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United Church of Paducah
4600 Buckner Lane
Paducah, KY 42001
(270) 442-3722
Worship Times
Sunday Service: 10:00a
Refreshments &
Fellowship: 11:15a
Christian Education
For All Ages:
11:20a - Noon
Nursery Services Provided Handicap Accessible
All Are Welcome!
A Congregation Of The
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie
Allen
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From March 2, 2008
Shadowed Valleys
Psalm 23
Jesus walked this lonesome valley, he had
to walk it by himself.
O, nobody else, could walk it for him, he had to walk it by
himself.
I learned this song as a kid standing next to my mother
while she played the piano. Why are we singing this, I would
wonder to myself. We usually sang happy songs--Broadway show
tunes and upbeat ditties from Hollywood musicals.
But Lonesome Valley? It made me so sad for Jesus. Sad in
same way that movie, The Robe, did. It made me want to cry,
thinking about the hard life Jesus had, and how it got
harder with every step he took. Even as a kid, this seemed a
great injustice, a sorrowful and unnecessary thing, since
all Jesus had ever wanted was for people to know God loved
them.
Singing about Jesus and his lonesome valley was hard enough.
But then the second verse came around and the song took a
terrible turn. Not only did Jesus have to make that
difficult journey, the song said that the rest of us do,
too.
We must walk that lonesome valley, we must walk it by
ourselves.
O, nobody else can walk it for us, we have to walk it by
ourselves.
We didn't live far from dry and desolate Nevada and so as I
sang, I knew all about that kind of valley. The earth there
was so parched it cracked clean open in places and shade was
non-existent. As I sang, I would imagine us, the "'we" we
were singing about, moving slowly, kicking up dust as we
went, thirsty and squinting and tired.
The tough going got tougher when we got to the third verse
of the song. Because "we" turned into lil' ole "me."
You must go and stand your trial, you have to stand it by
yourself.
O, nobody else can stand it for you, you have to stand it by
yourself.
Life--that's what we were signing about. Life. How difficult
it is and how inescapable its ordeals. How alone we are
through it all. And how this is how it is.
Oh my. You sing that song a few too many times and you might
just wake up one morning, pull the covers over your head,
and decide to never get out of bed again. If life is a trial
we must face alone, then maybe that old bumper sticker
really was true: Life is hard and then you die.
This is the fourth Sunday in Lent. And I confess that it
hasn't felt that much like Lent, despite tracing crosses on
foreheads on Ash Wednesday, despite my morning devotionals
and the other ways I enter into this holy season.
I think our recent very wintry weather had a lot to do with
it. Freezing rain and power outages, downed trees and
cancellations right and left--I don't know about you, but
those diverted my attention.
But even when the weather isn't challenging, Lent is a
season we don't rush towards. Why? Because unlike Advent's
joyful expectation of birth, Lent points us to life's
underbelly. It points us toward the shadow side of the human
experience--dashed hopes, betrayal by friends, suffering,
pure intentions put to death.
To go with Jesus into Jerusalem is to go into the depths of
our own lives.
Lent can be a long and woeful journey. And we can quickly
lose our way or turn away. Which is why, when Lent comes,
some of us would rather not go.
In that lonesome valley Lent takes us down into--and it is
down, not up--our attention to the underbelly of life grows
keener. Questions fly like startled birds: Why do we have to
face trials and adversity? Why do the good have a hard go
and the bad go unpunished? Why does God not spare us our
suffering--are we so deplorable? So unloved? Where is God,
anyway?
These aren't just theoretical, existential questions. We
look about and see them written all over our lives. A campus
shooting provokes them. News of an economic downturn.
Predictions that we might be in Iraq for ten more years. Or
one hundred.
The uncertainties we face, the questions that circle like
vultures, these are not exclusive to Lent, of course. We're
surrounded by them all year. They can tower over us, steep
and jagged, leaving us feeling trapped in one of life's many
shadowed valleys.
A pink slip. A conflict. A financial setback. An unwelcome
change. A situation that spins out of control. There are a
thousand ways and then some to get drawn down into a valley
we would never volunteer to explore.
Whether you and I choose to go into that lonesome valley by
intention--as part of a Lenten discipline, or whether we
find ourselves in the shadows because that's just where life
has taken us, we soon realize how vulnerable we are.
The longer we're there, the steeper the valley walls appear,
the more oppressive they seem. Terrible echoes reverberate.
Our usual arsenal of coping devices disappoint or fail us.
Our own efforts seem puny and insufficient; we feel at the
mercy of forces beyond our control.
We can easily feel alone and exposed in life's valleys. We
wonder if we will find our way out again. Worse, we fear we
may not survive the experience. These fears can make a
frightening experience even more so. They also make it hard
to come to or hold on to the truth that, despite our worst
fears, we are not alone.
That song I sang as a kid had it all wrong. Yes, Jesus
walked this lonesome valley. Yes, we do, too. Yes, you and I
do have trials each of us must endure. But we are never
alone. We are never alone. Our minds may try to convince us
otherwise. Our fears may broadcast dire predictions. But we
are never alone.
This is the good news Jesus lived and risked life to share.
To share with you. To share with me. Good news that Jesus
inherited from his faith and most perfectly expressed in the
23rd Psalm.
"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."
Whatever that valley was, wherever it was, the psalmist
found help. Help that felt like a meal spread out before
enemies, like a long-overdue blessing with oil. Help that
left him feeling that in the end it was goodness and mercy
that pursued him, not trouble.
In John's gospel, Jesus will make this help we are given
even more personal. "The Advocate, the Holy Spiritwill
teach you everything" Jesus says before taking up his
cross.
An enormous part of what the Spirit will teach is how to
recognize and take into ourselves the deep peace Christ
wants to give. So that troubled hearts, fearful minds,
anxious spirits are soothed and comforted and enabled to
receive God's abiding presence.
When we are down in that lonesome valley, when we are faced
with those times of trial that leave us feeling we are
hopelessly and utterly alone, the mind plays tricks. It will
try to convince us that we are doomed, that our days are
numbered. It will speak with authority about reality even
though, in light of God's reality, it is really just an
ugly, unwelcome mirage.
With God's grace, God's peace, God's omnipresence, anything
we come upon that leaves us afraid or uncertain, any
circumstance that leaves us feeling alone and vulnerable is
never, ever the end of the story.
Only God gets the last word. One that always leads onto
possibility and life, not dead-ends or death. With God,
there is always room for something new, something
life-giving, something reason alone can never anticipate.
Even before the month is over, we will affirm this together
as we celebrate Easter.
Because God's last word is what it is, we can sing with the
psalmist, "Surely 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."
If that's not the good news, I don't know what is.
As a kid, I just accepted the fact that Lonesome Valley
ended where it did, after three sorrowful verses. But now I
see that it isn't finished, that it takes us to Good Friday
and leaves us there, standing trial alone just like Jesus
did.
My faith compels me to listen for the missing verse, the
concluding verse. And so does yours. Not only with the song,
of course, but in life.
Jesus aches to journey with us, through our trials and
hard times,
O, he is our good and faithful shepherd, and in his arms, we
find our life. Amen.
© Rev. Karen Winkel
United Church of Paducah (UCC) Preacher's
note: All four verses are to be sung. |
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Promises
on September 7th
at 12 noon.
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