Sermon preached by Rev. Emily Tanis-Likkel, Eagle Harbor Church                          April 13, 2008

            It has been a welcome relief considering the usual sensational fear-laden news stories, that there is currently a buzz in the Northwest air about compassion.  Seeds of Compassion is a non-profit that is working to nurture compassion in the world. The current 5-day gathering with the Dalai Lama is just the beginning of a call to action to address our local and global need for nurturing compassion. Anyone attended a Seeds of Compassion event the last couple of days?  Any plans to go?  I was glad to be able to attend one of the Seeds of Compassion events this past Friday, a panel discussion with the Dalai Lama along with leaders of various organizations that work to cultivate kindness in children.  They spoke about how the extent we learn to be compassionate depends largely on how much kindness we are shown in early childhood, even while still in the womb.  Compassion transcends religious differences, and it is wonderful that people from so many different faith traditions have come together to share ideas on how to build a more compassionate world.  Yet even while celebrating our unity with the world, we who are Christians have a deep well with which to draw for planting our seeds of compassion.  We believe in a compassionate God, a God who cares about each and every human being, a God who responds to human need, a God who is present in all circumstances.  God in Christ embodies compassion.  The Seeds of Compassion web-site defines compassion: “Compassion can be thought of as empathy in action. It means that we deeply feel the pain of others, and we seek to reduce their suffering.” God comes down to our level, and when soothing our wounds feels the pain along with us.  The compassionate God is the shepherd who is described in the most well-known passage in the Bible.

            1The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. 2He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; 3he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. 4Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me. 5You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

            Psalm 23 is a Psalm of trust.  It was a radical message at the time it was written for the Psalmist to boast, the Lord is my shepherd.  Rulers of the day were referred to as shepherds.  He was saying, it is not the King, not the culture, but the Lord is the one that I trust.  The scene in the Psalm is one of safety and security.  The good shepherd calls us by name, intensely cares for us, and lovingly guides us to paths lined with grace.  Yet the message of the Psalm is not about God leading people to a serene grassy knoll where we needn't have a care in the world, but rather God keeping us alive.  The green pastures the Psalmist spoke of were little patches of grass.  Shepherds led their flocks from place to place, searching for a grazing land.   “The edges of the plateau . . . dip away sharply into craggy desert land below.”  The shepherds worked 24/7, ever keeping a watchful eye out for the dangers of predators, thieves, floods, land slides and rough terrain.   The shepherd leading a sheep “in right paths” was to avoid danger.  A sheep who wandered off was a dead sheep.  God keeps our lives, protecting us along the way.  A shepherd came down to the level of the sheep, and had the sheep walk under the rod while he checked for any injuries as they came back into the fold.  During the night, the shepherd covered the door of the sheepfold, a gap in a wall, with his own body.  “A sheep might leave the fold, or a wolf or thief enter it, only over the body of the shepherd.”  The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.  The good shepherd embodies compassion: empathy in action. 

            Bob Marvin, one of the panelists at Friday's Compassion event, told the story of being in a toy store and hearing a child whine “I want it!” about a toy.  The mother said that the child could not have the toy, and the child continued to whine.  The mother became frustrated and angry, and threatened punishment if he did not stop.  Then on the next aisle, there was another mother and child, and this child was also on the verge of a tantrum.  This child was also whining, “I want it!”  And the mother said that the child could not have the toy, and the child continued to whine.  So the mother knelt down, faced her child, looked lovingly into his eyes and said, “I know its hard.” and then scooped him up and held him in her arms.  He put his head on her shoulder as they walked through the store.  Marvin's comment is that kids don't instinctively have strategies to handle disappointment.   They need to be given the language to understand their torrents of feelings, and the acknowledgment that they are heard and loved.  God understands our longings.  Our compassionate God acknowledges us and comforts us.

            Fear and dis-order are realities that we need strategies to deal with.  They keeps us from living a full and compassionate life.  Craig Barnes wrote, “We speak sometimes of being scared stiff or paralyzed with fear, but as a pastor I’ve seen that most people react to fear by running like crazy. . . This is how we get into real trouble -- by running when we are lost. It is then that we make the worst mistakes . . . Not convinced that the Lord is leading us to green pastures, we veer off course, try a short cut or run like terrified sheep.”   There is a real truth here.  One of my idiosyncrasies is that I have a tendency to keep driving even when I know that I have taken a wrong turn.  Instead of immediately pulling over and pulling out a map or cellphone, I go around in circles for awhile, getting more and more upset.  We are so conditioned to hurry.  I often find myself in a hurry for no particular reason.  Or I hurry because I am stressed, overwhelmed, or don't have my priorities straight.  We hurry when we aren't listening to the Spirit, when we narrowly focus on our own agenda.  Our compassionate God takes us by the hand, affirms us where we are, and helps us to stop running when we afraid, calms us when we are flooded with destructive emotions. 

            Recently when walking a Labyrinth, after I left the center, with half of the walk still to go, I realized that I was probably running late for the next item on my agenda.  I booked it the rest of the way.  I didn't walk outside of the lines, but I just as well could have.  Within seconds, it seemed, I found myself at the exit.  Whoa—I didn't mean to go that fast.  I looked behind me at the winding path, incredulously, did I really walk the whole thing?  I felt so uneasy, as if God had just begun speaking and I butted in because I wanted to hear my own voice.  I was hasty.  The still, small voice said, we are not done.  What would I do?  Shall I just stand here a while at the exit?  That didn't feel right. So I went back to the center, and walked it again.  “It sounds like you lost your way,”  a friend said after I told her the story.  But I wasn't lost exactly. I just wasn't listening.  I wasn't trusting the shepherd to lead me. 

            God affirms us and calls us to do better – by leading us back to the sheepfold, by showing us the paths that are filled with grace, those that lead to life.  Tony Robinson wrote, “Parents must chart a course that includes and moves between two kinds of love: accepting love and transforming love.  The one affirms the being of a child and lets them be, while the other seeks their well-being and prods their growth.”   I believe that this is also true of God's love for us.  God accepts us as we are, but as the saying goes, loves us too much to leave us that way. 

            God brings us back to the fold, back to the center where we can know the Spirit, where we are blessed with fruits of joy and peace, where we are offered abundant life. Our compassionate God leads us to grace that is like finding green grass in the desert, peaceful water in storm season.  God, who embodies compassion, connects soul to soul with us by calling us to be compassionate. In bringing us back to the center, God brings us to community.  “Right paths” are not found in isolation, but in relationship.  The right paths lead us to the rest of the flock.  It leads us to the church, and wherever people gather, wherever folks cross paths and treat one another how they themselves want to be treated. 

            Being alert to God doesn't mean that God necessarily has our lives laid out for us like a book.  But how is God present with us on our journey of faith, especially through the valley of the shadow of death?  How does God call us to stay on course, or to take the detours that would be fulfilling, that would show love to others and be grace-filled for us.  God does, I believe, have a good idea about what choices would lead to fulfillment for us.  God probably has some insight on how what we do with our time and money would positively or negatively affect us, the world around us, and our spiritual walk.  As a mentor told me years ago: Go where the grace is.  Even if we have a GPS, its not much help if we don't listen to it.  Sometimes we veer off course before we should.  Sometimes we make choices that sends me spinning, instead of trusting.  How do we have that trust?  Accept it as a gift, with a prayerful heart.  Immerse yourself in Scriptures and Spiritual writings.  Seek counsel from those who are experiencing a rich Spiritual life. 

            It is the message of comfort that so many love about this Psalm.  When we trust in God, fear falls away.  1 John 4:7-8 reads, “To know God is to love God, and to love God is to know God.”  A sheep knows the Shepherd's voice.  A sheep knows the Shepherd's mannerisms, movements, smell, and touch.  A sheep knows the Shepherd.  This knowing leads to trust. 

            The compassionate God guides us on a path that leads to a banquet.  In light of the New Testament, this part of the Psalm is a picture of the Lord's Supper, a sacred ritual that connects us to God and one another.  The Psalmist describes God as the consummate host, one who prepares a table and fills the cup to the brim and keeps on pouring.  It recalls the first verse, that the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want – I lack nothing.  Even when we lack some material things, we are offered life in the Spirit, a gift that fills us till we are full, in want of nothing else.  We are anointed with oil, bringing us healing and joy.  “Goodness and mercy shall follow me all of my life” is better translated, “Goodness and mercy shall pursue me.”  We are given these as gifts.  It Ephesians 3:19 reads, “be filled with the utter fullness of God.”  This fullness summons us to praise God, worship and delight in God.  Dwelling in God's house forever is the hope of resurrection, the promise of eternal life.  This life starts now, with full life in the Spirit.  Psalm 23 has universal implications.  Context of preceding Psalm 22, a lament hymn that ends, “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD.”  Those who have already died, those who are yet unborn, says the Psalmist, all will bow down.

            When we lose our center in God, we have a tendency to get sucked into that which is not life-giving.  We try to fill ourselves other ways: working more hours, over-eating, shopping, and watching television.  We're in a hurry to be filled – racking up debt so we can get the new thing sooner and feel better, instead of being content and grateful.  What we want is wholeness, to be re-integrated, we want to be loved.  We want to be in the green pastures, not in want of anything.  We want it to be our prayer.  But in trying to obtain this want, it is tempting to rush and find ourselves off course. God calls us back to the center of the Labyrinth, so to speak, that spiritual centeredness that allows us to listen to our Shepherd.  God calls us back to life in the community, modeling compassion, that we might be compassionate.  The Lord is our shepherd.  There is power in these words, these images.  They summon us to awaken ourselves to God's presence and leading.  Let us trust the compassionate God, the loving shepherd who calls us back.

      http://wiki.seedsofcompassion.org/Resources-Definitions

      “A Shepherd's Life” by  Paul Harrison.  Seasons of the Spirit.

               “Sheep on the Run”The Christian Century, 2002. Religion Online.

      Common Grace.  p. 98-99.