Pursued by goodness and mercy: Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter (May 11, 2025)
Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter (May 11, 2025) at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day.
“Psalm 23” by John August Swanson, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.
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Transcript
May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated.
Jesus says to us, to everybody, those who know me, if you know me and you know my voice, you will not perish. No one will snatch you out of my hand of the ones who know me. He says, no one will snatch them out of my hand. So we have this very comforting, beautiful metaphor of being in the hands of Jesus. Like the children's song goes, the old song goes, he's got the whole world in his hands.
This idea of sort of being held by somebody who is steadfast, who won't let you go. We need that feeling when we are unsteady. But at the same time, to use that word to say no one will snatch them out of my hand, would seem to imply that we are in danger. We are in danger of being snatched out of the heart of steadfast love, out of the heart of goodness, out of the hand of God, that there are things happening that would try to snatch us out of that hand. We reflected on that sense of that implication of danger for all of us.
And as we reflected in Bible study, I remembered a prayer that we pray in morning prayer that talks about danger. The prayer starts out by saying to God, thank you, God, Almighty God, you have brought us in safety to this new day. That sense of here we are. We don't take for granted that we're here. You have brought us in safety to this new day. And then we say to God, preserve us by your mighty power that we may not fall into sin or be overcome by adversity. And in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose through Christ, our Lord.
And it seems to me that this prayer sort of names the danger, names the danger that we would fall into sin or that, that we would be overcome by adversity. In this prayer, it's like sin is a pit. And before we know it, we can kind of find ourselves slipping into it. And you know this feeling: you're going along, you're having a great day, you're being kind and generous to everyone, and then before you know it, you've gotten angry and you've said something awful to somebody else or to yourself. We know the feeling of sort of plummeting into sin, and we also know the feeling of being overcome by adversity. The psalmist talks about, God, you have to save me because the waters have risen up to my neck. Right? There's so many dangers in the world, of course, like our sin, the sins of our community, the sins of our world, the sins that we create in our relationships, these can become for us great adversities, right?
So there's the adversity of being mortal, of being someone who's going to die. There's all the things that come with it. Sickness and loss and grief. Those are adversities that can overcome us. But then there's the adversities that we inflict upon one another through our fallenness into sin. And as we talked about this in Bible study, someone had to name, she said, I can't help when I hear no one will snatch them out of my hand. Well, she says, I think about people being snatched off the street or snatched at a border crossing. Someone in this congregation was talking to me about how a member of her own family, a citizen of this country, for more than 25 years has been arrested. Not once, but twice, not once, but twice. And both times told you better not make any mistake or you'll be out of here. So as another wise member of this congregation had said to me, we can't just turn off the news because the news is us. It is us. It happens to us and to the people that we love and care for. God's family. There is danger in this world.
There are forces of sin, there is great adversity. And these would threaten to snatch us from the hand of God. So what are we to do? This beautiful Psalm. There's a reason. If there's one Bible verse that everybody knows, it probably comes out of Psalm 23. It's beautiful, comforting. It's a steadying psalm, and think about how it starts. The Lord is my shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want. He leads me beside the still waters. He makes me lie down in the green pastures. He restores my soul. So the Psalm starts with such peace and imagery that just paints a whole scene in your head. And when you hear it, you can kind of take a deep breath, such peace. But then it takes a turn, right? It takes a turn that I think it needs to take because it's easy to feel that you are in the hand of the steadfast and loving God when you're lying in a beautiful green pasture by a peaceful river.
But what about when you're in danger? What about when you're in trouble? And so the Psalm turns from this peaceful scene to say, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not be afraid. For you are with me, your rod and your staff they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, other translations, in the presence of all that troubles me, all the danger, the sin, the adversity that would overcome me. God, you prepare a table before me. You anoint my head with oil and my cup overflows.
And then the psalmist says, see, it's not just in the times of peace, peace of our own heart, peace of our world, that God is steadfast and loving. It is when we walk through the darkest place, when we cannot see the road ahead of us, when the waters are up to our neck, when we are in danger, and the forces of evil are tugging on us, trying to snatch us out of God's hand, God is there with us then. The psalmist says, surely your goodness and your mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. God's goodness, God's mercy. The Hebrew word is hased. The steadfast love of God, the faithfulness of God. God's goodness, and steadfast love will follow me. And the word follow, it's not just kind of coming along behind. The implication of this way of saying follow in this text, is pursue, goodness, steadfast love, mercy. They don't just follow me. They are pursuing me. In other parts of the Psalms, the same verb is used for what my enemies do to me. They chase me. They are coming after me. So the goodness, the love of God, the mercy of God, the enduring faithfulness of God, they pursue me.
So wherever I go, whatever I fall into, whatever threatens to overcome me, this goodness and this love are right there. No one can snatch you out of their hand. And so we dwell in the house of the Lord forever, in danger, in peace, in sickness, in health, in strife, because the goodness and the mercy of God, they are coming after you.
This whole place is the house of God. Your whole life is the house of God. And so though you may fall into sin and you may be overcome by adversity, in the end, you cannot be snatched out of the house of God. You cannot be taken from the hand of the God whose goodness and steadfast love pursue you. Amen.