You Can Begin Again . . .
After You’ve Been Left Out
Jim Westmoreland
Today, I am doing something I haven’t done here at Century
before, and that is depart from the lectionary cycle of scriptures
for the church year for a few weeks in order to do a sermon
series titled “You Can Begin Again.” (Maybe about 7 minutes
longer, too!) Several years ago, Gerald Mann of Austin, Texas,
did this as a series.
I really liked it because it is so at the heart
of what I believe the church is all about, and I have always
wanted to preach a series on the theme, You Can Begin Again.
We have Good News for everyone who has ever struggled. You
can begin again! And today, we are going to talk about . . .
“You Can Begin Again after You’ve Been Left out.”
Within the familiar passage of the Twenty-third Psalm are some insights that can speak to us in our day. We usually use this text at funerals, and it is appropriate and does provide comfort, but it is also a commencement psalm. It is a psalm about how to begin again, after you’ve been excluded. It is a psalm to get us started, to lead us through to the other side. Hear this interpretive reading:
“Because the Lord is my shepherd, I have everything that I need. He has me to rest in green pastures. He leads me to fresh pools of quiet water. He restores my strength. He keeps me on safe pathways without failing. And even when I walk through the shadow of death valley, I am not afraid for you O God are with me. Your rod and your staff, they protect me. You have prepared a banquet for me for all of the outsiders to stand and see. You have made me an honored guest by putting oil on my head and filling my cup continuously. I am certain that your goodness and your mercy will be with me all the days of my life. And your house will be my home forever.”
You . . . can . . . begin again . . . after you’ve been left out.
Did you ever have Dad or Mom do something with one of your other brothers or sisters and you didn’t get to. You felt left out! Middle children are always feeling left out. They don’t get to do what the older one does because they aren’t old enough. Then, all the rules have loosened up for the youngest child and they seem to get to do everything. Life isn’t fair! Is it? Or maybe you didn’t get picked for the play, chosen for a team, or picked for a leadership role in school, at work or even at church.
Each one of us can identify in some way with that. Each one of us has had the feeling of being left out, of being excluded. And, I feel the need to be included is one of our basic needs.
No one ever felt more left out than King David. In 1 Samuel God tells the prophet, Samuel, go to Bethlehem. There was a man there named Jesse. He has some sons, and one of those sons is to become the future king. You go and look at all the sons, and I will tell you which one is the chosen one. And so, he gets to Jesse’s house, and he says, Bring me your sons. And Jesse brings out seven sons, and the first one is tall and handsome, strong and mature, and he’s not the one.
And he brings out six more sons, one by one, and none of them is the right one. And then the prophet says to Jesse, you got any other boys? And he said, “Well let me think for a minute, and he said, Oh yeah, there’s David! But, he’s a shepherd!” Now, that doesn’t mean much to us, but a shepherd was the lowest rung of society. A shepherd was what you became when no one thought you’d amount to anything. “He or she’s just not college material.” It was the bottom of the rung. He lived with the sheep, smelled like a sheep, fought bears and lions with rocks and clubs. There wasn’t much hope for him.
But, you know that David became the greatest king in the history of Israel. How did he overcome rejection and not seen as one with much to offer? We’ve all had that. How do we begin again after we have felt left out?
Well, I think Psalm 23 gives us the answer. The first eleven words. “Because the Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I (and here is the key word) need.”
What happened with David in the desert with the sheep? He was forced to depend on God to be his shepherd. This is not rocket science, folks, it’s really simple. If you have been rejected, you don’t have to be left out forever. Let the Lord become your shepherd, because He will meet your needs.
It’s very interesting that the leading psychoanalyst of the twentieth century, I believe, was a man named Abraham Maslow. Do you know why? Because he studied healthy people. All the others studied sick people. He formed his idea of what makes people healthy and growing by studying healthy people. And, he found that healthy people had five basic needs that were met. And they fit the twenty-third psalm.
First, David let the Lord be the shepherd of his physiological or physical needs. Maslow said, “Man does live by bread alone if he has no bread.” If a person is hungry and without food and nourishment and rest and replentishment, there is no need to talk to that person about achieving anything because they do live by bread alone if they have no bread. That’s why in third world countries you don’t do evangelism without food. The basic physiological needs have to be met. Listen to the first verse of the twenty-third Psalm, “He lets me rest (rest) in green pastures (food); he takes me to pools of quiet water (nourishment); and he renews my strength (replentishment). David learned in the desert to depend on God to let Him be his shepherd for his physical needs.
We are a nation obsessed with gaining stuff, and it is because we have lost the simple, simple truth that the Lord is our Shepherd. My challenge to you as we finish the last quarter of this year is to make a vow and say, Lord, I want you to be the shepherd of my physical needs. What does that mean? It doesn’t mean to take on a new regimen. It means to take on a new rhythm. Every time you get worried about how you are going to make ends meet, how am I going to eat, how am I going to sleep, how am I going to rest, and how am I going to be provided for, remember ”The Lord is my Shepherd. Let God meet your physical needs. Get a new rhythm into your life. This is a simple truth. You can begin again after you’ve been left out if you begin to depend on the right person for your physiological needs.
The second thing that David did was to let the Lord be the shepherd of his safety needs. Maslow says that once we’ve had our physical needs met, they no longer motivate us.
Gerald Mann told about visiting with some men in January one year about their new year’s resolutions. Did any of you make any resolutions this year? Do you still remember them? The men discovered they all had something in common. They were all going to lose weight! One guy weighed well over 200 pounds, and another one about 200, and a short guy about 185. Guess, how much they were all going to lose? The same amount! About 20 pounds. Mann said, “If there’d been a 300 pound guy there, he would have said he was going to lose about 20 pounds!
What’s that got to do with the 23rd Psalm? Let God meet your physiological needs. Let God meet your needs for safety. He said the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He talks about safety. The Hebrew means to lead me down safe paths, the ones where you don’t fall off. “He takes me through the valley of the shadow of death. If you have ever been to Southern Israel or studied the geography of the Holy Land, you know that valleys are called “wadis,” and death valley is the wadi of Wadi Kelt, which is a huge gorge that runs out of the Judean hills down to Jericho. It is always in the shadows. Whenever the shepherd took his sheep down there, there were lions and bears, and it was called death valley. And David wrote, “even though I go through the valley of the shadow, I am not afraid because You are with me, O God. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Maslow said we have to have our safety needs met, our need for orderliness, for a pathway to travel that is dependable, and we need protection. People cannot live in fear, he said. (I wonder if he had been reading the 23rd Psalm.) Let the Lord be your shepherd.
During the last four years, Janet and I have learned some important lessons. We’ve had some reminders that no matter how well we take care of ourselves, no matter how good science is, and we’ve had wonderful doctors, we know that tomorrow is not promised. We have learned that we are mortal beings, that we have a destiny with death. When Janet was home with the flu about 3 ½ years ago, we had no idea how badly she was dehydrating. When she went to see her doctor, he immediately put her in the hospital for dehydration and kidney failure. Even now, Dr. Buchanan says that no patient of his with as low of a kidney function as she had has ever left the hospital alive. Sobering information. And, she is a walking miracle today.
Events happen that cause us to be very aware of our mortality. There is no way to overcome feeling mortal, or left out, except to depend on God’s mercy, His rod, His staff. How many of us have just missed being hit by a car, while walking or while driving? We have come just a blink of an eye away from stepping in front of or turning in front of a big truck. Our lives are more fragile than we want to admit. Let the Lord be the shepherd of your safety needs. Stop worrying.
Then, David goes on to say that we need to learn to let the Lord be the shepherd of our need to belong. Maslow says that once we get our physical needs met and our safety needs met, we all need to belong. He said to be loved is not just to have sex. People often have sex to belong. Rarely has there been a promiscuous person who wasn’t trying to get love. Love, belonging, is to be in a stable environment. That is why families are so important. That’s why divorces shatter the very basis of a child’s nature. If you want the Lord to be your shepherd, you should let him be the shepherd of your belonging needs, of your love needs, a place to belong.
Robert Frost said a family is a place, when you go there, they have to take you in. Do you like that? A family is a place that, when you go there, they have to take you in. That’s one of the reason’s we have the church. We are the place that when you come here, we have to take you in. It doesn’t matter how bad you’ve been or what you’ve done, It doesn’t matter how dirty you are, how wealthy or poor you are, the door is open to you.
A preacher, intending to criticize another church, told a group that there is a church in town that is full of outcasts. He said they just seine up the pond and they take the fish, the snakes and the turtles and the gars and the trash fish and the craw dads and they put them all in the same pond. He said that church can never succeed. The preacher of the church he referred to heard about the remarks and said to his friends, “That guy understands our theology!” Why? Because church is a place, when you come here, you have to be taken in. Let the Lord be the shepherd of your need to belong.
Let me tell you something. People cannot love you perfectly. Only God can do that. Those of you who have tried to marry somebody to fulfill your life know that we are all broken. Let the Lord be the shepherd of your need to belong.
How did David overcome being left out and rejected? The first thing he did was let the Lord be the shepherd of his esteem needs. Maslow said that after we have been fed, are safe and belong, the next cluster of needs that we have is the need to have self-respect, to be able to do something, to be proud of what we do.
And, in addition to that we need praise. Listen to David’s psalm, “You have prepared a banquet for me,” he says. So that outsiders just stand there and look. You have made me a part of your home. That’s esteem! And then he says, “You have made me an honored guest.” You have put oil on my head and you keep filling up my cup every time it gets empty. Oil on the head and keeping your cup full were symbols of being part of a family and of being praised. God was recognizing him for what he did.
David worked hard. He learned how to throw rocks pretty straight, and he learned how to use his shepherd’s staff. But, he really got his leadership, and he overcame all of the difficulties because he knew that, no matter what happened, he was an honored guest with God. He was esteemed. He learned how to do things. He developed his skills, and he had pride in what he accomplished.
Could God be a partner in what you are trying to do? He let God be the shepherd of his physical needs, his safety needs, his needs for love and his needs for esteem.
Finally, David let God be the shepherd of his dream. Listen to the 23rd Psalm. He said, I am certain, this is one thing that I know for sure. I know for sure that your goodness, God, and your mercy will be with me all the days of my life, and your house will be my home for ever.
David decided to attach his dream to God’s dream. Could God be a part of your dream? Do you have a dream big enough for God? One pastor challenged his congregation one week, saying, Preaching isn’t preaching unless it challenges the people to do something great! It is human nature to get complacent, to get passive and half-hearted, to accept mediocrity from ourselves when we know there is more in us. We are not created for mediocrity. God did not create the world to give us the most mediocre thing that he had, right? No, we are called to greatness. What is your dream? What do you want to do with your life? Can you hitch your dream to God’s dream? That’s what David did. And, I challenge you to finish this year strong by making a new beginning, right here. Do something great with your life. Let God be the shepherd of your dream.
Listen for a moment to the chronology of Abraham Lincoln’s life? 1832, he lost his job. He was also defeated for the legislature. 1833, he failed in business and went broke. 1834, he was elected to the legislature. 1835, his sweetheart died. 1836, he had a nervous breakdown (we couldn’t elect anybody like that today!). 1838, defeated for Speaker of the House. 1843, defeated for nomination to the congress. 1846, elected to the congress. 1848, he lost seat in Congress. 1849, rejected for land officer. 1854, defeated for the Senate. 1856, defeated for the nomination for the Vice-Presidency. 1858, again defeated for the Senate. 1860, he was elected President of the United States in this country’s darkest hour. Someone added that up. In 28 years he batted 15 times and he got 3 hits. He was 3 out of 15. For a 28 year career he had a .200 batting average.
This is what he said just before he died: “God selects His own instruments, and sometimes, he selects really odd ones. For instance, he chose me to steer the ship through a great crisis.”
You can begin again. There are a lot of people walking around today with inferiority complexes. They are saying, Well, I’d be great, but my daddy just never did what he was supposed to do. And, I’m an outcast and rejected, and I got pimples on my face and I just never could do anything, and everybody just sort of rejected me, and I’m going to wallow in my inferiority for the rest of my life and whine and moan. Do I need to continue? I don’t think so.
You can begin again after being left out. Read the 23rd Psalm. God met David’s safety needs, his physical needs, his need for esteem, his need to belong. What you need to do is think of something great that you can do in the remaining months of this year. But before you do that, I want to ask you to do one thing . . . Let’s all bow our heads together, and let’s ask the Lord to be our Shepherd. What does that mean? He means to let go and let Him, to let the Father who loves you more than you could ever know be the source of life in your heart. Don’t pray this if you don’t need it. But, by all means pray it if you do need it! Lord, right now, be the shepherd of my life. Amen.
Century Christian Church, October 7, 2007 - Jim Westmoreland
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