"Still Waters: How Deep Lie the Wells of Our
Souls"
Julie and I bring greetings from many of the congregation on retreat
this weekend at Zephyr Point Presbyterian Camp. Our former pastor and
spouse Bob and Carol Olmstead are leading the retreat around the theme
"It Is Well with My Soul." Each of us was invited to bring
along a favorite cup to act as the symbol of our own emptiness, our
receptiveness, our upliftedness, our waitingness upon God – as in the
hymn No. 641, "Fill My Cup, Lord." Will you join me? "Fill
my cup, Lord, I lift it up, Lord. / Come and quench this thirsting of my
soul. / Bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more; / fill my cup,
fill it up and make me whole."
Bob told the story of a teacher inviting students to fill a container
with good-sized rocks. When they thought the container was filled, the
teacher brought out pebbles to add. When they thought again it was
filled, the teacher brought out sand to add. When they thought this time
is surely was filled, the teacher brought out . . . you guessed it:
water! As we know by our Eastertide theme, water has the last word!
Waters go where everything else thinks there is no more space, no more
spirit to go. Still waters, deep waters. Bob’s point was when we fill
up on sand, when we sweat all the small stuff in life, we leave no room
for what’s most important, most basic, most foundational or
fundamental!
Calling faith our trust in the buoyancy of God, Bob and Carol pointed
out an empty cup floats much better than one filled with sand, or with
anything else!
In solidarity with the retreat, I invite us to look at our own
favorite cups sometime soon. Take a look at the cup that each one of us
is before God. Ask how full, how empty we are, and whether we are
containing, so to speak, and holding on to what we want to be! Take a
special look at our chips and our cracks, for those places let the light
in! And even let the water out! Where it may surprise us by falling to
earth to bring forth new life. I invite us to go with the psalmist
"beside still waters" this morning. Our cups overflow! Going
deep into God, deep into self, deep into soul, where God meets self, --
how deep lie the wells of our souls!
As I say the words of the psalm once again, after each phrase let us
say "It is well with my soul." "The LORD is my
shepherd, / I shall not want. / He makes me lie down in green pastures;
/ he leads me beside still waters; / he restores my soul. / He leads me
in right paths for his name’s sake. / Even though I walk through the
darkest valley, / I fear no evil; / for you are with me; / your rod and
your staff comfort me. / You prepare a table before me / in the presence
of my enemies; / you anoint my head with oil; / my cup overflows. /
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. How
deep lie the wells of our souls.
Matthew Fox cites Meister Eckhart: "Divinity is an Underground
river that no one can stop and no one can dam up." "There is
one underground river," Fox says of the one we call "God"
and many names, " but there are many wells into that river: an
African well, a Taoist well, a Buddhist well, a Jewish well, a Muslim
well, a goddess well, a Christian well, and aboriginal wells. Many wells
but one river." Fox continues, "To go down a well is to
practice a tradition, but we would make a grave mistake (an idolatrous
one) if we confused the well itself with the flowing waters of an
underground river. Many wells, one river. . . . It is necessary to travel
deeper, to let the superficial go, to go to the center, the cave, if
we are to connect to the underground river. This is what the mystics
mean when they instruct us to seek out our inner person [as well
as] our outer selves." Surely, a good shepherd knows the
sheep by their inner, their deeper selves and calls to us there. How
deep lie the wells of our souls.
"All shall be well," adds Julia of Norwich, "and all
manner of things shall be well." "We drink from our own
wells," writes Gustavo Gutierrez of the spiritual journey of a
people: "Spirituality is a community enterprise. It is the passage
of a people through the solitude and dangers of the desert, as it carves
out its own way in the following of Jesus Christ. The spiritual
experience is the well from which we must drink. From it we draw the
promise of resurrection." We drink from our own wells. We drink at
our own risk. How deep lie the wells of our souls.
And of our soul together. Tom Joad, coming off retreat, so to speak,
speaking with his mother at the end of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes
of Wrath, resurrects preacher Jim Casy, even as disciples do Jesus:
"’Lookie, Ma. I been all day an’ all night hidin’ alone.
Guess who I been thinkin’ about? Casy! He talked a lot. Used ta bother
me. But now I been thinkin’ what he said, an’ I can remember – all
of it. Says one time he went out in the wilderness to find his own soul,
an’ he foun’ he didn’ have no soul that was his’n. Says he foun’
he jus’ got a little piece of a great big soul. Says a wilderness ain’t
no good, ‘cause his little piece of a soul wasn’t no good ‘less it
was with the rest, an’ was whole. Funny how I remember. Didn’ think
I was even listenin’. But I know now a fella ain’t no good alone . .
. . Well, maybe like Casy says, a fella ain’t got a soul of his own,
but on’y a piece of a big one . . . ." How deep lies the well of
our soul together.
Congregational retreats are about are about the well of our soul
together. So are Springtime Eastertide stewardship campaigns! We are
like a "giving tree," planted by the Truckee: deep roots,
strong trunk, outreaching branches, bursting with buds into blooms of
new life! And good shepherds, as well as good stewards, are about the
well of our soul together. We never forget the shepherd who leaves the
ninety-nine to find the one lost sheep wherever it is. The witness whose
name is Peace Pilgrim writes, "Remember this: ‘Be still and know
that I am God.’ Don’t ever forget who you are! You cannot be where
God is not."
But most of the time the good shepherd’s challenge is to keep the
whole hundred together. A good shepherd knows the territory, the
setting, the context in which the texts of our lives are played out. A
good shepherd knows where lie dangers to our collective well-being, as
well as sources to our whole nurture and hope. It seems we read this
psalm most in times of death and dying. But it is a psalm about life and
living! The life that comes after death but before it! Listen how alert,
how attuned, how attentive, how active this shepherd is – Looking to
our every want! Making us to lie down! Leading us by still waters!
Restoring our souls! Leading us in right paths! Walking us through
darkest valleys! Comforting us with rod and with staff! Preparing a
table before us, in the very presence of our enemies! Anointing our
heads! Overflowing our cups! Following us with goodness and mercy!
Dwelling with us in the household of God! How, we would ask today, do
such shepherds care for themselves?!
Part of the answer, I think, is that good shepherds come from the
sheep. Good shepherds are as lambs as well and, as Revelation here puts
it, do not forget they have come from. Good shepherds have shared the
dangers, the persecutions and the ordeals. Good shepherds, according to
Jesus, lay down their lives for the sheep. They lay their own bodies
down for night’s rests in the gaps of the fence where the sheep are
herded, their own bodies serving as gate. Good shepherds act like owners
of flocks so invested as to do anything for their well-being, not like
hired hands, mercenaries, no matter how well they are paid, who have no
vested interest in the well-being, the wholeness, of land and of people.
We see this difference now playing out in our occupations everywhere.
Good shepherds are so well-known to the sheep, so steeped in sheep life
and the language to name it, that, when sheep of several flocks mingle
at water holes, each flock readily separates upon hearing the voice of
its own shepherd.
Again, it takes one to know one, we say. Let nothing human be alien
to us. Let us refuse to cut ourselves off from any lost sheep of our
flock. And let us stop scape-goating, or scape-sheeping, as it may be,
allowing the sacrifice of many, even of any, to satisfy needs and greeds
of the few to lord over others. Clarence Jordan says the kind of life
Jesus lived was so in tension with the world as we know it that either
the world had to die or Jesus did! In Jesus God is willing to be as
sin-bearer, scapegoat, lamb of the world. Are we? Jordan says the world
is so neurotic today because "the Church doesn’t want to bear the
sins of the world! We don’t want to be anybody’s dumping ground. We
don’t want to have them throwing their dirty dishwater on us . . . .
God needs in this world available people who will bear the sins of the
world."
Revelation seems to be saying, only good sheep make good shepherds,
shepherds who do not forget where they come from and whose they are.
Catholic Bishop Kenneth Untener of Sagninaw, MI, recently died, lived
out the motto of John 10: "That they may have life!" The good
shepherd is one "who comes to the sheepfold and leads them out of
it!" The good shepherd brings us to more open spaces, greener
pastures, stiller waters, wider horizons, deeper freedom than we ever
have known before. We will hunger no more. We will thirst no more. We
will not be struck or scorched any more. The Lamb at the center will be
our Shepherd. We will be guided to springs of the water of life, and
God, our shepherd, our sheep, will wipe away every last tear. Very last
tear! Amen.
Rev. John Auer
