A banquet in the presence of all that troubles us
Munch, Edvard, 1863-1944. Sun, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56306
Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter (April 30, 2023) at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. A video of the entire worship service is available here.
What are we talking about? View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day: The Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year A)
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You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me;
you have anointed my head with oil,
and my cup is running over. Psalm 23:5
Edited Transcript
May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please be seated.
This week, I heard a podcast featuring an author named Cindy Spiegel. She was speaking about her new book, Microjoys, which I want to tell you about.
Now before the publication of this book, Ms. Spiegel had been known for a previous best-selling book on the power of positive thinking: keeping a good attitude. She shared techniques and approaches that helped her maintain a positive attitude, and by her telling, it had been helpful to many readers. But in 2020, she experienced difficult times. Not only did she feel the the effects of the pandemic (as we all did) but she had a number of tragedies affect her family. First, her nephew was shot and killed in his own home. Then her mother died. Then one of her brothers had a stroke and was in the ICU—and as you probably remember in that season of the pandemic, there were no visitors allowed in the ICU. And then, she herself got breast cancer.
All the tools that she'd used in the past, to keep a positive attitude and keep her chin up—they didn't work anymore. She couldn't be the person that she had been teaching others to be for most of her career! She couldn't stay positive through a season where trouble after trouble and grief after grief were piling on; in a world where almost everyone around her was going through similar struggles. The "power of positive thinking" wasn't accessible for her anymore.
But she began to notice that while she couldn't change her own attitude, couldn't keep her chin up, there were these very small things in her life that—if she was able to be present to them—they were almost like life rafts. If you imagine she was in an ocean with these waves of trouble going over her, then there were small moments that she could cling to, just long enough. Like someone picking up the phone to call her. Or her finding a book of recipes that her mother had handwritten for her before her death. There were memories ,and traditions, and true friends.
These didn't change how she felt in the big picture. They didn't make all the grief and overwhelm and rage and sorrow go away. But each one was just enough to keep her going until the next one came. She found these small, or sometimes not-so-small, moments and practices that reminded her that joy and hope exist—even when you're deep in a sea of sorrow and despair. And it was enough to keep her going from one day to the next.
And so she started writing essays about whatever she noticed that was each day's life raft, each day's little island where she could catch a breath of joy and hope. And that became the book that she was on this podcast to speak about.
What she is holding up is this: we're called not to be positive all the time, but to realize that in our lives, great sorrow, great grief, real challenge that is too much for us, has a way of coexisting with joy and hope. These two realities, especially in our most difficult times, are both present. And the joy and hope can sustain us in seasons of our lives or our collective lives that are most difficult for us.
Today's beloved psalm, Psalm 23—if any of us know any psalm by heart, it's this one!—this psalm reminds us of that truth. This is a psalm about being sustained and guided by the grace of God who is giving us good gifts. But it's not about God who's giving us good gifts in the midst of a life that is all hunky-dory! It's a psalm about a God who's giving us gifts in the middle of the greatest terrors and challenges of our life. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me." "You prepare a table before me in the presence of all that troubles me." This is a psalm about how God creates a place that sustains us when we need it most, when we're going through the darkest times or when our community is suffering the most.
The story we read today in the Book of Acts, you know, it tells us about this golden age of the church, right? Pentecost has just happened. The Holy Spirit has descended on the disciples. On the day of Pentecost, three thousand people are baptized, so the church is growing! And then the reading we did today reminds us that the apostles are all together: they're sharing, they're selling what they have so that other people might have what they need. They're holding things in common. They're taking care of one another, visiting each other's homes, praying, listening to the apostles, teaching. Chapter two, verse 42, which we talked about last week: "They continued in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers," (this is our first baptismal vow).
And so it seems like this golden age moment of the church where everybody's happy! So it's easy to forget (and those of us who are studying the book of Acts through the Easter season will remember): this golden age is a moment, and it goes by real quick. There's two verses. They're experiencing this community grace in the midst of what is about to be serious persecution. And don't forget that they're experiencing this grace in the wake of the crucifixion of the one that they follow. The world around them is troubled and troubling, but they're continuing doing the things that bring God's grace and sustenance to them being together, breaking bread, the teaching and fellowship and the prayers.
I want you to think about what it is that has sustained you. What are those small things or those practices that have given you a glimmer of joy or hope in your most difficult times, and in our community's most difficult times? This church has experienced some very difficult times. Listening to this author tell her story about the pandemic reminded me it's not so long ago that we ourselves were scattered, couldn't be together in the ways that we're accustomed to being together, that we didn't know the future, and we were deep in a valley of shadow, and our lives were full of fear and loss, uncertainty. What are the things that kept this congregation going during that time, and how did we sustain each other?
The promise of Psalm 23 is not that the world around us and we ourselves won't be troubled .We will be deeply troubled, and the world will shake. Even so: there's a banquet before us. There are small joys and big ones. There's teaching and fellowship and breaking bread together and praying together. Those are the ways that God even now spreads out that table and an anoints us.
So do think, especially in this coming week, notice what those things are for you and begin to pay attention to them. Or if you can, look back through these past few years and think about what it is that had sustained you, and continue it. Notice it, and give thanks to God for what it is that God is giving us even now. Amen.