Dark Alleys to Lighted Paths
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Text: Psalm 23
I confess I have been astounded by the level of interest that there has been on the 100th year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. I am sure you must feel the same way. We've been bombarded with it the last two weeks in the media, on television, in replays of movies, of historical interviews and documentaries, and editorials in newspapers. To think that a catastrophe a hundred years ago on a ship has reached so deeply into the psyche of our culture and has engraved itself on a corporate memory the way the sinking of the Titanic has is really quite astounding.
In many ways, I shouldn't be surprised. A number of years ago, I had the privilege of visiting Fairview Cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia. For those of you who are Haligonians you know it is on the intersection of Windsor and Connell Streets in Halifax. I went in there because I had been told that it was the burial place for many who had died as a result of the sinking of the Titanic. As a matter of curiosity I visited the cemetery.
There were a hundred people who were buried there. They were buried in other cemeteries in Halifax too, but this was one of the largest. Alongside them were those who had been buried from the 1917 explosion in Halifax that had killed many, many more people. They lay side-by-side from the victims of the Titanic. There was one little grave that really caught my heart: it is a grave to “An Unknown Child” buried there. It is very touching really. It is a sign that brings back to us all a sense of how fragile we are.
There is something about disasters that hone our spiritual senses and make us think about life more deeply, hence the fascination with the Titanic has been so all-consuming. In many ways, it is as if we were on board in some way or another. Because it was such a powerful event and because tragedies like the Titanic leave an indelible mark on a culture and a society, it was fascinating for me to read a sermon by Karl Barth, the great Swiss theologian and arguably the greatest theologian of the twentieth century.
He delivered the sermon on April 25, 1912, in Switzerland, in a small reformed church just after the sinking of the Titanic. As I read it I was fascinated with the way in which he dealt with the tragedy that was the Titanic. He was writing and speaking to a people who were living that very immediate connection with this tragedy and there is no question when you read his sermon that the tragedy of the Titanic had gone far and wide, even to a land-locked country such as Switzerland. Why? And what did he say about it that was so profound?
He argued a number of things. He made the point that God speaks to us through such tragedies and that those tragedies speak to us of God. In other words, there is something profound about a tragedy that makes us think about eternal things as well as temporal ones and that cause our minds to go beyond just what we have seen to ask questions and to seek for answers. He argued in his sermon that progress, human progress and technological progress, is a good thing. There is a need for humanity to progress and God wants us to progress and to use technology, to use ideas to further and better the world. That is what God desires.
Nevertheless Barth ushered in a word of caution. He said that in that progress to always remember that it is God that is sovereign and that it is God who has the last word. How does it manifest itself? He argues clearly that the technology that humans create can produce within us a rather pervert arrogance. Not only do technologies produce labour or save labour, not only do they advance the human condition, but they can cause humanity to become arrogant and proud and to place their trust in that technology.
This was a big discussion in the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century: to what extent is technological progress actually for the advancement of humankind? Barth says that it is good, but it is good only insofar as we do not become arrogant. He points to this arrogance in his sermon and he makes quite a profound statement of about why the sinking of the Titanic took place. Remember this is preached a week after the event. There have been no post-mortems, no historical discovery or dives into the sea to explore it - this is a week after! This is what he wrote:
Only there was one faulty link in the reasoning behind the Titanic. The Captain did not just have the safety of the passengers to think about, but also and principally the commission he had been given by the shareholders who were employing him to break that speed record if he possibly could on the ship's very first voyage. It is because of this fragile link in the train of untrustworthiness, because of this guilt that the Titanic went under, along with 1,500 human beings. It is on this guilt, which ran the Titanic into the iceberg that we must reflect.
Barth is pretty clear that there was a sense in which the Titanic, out of arrogance and invincibility, was being driven towards something, something that was always ahead, but never actually came to fruition. Nevertheless, as Barth in his sermon says, God is a God of mercy and God is merciful. There were those who came to the rescue of people. God is an eternal God and a loving God, and those who are the victims find themselves in his tender hands. God is not one to dismiss the souls of the lost. It is a profound comment, and it is a comment that is very, very true.
As I went through Fairview Cemetery, I came to another headstone. It was the headstone of a man called William Denton Cox. He was a steward in the Third Class on the Titanic. He gave up his life to make sure that Third Class passengers were able to get on to one of the lifeboats, and he goes down in history as one who made a great sacrifice for others. It was fitting that the headstone was only completed in 1991 - all those years later - by those who were concerned that Denton Cox had not been remembered for his bravery. But there he is, in Fairview Cemetery, not far from those who perished with him. Completely touching.
Barth is right: God is also merciful. Barth realized that the Titanic, just like other disasters that had happened from Apollo Shuttles onwards, are in fact a wake-up call for humanity to realize our fragility, to realize our mortality, and to recognize our needs. For Barth, the Titanic was a crisis. Later in life, his sermons became deeper and better, but that early sermon, for a 26 year-old, was quite remarkable. In many ways what Barth says fits in absolutely to a “T” with what David felt with the writing of the magnificent 23rd Psalm. The Psalmist is also addressing a crisis. He is asking the same question in that Psalm that people asked after the sinking of the Titanic.
It is hard to know precisely what the crisis was that led to the writing of the 23rd Psalm. Modern scholarship has reflected that there could be three historical reasons, or maybe more. One of them is that the Psalm was written reflecting on pastors, shepherds, who are moving their sheep from one field into another, but have to go through danger to get them there. You can see that in the language of the Psalm: “Going through the valley of the shadow of death.”
Another argument has been made that it was principally about travellers: pilgrims, who were on their way to Jerusalem, but had to go through the dark valleys around Jerusalem to get there, to go over the Kidron and over the mountains from the south which are very dangerous, so as to be able to go to the Temple, the House of the Lord, in Jerusalem. Maybe that was what David was writing about. Or maybe he was writing about his own guilt. Maybe he is a fugitive wanting refuge in Jerusalem in the House of the Lord, and seeking protection from his enemies. You see that in the Psalm as well.
It is hard to know precisely what was on David's mind at the time of writing this Psalm, but it is evidence that there was a crisis and because there was a crisis, there is a word for all time: it is the Word of God. In this great Psalm and the reason I believe this Psalm resonates with us unlike any other is that it goes right to the heart of our faith. In it, David makes three astounding affirmations and these are affirmations that no matter what we face in life we should take with us, and why the 23rd Psalm is so important. The first affirmation is that he affirms his own belief in God. First of all, above anything, this is about God: “the Lord is my shepherd.” That is what the Psalm is about.
A number of years ago, when I was in Ottawa I received a telephone call from a hospital. A nurse at the Montfort Hospital in the eastern part of the city, a principally Francophone area of the city, phoned me and said, “Are you Reverend Stirling, Reverend Andrew Stirling?”
I said, “Yes, I am.”
She said, “I was wondering if you would visit somebody at my hospital? He has asked for you by name.”
She gave me his name and I didn't recognize it at all. I said, “Sure, if he has asked for me, I will visit.”
I made preparations to go to the hospital and the nurse said that she wanted to meet me before I went into his room. She met me, and she asked me to wear a gown and a mask and gloves, and she said, “Reverend Stirling, just to let you know, this is the infectious diseases part of the hospital, and the gentleman that you are going to see has HIV/AIDS and is very ill.”
I went into his room and there lying in a bed was a rather emaciated man with a skin colour that was pale. I didn't recognize him at all! I thought I had never seen him before. He knew who I was and even though he was in a somewhat semi-comatose state and his eyes were rolling back into his head every now and again, and he was sort of disappearing before me, he nevertheless smiled when he spoke. He couldn't speak very much. He had pipes in his throat and a mask on his face, but he just simply said to me, “Le Seigneur est mon pasteur.........”
My French is terrible and I had no idea what he was talking about. I thought about it - “Le Seigneur” - the master, “Le seigneur” - the leader, Lord, yes, the Lord “mon pasteur” - and then he started to point to the table next to his bed and he said it again “Le Seigneur est mon Pasteur.” I thought, “Pastor, shepherd, flock......” The Lord is my shepherd.”
It dawned on me! He wants me to read “The Lord is my shepherd.” He pointed again at the table. So, I opened the drawer and there was a Bible in French. I thought, “Oh glory me, he will never understand a word I am going to say!” Then, I rummaged around in it, and lo and behold, there was a Gideon's Bible there, and it was in English. I pulled it out, and I said to him, “Do you want me to read “The Lord is my shepherd? Is that what you want?”
“Yes! Yes!”
I read it in English, and as I closed it, our eyes met, and he had a peaceful countenance. He put his hands together wanting me to pray. I prayed for this man I had never met before. I prayed on his behalf and I asked for the Lord's protection. I put the Bible back in the drawer. But then, realizing that he would probably want to hear it in his own language, I pulled out the French version, and I thought, “Lord, help me!” and I read it again in French: “Le Seigneur est mon pasteur ....”, and on it went. He smiled again and I put it back in the drawer and I left. I had no idea who he was.
That night, I received a telephone call. It was a call from his mother. She said, “Reverend Stirling, I want to thank you for going to visit my son today. I am just letting you know that not long after you left, he passed away.”
I said, “I am deeply sorry, but I didn't really know your son.”
She said, “Oh, I know that, and he knew that, but he didn't know any ministers or priests. A month before he had been at his cousin's wedding that you had performed at Parkdale United and you were the only minister that he knew so we called you.”
And that was that: a man who had no church and no background in the faith, a man who had no friendship with any ministers or priests, a man who died, but a man who knew one thing: “Le Seigneur est mon pasteur” and therefore he knew everything!
The Psalm is the affirmation of the Lord's presence. It speaks about the fact that if you know the Shepherd, you shall never want. So many of our lives get caught up in wants and troubled by the fact that we see what others have that we don't. Rarely do we think of what we have and that others don't. We get caught up in ourselves, but “Le Seigneur est mon pasteur” is everything: “I shall not want.”
The psalmist makes an incredible affirmation to God and what he declares that, “Though I go through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me.” No matter the crisis, no matter the valley, no matter the depth, whether it is crossing a physical valley of danger, or whether it is an emotional valley of depression, or whether it is a valley of the persecution of others, it makes no difference, the affirmation says it all: “You are with me. Your rod and your staff they comfort me.” The rod, a source of correction; the staff, a source of comfort: either way, with the shepherd it is good. Sometimes we need to be corrected and the Lord is with us to help us in that correction. Sometimes the Lord needs to affirm us and lift us up and that is also a blessing. Both are a blessing for when the Lord is our shepherd, we shall not walk through the valley of the shadow of death alone.
His final affirmation is to an audience. It is as if the psalmist ended the Psalm by writing for you and me. It is fascinating watching the movie of the sinking of the Titanic, because there is something I didn't realize and I believe it is historically true: that when the ship was sinking, the band continued to play, and they played Nearer My God to Thee. This was the benediction for those who went down in the Titanic - Nearer My God to Thee. You see, above all, they knew that no matter what their fate might be, their destiny was to be with God. The psalmist says that I will dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
Whether it is all the days, literally meaning our finite days, or “forever” implying moving beyond the boundaries of our physical life, it makes no difference. When you dwell in the house of the Lord you are with the Lord, who is the eternal one, and therefore it is all your days and it is forever. It has to be, because it is about God, and God is eternal. Therefore, the psalmist realizes that no matter the crisis, no matter the valley, no matter the depth, no matter the enemy, no matter the problems, no matter the guilt, the oil, the cup, the meal, the water, the pastures, the still waters are signs that God is with us forever.
I often liken this Psalm to when you go on a family trip, and some of you will have experienced it as children and others as parents and grandparents, you have a wonderful time and you are away in strange places, and then you start to near home, and all of a sudden home becomes an exciting place to return to. There is something about coming home that is marvellous: back to the bed you know, back to the familiar, back to what seems to be a place of safety. Coming home is usually not that bad a thing, even though it has been nice to be away.
The psalmist thinks this way. Whatever place he's been away on his travels through the valleys and the fields, whatever experiences he has encountered, when he comes into the presence of God, he is home. For those who died on the Titanic, and those who suffer disasters at the fate and the hands of others, for those who are dying, there is this word: “I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” This is the power of the Word of God. Amen.