and
keeping watch over all that we do as we act out our witness to God’s love in
the world.
“He makes me lie down in green pastures; he
leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.” In our modern lives we seem to have lost the
power to relax; we no longer know what it means to observe sabbath time in our
lives. We succumb to the power of stress
that overcomes us regularly, and lose the energy to live vibrant and fulfilling
lives. So, God, in this beloved hymn, bids
us to relax, to observe some sort of sabbath in our lives, and to find rest. However, notice that rest is not an end in
itself, but rather for a purpose; God restores our souls through rest so that
we can continue on our faithful journeys. Life is filled with movement, because then;
“He leads me in rights paths for his name’s
sake. Even though I walk through the
darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff –
they comfort me.” God leads us, as the
shepherd, on the right paths. So much of
the vital moments and decisions in our lives do not come from our choosing; we
do not determine the time of our birth, the kind of parents that we will have,
the culture in which we find ourselves, the opportunities that “come our way.” At times life is beyond our control, and to be
honest, that is probably a good thing! To
seek complete control of our own lives will eventually end in disappointment. In order for God to be the shepherd of our
lives, we have to also let Him guide us on the right paths. We need to let God be in control. It is only when we let go that we can
faithfully proclaim, “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil.” It is only
when we let go that we can know that God is with us.
“You prepare a table before me in the presence
of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil.” Like any good shepherd, God always brings his
flock back home to safety, even if, within our midst are enemies and people
that like us. The feast is set for
people to break bread together, to find common ground and be in communion with
one another. That is how you make an
enemy into a friend.
So now we come to the climax of this hymn, an
incredible collection of words that encompass God’s goodness in our lives: “my
cup runneth over…”
How
often do we take time to look back and reflect on what God has done for us? How much time do we spend in prayer thanking
God for all that he has blessed us with and done for us? Can we all faithfully declare “my cup runneth
over…”?
Today, of course, is Mother’s Day. I am blessed and privileged to have a mother
who has cared for, and loved me, every day of my life. A mother who participated in my life and
activities throughout my life, but gave me the freedom to grow and experience
life independently. A mother who
sacrificed her own needs again and again to do whatever was necessary for my
sister and I, simply because she loved us. Because of her, my cup runneth over.
Some of you might not have had a mother like
mine, some of you may have lost your mother through the years, and some of you
might have grown up without a mother, but look around you. The call of being a Christian is to be
motherly to all that are gathered here. Though
your mother might not have been like mine, or is no longer with you, I know
that each of you have mothers in Christ that are here with us today. Because of that, our cups runneth over.
In the movie, Hope Floats, Gena Rowlands played
the role of Ramona, set somewhere in the south.
She had two daughters. One was
off in California “finding herself”, leaving her only child Travis, with the
grandmother to raise. The other daughter,
Birdie, played by Sandra Bullock, finds herself in the midst of an ugly divorce
and has come home to live with mom, bringing her daughter Bernice. During the movie we learn that Ramona’s
husband has Alzheimer’s and is in a nursing home. Her life hasn’t been easy. But, tucking her granddaughter into bed one
night, she remarks about her love for her family and her life, “O honey,” she
says, “My cup runneth over.”
Whether we look around the room here in this
sanctuary or in the relationships of our own families, we are surrounded by an
all-encompassing love. Our cups runneth
over.
The 23rd psalm is filled with such vivid and
realistic imagery, applicable for our daily living. The great shepherd tends to his sheep, keeping
them close and protecting them from harm. Our God compels us to find rest so that we can
continue on our journeys of faith. But
today, the Lord asks us to look on our lives and remember our blessings.
God has blessed our lives over and over again
and those blessings spill out everywhere. Because of those blessings we have the choice
to reflect on God’s goodness, or to remain in our suffering. Today we remember what God has done, we
remember the blessing of mothers, and the call of the church to be motherly
toward everyone, we give thanks to the Lord our God for shaping us through
those we call friends.
It’s only when we look at our lives and faithfully
say, “my cup runneth over” that we can begin to proclaim the final verse of
psalm 23: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment