13 April, 2008

The Fourth Sunday of Easter

Ironman

Psalm 23

The Reverend Richard E. Allen, Jr.

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It was a discovery I made quite by accident, really, just a few days ago.  While preparing for this sermon I did a search on “Google” for Psalm 23.  If you’ve ever done such a search, you won’t be surprised that there were lots of “hits.”  One million, twenty thousand, precisely; compiled in 5 one-hundredths of a second.  Or so “Google” brags.  Among the top ten returns was a video on – I kid you not – “Godtube.com.”  Sure enough, “Little Girl and Psalm 23” is worth a look.  I recommend it. 

 

But the real discovery came only when “Little Girl and Psalm 23” ended, and I stayed on the site, intrigued.  Sure enough, another couple of videos popped up, and one caught my attention.  You need to see this one, if only in your mind’s eye.  It’s called “My Redeemer Lives – Team Hoyt.”  Set to the song, “My Redeemer,” by Nicole C. Mullen, this video opens in the dark, with a runner pushing one of those big tricycle-like contraptions out his door.  At first we think it is a baby stroller.  Cool.  A guy is taking his son with him on his training run.  So we keep watching, only to see that our assumption is incorrect.

 

As the day brightens, we see that this man is indeed still pushing the tricycle, but now we notice that the passenger is neither an infant nor a toddler, but a small grown man.  This is not a stroller, it is a wheelchair.  And it slowly dawns on us:  the athlete is sharing his training with disabled son.  The music asks in the background: “Who taught the sun where to stand in the morning?  And who taught the ocean you can only come this far?”  And as we listen, we see the sun rising behind the runner’s shoes hitting the pavement.  From the wheelchair the son holds his arm out, as if signaling a turn or simply enjoying the rush of the wind going by.

 

As Nicole Mullen’s song continues, “The very same God that spins things out in orbit / Runs to the weary, the worn, and the weak,” we see the man pulling an inflated rubber dinghy as he swims, a number visible on his bicep.   Wait, they are together in a race, we realize.  A triathlon.  They are united thus on the water, then the father carries the son to a bicycle outfitted with a cradle on the handlebars.  Later we watch as the father takes the son from the bicycle and puts him back into the tricycle they used when they were training.  Though the sun has set, the man pushes is son into the darkness.

 

On they go, until, gloriously still together, they cross the finish line to cheers and sprays of champagne.  Only then does the camera show the son’s eyes in a tight close-up.  And we realize for the first time that there is deep joy in his eyes, too.  He’s truly and fully alive.  We see him anew, and his dad, too, as the man steadies himself at the finish line and hugs a supporter.

 

Finally, we see the son alone, perhaps reflecting on the experience of sharing the triathlon with his dad.  He sits in a special chair in front of a computer screen with one large word of triumph on the screen.  Three little letter spell out “CAN.”  The video closes with a verse from Philippians you might remember:  “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  (Philippians 4:13)

 

Only later did I learn that the video uses footage of the famous father and son team known as “Team Hoyt.”  Dick Hoyt and Rick Hoyt, now 66 and 44 respectively, have been competing together in marathons, triathlons, and even in “Ironman” competitions since Rick was 15.  Born with cerebral palsy and with his umbilical cord around his neck, Rick has faced challenges all his life.  Doctors told his parents to place him in an institution, but instead they took him home to raise him with his two brothers.  A computer gave him speech, and he not only graduated from a Boston-area high school.  He also has a diploma from Boston University.  Rick now lives in his own apartment, and he has a job in a computer lab, designing equipment to be used by others with similar disabilities.  But he is most alive, he tells the world, when he and his dad are competing.

 

I didn’t know about the Hoyts when I first saw the video featuring them.  But this much I knew:  as that video ended, I remembered, again, why I am in the ministry.  I remembered, again, both my calling and my own initial acceptance of the grace of God.  And I remembered, most important of all, that God has me, and this church, in graceful hands.  God has us, and the Methodist Church, and our fragile, broken, quadriplegic world in loving hands. 

 

Whatever good we accomplish is not from our own strength, but rather from the strength of the One who names us, claims us, and accompanies us on each of our journeys.  This God, the one Jesus invited his followers to call “Father,” is the very one who loves me – and each of us – with the sacrificial, undying love shown by that father on the video.  And this God is the one we remember when we affirm:  “The Lord is my shepherd.”

 

The 23^rd Psalm is an affirmation of faith, in a very true sense.  This Psalm has held the power that is has for the decades, centuries and millennia of our common faith because it speaks a deep truth.  God is a shepherd who provides.  With God we will never want, even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of consumption faith:  we will fear nothing and never feel deprived.  We will never want.  For God is the shepherd.

 

It’s odd that such an image would still resonate so deeply with us moderns.  What do we know of shepherds?  Yet scholars tell us that ancient peoples called their leaders shepherd:  the king is our shepherd.  But the ancient Hebrews went one better:  the Lord, they remind, is OUR shepherd. 

 

Somehow the image still works.  For so often when we say this ancient creed, it speaks deeply.  I can’t imagine saying, “The Lord is my king.”  Or, worse, “The Lord is my president.”  Nor even, “The Lord is my diva.”  Even “The Lord is my father,” or “The Lord is my mother” oddly pale in comparison, and sadly, carry too many ambivalent connotations.  (Except, I would say, for the possible exception of 66-year-old Dick Hoyt’s love for his son.)  No.  Though we have essentially lost our bucolic way of life, still, “The Lord is my shepherd…” assures us that God’s love is as strong as the heart of a marathoner or an “ironman”.  Perhaps we know that we are sheepish:  confused, simple, easily spooked or led astray.  We instinctively know we need the strong but loving hands of a shepherd.  Yes.  “The Lord is my shepherd” remains an affirmation of strength, endurance, even hope.

 

The message of the church is simply and profoundly affirmative:  the God of all creation loves us with a love that never lets us go.  We are, of all people, most richly blessed.  Our message, most especially during the season of Easter, is that in those times when we walk through life’s valleys, we will fear no evil, for God is with us.  Old Testament scholar and preacher Walter Brueggemann says that Psalm 23 is an affirmation of God’s grace:  “It is God’s companionship that transforms every situation.  It does not mean there are no deathly valleys, no enemies.  But they are not capable of hurt….”  (The Message of the Psalms:  A Theological Commentary, page 156.)  

 

And Brueggemann reminds me also that while it is true that Jesus quotes the lament of Psalm 22 from the cross:  “My God, why have you forsaken me?” it is equally true that Psalm 23 turns from this very lament to confidence:  “Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:  for thou art with me.”  (Psalm 23:4)

 

It’s no wonder, is it, that generation after generation has found comfort in the short, simple verses of the 23^rd Psalm?  And it is no wonder, either, that many of us access these words from memory at nearly every funeral we attend.  If you have not yet made Psalm 23 part of your memorized Bible – your “heart” Bible – now might be a good time to do so.  I can think of less productive ways for anyone to spend this afternoon.

 

Friends, I invite you to carry those words in your memory, and carry them in your heart.  Carry them in your life for this simple reason:  as you carry them, they will carry you as well.  Affirmations don’t merely confine our beliefs, you know:  they shape us as well.  I invite you to be carried by the hope inherent in the psalmist’s final Easter-like affirmation:  “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

 

 

Amen.