Dinner with Your Enemies

Psalm 23: 5

 

Preached on May 12, 2019

 

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.  The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”  These words begin the most familiar psalm in all of our sacred scriptures.  The 23^rd psalm might well be the best known passage in the entire Bible.  In its verses, generation after generation has found comfort and hope.  The psalm assures us of God’s constant care.  The psalm instills confidence that God will provide for our every need.  With beautiful images of green pastures and still waters, the psalm assures us that God loves us.  In every situation, no matter how painful, God will sustain and provide for us.

 

I’ve read and prayed this psalm more times than I can count over the years. I imagine many of you’ve done the same. I’ve drawn inspiration from its words of assurance and hope.  But every time I read it, one verse stands out.  The verse is conspicuous because it doesn’t seem to fit the psalm’s message of a loving and generous God.  It stands out from all the beautiful images of quiet waters and lush green fields.  It stands out in a way that I can only call incongruous.  Here, in the midst of the message that God will protect us and provide for us, we find these words:  “thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”

 

A table prepared…for me!  So far, so good.  But, “in the presence of my enemies?”  What’s that about?  Rabbi Harold Kushner, the author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, asks this question in his book about the 23^rd psalm.  Writing about this verse, he asks, “How did this line find its way into the psalm? … There is something abrupt and unsettling about these words. [They] seem at first glance to reek of spite and taking pleasure in the [discomfort] of others.  The psalmist seems to be saying, Not only does God supply me with a lavish banquet; what makes it even more pleasurable is that all those people who don’t like me will see how God treats me and realize that I am God’s favorite”  (Kushner, The Lord is My Shepherd: Healing Wisdom of the Twenty-third Psalm, 2003, p. 125).

 

“Thou preparest a table before me, in the presence of mine enemies.”  What’s that about?  It makes me think about the attitude of a man who returns to his high school after many years for a reunion. His classmates didn’t think much of him when he was in school, but this man has had a very successful career.  As he anticipates the reunion, he thinks, “Wait till those guys see me now!  – the ones who used to make fun of me, and those girls who wouldn’t go out with me: wait till they see me now in my new BMW.  I’ll show them!  Wait till I tell them I’m the CEO.”

 

“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”  What is this verse – this vivid description of a banquet spread for us while our enemies look on – what is this verse doing in this psalm about trust and gratitude?  What are we to make of it?  It seems to be saying that good people are rewarded and bad people punished, and we get to decide who is good and who is bad. We decide who is good and who is bad, based on how we are treated.  It seems a long way from the lofty spiritual tone of the psalm, which is otherwise full of trust and gratitude.  It verges on vindictiveness.

 

So what are we to do with this verse?  In his book on the 23^rd psalm, Kushner offers another way to think about it.  He refers to an idea from the Jewish theologian Zalman Schachter:  the idea of a different kind of dinner party, a dinner party in our imagination.  This party takes place every year in Schacter’s imagination:  it’s a dinner party in his head.

 

He invites to this dinner party everyone with whom he’s had a run-in in the past year.  He invites everyone with whom he’s been on bad terms, everyone who was mean to his family, everyone who has hurt or disappointed him – he invites all of them to this imaginary feast.  Then, in his mind, he goes around the table and thanks each of these people for the lessons they have taught him.

 

For example, he would thank the person who didn’t help him in his time of need because she was too wrapped up in her own problems.  He would tell that self-absorbed person that she has taught him how much he can realistically expect of people.  Because she didn’t help him in his hour of need, he has come to expect that most people will be thinking about their own concerns more that his.  This might sound cynical, but it results in a nice surprise.  When someone actually does help him, it comes as a pleasant surprise.  His expectations are more realistic.  He would also thank this person for helping him grow in self-awareness.  Because of her, he has realized that sometimes he has failed to help when someone has turned to him.

 

In this psalm so full of God’s goodness, could this line about feasting in front of our enemies point to a way you and I might learn to see our enemies differently?  Could we learn to see them as something God might use to help us grow into the people God created us to be?

 

All of us know people who push our buttons.  All of us can think of people whose thoughtlessness or downright meanness is tough to deal with.  Even members of the clergy know people who push our buttons.  We see this in something that happened to a pastor who went to her church one Monday morning and found a dead mule in the churchyard.  She called the police.  Since there did not appear to be any foul play, they referred her to the health department.  They said there did not appear to be any threat to public health, and they told her to call the sanitation department.  The manager there said he could not pick up the mule without authorization from the mayor.

 

Now the pastor knew the mayor.  She and he and engaged in many disputes over the years.  The mayor had a bad temper and was generally hard to deal with.  Still, she decided she had to call and settle the issue of the mule once and for all.  When the mayor picked up the phone, he did just what she expected.  He immediately began to rant and rave at the pastor.  Finally, the mayor asked her, “Why did you call me anyway?  Isn’t it your job to bury the dead?”

 

Now the pastor’s patience was at an end.  She replied, “Yes, Mayor, it is my job to bury the dead.  But first I like to inform the next of kin!”

 

All of us know people who push our buttons.  But could this banquet in the presence of our enemies be an invitation to a different kind of dinner party?  Could we host a dinner party in our imaginations, where we learn to see our enemies differently?  Could we acknowledge that God can use many things – even our enemies – to help us grow into the people God created us to be?

 

Who would you invite to your table for that imaginary dinner party?  The boss who fired you, in spite of your years of faithful service?  Would you tell him that you now appreciate what he did, because it forced you to look in a new direction and find a job that suited you better?  Would you invite your sister in law: the woman who never fails to remind you of the stupid thing you did years ago?  Would you thank her for keeping you humble?

 

I can think of a few folks I’d invite if I were to host a dinner party like that.  For sure I’d invite a woman I’ll call Claudia, whom I knew when I lived in Germany years ago.  Claudia and I both worked at the language school where I taught English and she taught German.

 

Claudia was the kind of person who would tell you, very shortly after meeting you, that she was from one of Germany’s aristocratic families.  It didn’t seem to matter that aristocrats are few and far between in Germany after two world wars.  Claudia often made a fuss about her pedigree.  She was a formal sort of person.  She called me Frau Pawle, and seemed to expect the same formality from me.

 

Still, I wanted to be Claudia’s friend.  I wanted to know as many German people as possible, aristocrat or not, and Claudia qualified.  One day, when it was just the two of us in the staff room, I suggested that she and I call each other by our first names.  With perfect hindsight, I can see now that for some reason Claudia saw that as an invitation to tell me all the things she didn’t like about me.

 

She criticized my clothes.  My slacks were too short and my jacket wasn’t tailored properly.  She said I looked silly because I carried my things in a backpack, and in Germany no self-respecting person would wear a backpack unless they were on a hiking trip.  She found fault with a number of other things.  For a good fifteen minutes, she told me everything she didn’t like about me.  Then she headed for the door.  Just before leaving, she turned around and said, “OK. You can call me Claudia now and I will call you Elva.”

 

At this point I was in no mood to call her Claudia.  There were a lot of other things I wanted to call her, none of which I can say in a sermon.  For a long time I was hurting over what she said that day.  It seems to me that whoever said “sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” couldn’t be more wrong.  I was deeply hurt by her words.  But now, all these years later, when I think about that imaginary dinner party, Claudia’s name would be at the top of the list.

 

Here’s what I would say to her:  I would say, “Now, Claudia, I appreciate what you did.  Of course I don’t appreciate feeling two inches tall after your harangue.  But from that experience I learned a different way to react to being treated badly.

 

“I learned that I don’t have to assume that it’s my fault; that I must have done something to deserve that treatment.  I don’t have to ask myself, ‘What did I do to make this happen to me?’  And, I don’t have to ask myself, ‘What’s wrong with her that she would do something so awful to me?’  I learned there is another way to react: a way that doesn’t seek to blame myself or others.

 

Instead, I might simply ask, ‘What can I learn from this?  What can I learn from this that will help reduce the number of people I think of as enemies?  What can I learn that will lead me to grow into the person God created me to be?’”

 

The 23^rd psalm is a beautiful, beloved psalm of praise and gratitude.  In this psalm about God’s constant love and care, it may seem incongruous to say that God sets a lavish table for us, in the presence of our enemies.  Or maybe it’s not so incongruous after all.  Maybe it’s not intended to be vindictive.  Maybe God sets that splendid feast before us, as a way for us to encounter those people we might consider enemies.  Maybe God provides that feast so that, around that dinner table, you and I might realize that God can use them, to help us become the people God created us to be.

 

 

 

 

 

Rev. Elva Merry Pawle

May 12, 2019

Fourth Sunday of Easter