Thomas J Parlette
“Everything Happens So Much”
Psalm 23
4/30/23
“May your coffee be strong and your Monday be short.”
“Make today look so good that yesterday is jealous.”
“Train your mind to be calm in every storm.”
Believe it or not, these phrases do not come from the Bible. They don’t originate in an ancient book of wisdom, or even in a modern self-help book. No – they actually come from Twitter, a social networking service with hundreds of millions of users. Twitter is where people go to write down quick thoughts, complain about something, share their opinion or a humorous insight or maybe even a word of wisdom.
Twitter is controversial for sure, and many people complain about it – including me, I don’t follow anyone on Twitter. But author Kaitlyn Tiffany, writing in The Atlantic, says “no one can deny that it has brought some amazing phrases into our lives – things we can’t imagine reading in any other place, or at any other time in history.”
For example:
“I cried, I screamed, I cursed, I jumped up and down, I thought about trying.”“Everyone says to follow your dreams, so I went back to bed.”
Unexpected, funny, sometimes absurd phrases. But there is one treasured sentence fragment that Tiffany says is “astounding in its clarity and salience. It described both the internet and our entire human world, in just four words:
“Everything happens so much”
That’s true isn’t it? According to Tiffany, the tweet acknowledges “what feels like ancient wisdom: The absolute best we can say about this moment in time is that everything is happening. As it always has and always will, so much.”
Twitter users have called it the “general tweet of the decade” and “the defining text of our age.” (1)
Life just keeps happening… so very much.
Stress is all around us these days. We stress out sitting in traffic, honking at the car in front of us. We work longer and longer hours in a sputtering economy, as we contend with the stress of school, relationships, financial challenges, interacting with hurt and angry people, searching for fulfillment in retirement and even coming to grips with death itself.
In a world in which “everything happens so much” and we are quickly overwhelmed, we need a God who calms us, restores our souls and leads us in the right paths. Fortunately, we have Psalm 23 that promises us that the Lord is “my shepherd, I shall not want.” God gives us green pastures, quiet waters, a table of food and an overflowing cup. The promise of Psalm 23 is rest, refreshment, guidance and protection in a chaotic, stressful, threatening world.
Yes, that tweet was right – everything happens so much. But since the Lord is our shepherd, we have everything we need. That’s even more true.
Psalm 23 begins with the assurance that God leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul.” There are actually a few different ways this could be translated. It could be rendered “God leads me beside waters of rest, he restores my life.” Or possibly, “God leads me to the waters of refreshment.” Or even “God causes me to be refreshed upon the waters of rest.”
All of these translations underscore the practical work of the shepherd who cares for the sheep and provides for their need.
In our hyperactive and exhausting world, we need this kind of rest and relaxation that restores our soul. Psalm 23 tells us that God gives us four gifts to counteract the effect of chaos, stress and confusion – water, food, protection and hospitality.
First, let’s consider water. Geraldine Perriam is a researcher at the University of Glasgow, and she knows that water does more than keep us hydrated. Water evokes “responses in people that are calming, energizing, and can lead to better health outcomes. Just being beside water has a de-stressing effect,” she says. We need quiet waters, still waters, waters of rest. (2)
Water has essential qualities says geography professor Ronan Foley, such as keeping us alive and cleansing our bodies. (3) In our sacrament of baptism, water is a sign of our cleansing from sin, but also a sign of the new life that comes from following Jesus.
Everything was happening so much for Martin Luther at the start of the Protestant Reformation. Pastor Grace Pritchard Burson recalls that Luther “lived a turbulent life, constantly debating his opponents and in danger from the authorities. He translated the whole Bible into German while holed up in an ally’s castle to avoid being captured or killed. Not surprisingly, he was often plagued with fear and anxiety, with doubt and discouragement.
Luther had a unique strategy to deal with all this stress – “he would stand up, face down the devil that he believed to be tormenting him, and yell, ‘I am baptized!” He may also have written the same phrase in chalk on his desk, “to remind himself, as he worked, of his unbreakable connection to Christ and to the communion of saints.” (4)
“I am baptized!” When everything happens so much, we need to remember that important truth.
God provides for us not only through water, but also through food. Think about a hot bowl of soup, fresh baked bread, your favorite hot dish in the winter. There’s a reason these foods are nicknamed comfort foods. They make us feel better. Whether we’ve had a bad day, or the weather outside is frightful – these foods bring us comfort.
I think of the Harry Potter movies, when Professor Lupin arrives as a teacher at Hogwarts. Lupin is cursed with being a werewolf. Whenever he has one of his transformations, he’s always got a chocolate bar in his pocket to restore his strength.
Whenever Harry has an encounter with the evil Dementors, Lupin is right there, offering some chocolate, saying – “eat this, you’ll feel better.” That’s comfort food for sure.
Psalm 23 also assures us that that “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for you are with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me” – that’s protection.
The Psalm goes on to say, “You prepare a table before me… You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows” – that’s hospitality.
Water, food, protection and hospitality. They are everything we need – and they all come from God. The psalm ends with the promise that “goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
That’s the place to be – especially when everything happens so much. Each of us is given a place in which God offers us goodness, and mercy, and love, along with eternal shelter.
And because God gives us everything we need, we are invited to put our trust in God, rely on God and have faith in God. The biblical scholar J. Clinton McCann once wrote that, “The proper response to the good news of Psalm 23 and the good news of Jesus Christ is trust.” When we trust, we discover that “life is not a reward to be earned; it is a gift to be accepted.” (5)
Think about this. There’s nothing wrong with showing up for work, doing a good job, earning money, and providing for ourselves and our families.
But think about what happens when you look at life as a reward, instead of as a gift. You become worn out and discouraged, like the disciples who followed Jesus through Galilee. At one point, they wondered where in the world they were going to find enough food to feed the people coming to hear Jesus teach.
One of the small, but notable pieces of the well-known story of the feeding of the 5,000 record Jesus telling the people to sit down on the grass so they could eat and be filled. It’s no accident that Jesus resembles the good shepherd of Psalm 23 who made his sheep “lie down in pastures.”
In that same story, Jesus challenges his disciples to show compassion to the crowd. The disciples are feeling overwhelmed, everything is happening so much – and Jesus instructs them, “you give them something to eat.”
Of course, the disciples are baffled by this – but they do it – and everything works out.
That’s what we are challenged to do – to take what Jesus gives us and share it with others. Take the water, food, protection and hospitality offered in Psalm 23 and share it with the world around us.
Tom Boogart once wrote about walking through Kollen Park in Holland Michigan along the shore of Lake Macatawa:
“I overtook a young mother and her daughters. The younger daughter, maybe 4 years old, was forging ahead and the older daughter, maybe 10 years old, was in a conversation with her mother.
As I passed I heard the mother say “Would you rather have 1 flower or 20 flowers?” I had no idea how the conversation had led to that question, but the older daughter said, “I’d rather 20 flowers,” and she glanced in my direction.
I wondered, would this young girl ever hear a counter truth, someone who would tell her that one thing in life could be more than enough?...
I started to ruminate on the theme of “one thing” in scripture. I thought about Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler. The ruler had everything, but Jesus said he still lacked one thing. If you want to be my disciple, sell everything, give it to the poor, then come follow me. Possessing many things was the enemy of the one thing.
I thought about Mary and Martha – how Martha complained about her sister Mary not helping her the meal. And Jesus said, “Martha, you are distracted by many things, there is need of only one thing. Mary has made the right choice.
So I want to say to that little girl walking with her mother and sister along the shore of Lake Macatawa – “Do not listen to the peddlers of our materialistic culture; let not your heart be distracted by many things. There is a fullness that is emptiness, and an emptiness that is fullness. An empty heart has more space for God and. filled with the love of God, has more awareness of the world so loved by God and more courage to engage the forces that threaten to undo it.
I want to say to that little girl that there is one flower more beautiful than 20 other flowers, one worthy of your full attention, a lily crowned with thorns.” (6)
With the Lord as our Shepherd – we have everything we need.
May God be praised. Amen.
1. Homileticsonline, retrieved 4/4/23.
2. Ibid…
3. Ibid…
4. Ibid…
5. Ibid…
6. Ibid…
