Homily, Green Pastures, Still Waters
Fourth Sunday in Lent, 2025
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church
Plant City, FL
The Rev. Derek M Larson, TSSF
Today’s Lectionary Readings:
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
One of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had in nature was not for from here on Lake Somerset in Lakeland. From the road it looks like nothing more than a large pond, but if you look closely, just on the other side there is a small canal and if you go through it in a kayak like my brother and I did, it opens up to a larger lake with three long islands all in a row. It looks like it was probably a phosphate mine at one point. But today if you go at just the right time of year, you’ll find a rookery with thousands and thousands of nesting wood storks and other water birds. When my brother and I stumbled on it years ago, we had no idea it was there, until suddenly the noise of little chicks and their parents was all around us and everywhere we looked were birds. Words cannot express what a surreal experience it was to be in the midst of them. Like we had stumbled in to something profoundly private and sacred. Something that demanded we treat it with reverence and respect. When we came home that day, I felt my soul had been revived.
Have you encountered a place or a moment like that? Perhaps a sunset on the beach, or a quite walk through Medard Park, or a rainstorm high up on a mountain? Is there a place in the beauty of nature where you returned home with you soul revived—where you knew you felt something sacred—the very presence and beauty of God?
Our Psalmist, this morning, describes a place like that.
We don’t know much about the Psalmist. Who they are or where and when exactly they lived. The Scripture assigns King David’s name to it, but whether it was written by him, or dedicated to him, or followed in his tradition, we don’t know. But it’s clear in the words of the author that they were going through something hard. They describe it as a death shadow. And they speak about people who trouble them. And so we can imagine that the author’s soul was somewhat weary from the stress and worries they were experiencing in life. Probably feeling weighed down and trapped by those things, unable to get out from under them. I wonder if that sounds familiar to anyone. Are you worried about anything? Do you have any shadows hovering over you?
And yet in the midst of it the Psalmist finds solace, and composes this beautiful poem. A song that describes God as a Shepherd. And as the author lays out the scene for us—green pastures, still waters, natural pathways—you can almost imagine that these images are coming from their own experience. That perhaps these very words were composed while standing in a field, gazing at the beauty of the natural world all around. I wonder what it was the author was looking at. I wonder if they felt a breeze in their hair. I wonder what bird songs there were. This Psalmist draws a picture for us of a time they found God as a shepherd—their shepherd—in the beauty of nature.
It’s a common theme in the Psalms, actually, nature. In fact, the very next Psalm speaks vividly about the earth, the seas, and the rivers of the deep all belonging to God. We tend to think churches and temples are the places we meet God, but the Psalmists continually testify that God also meets us in the natural world.
And so our Psalmist is led through green pastures and beside still waters by the Lord, who is the shepherd, and the author feels their soul revived.
It’s interesting that the second half of the Psalm, then, shifts in orientation. Suddenly, the Psalmist is at a table, and in a house. But something is different. The God they met in nature, is still there. They feel God’s presence. The author’s soul continues to be strengthened by the comfort that the shepherd brings—even when those who bring trouble are right there.
And even the way the author speaks is different. While in the beginning they speak about God as shepherd, now they speak directly to God as shepherd, “You spread a table before me.” “You anoint my head with oil.” The presence of God has come back with the author from natural world into the grind of everyday life, as their companion, and promises to remain with them all of their days.
Something about the experience of walking with God through green pastures beside still waters gave the author the strength to walk beside those worries and concerns back home in daily life.
We don’t know much about the Psalmist. Who they are or where and when exactly they lived, but their experience is one that resonates with us. We who also walk among those people and things that trouble us. That worry us. That weary us.
So, if that’s you, today, what can we learn from the Psalmist? What would the Psalmist say to us in our daily struggles? Perhaps they would ask a question: When was the last time you went for a walk in nature? When was the last time you looked up at the stars? When was the last time you paid attention to the natural world? These are the images the Psalmist draws on to express and experience the comfort of God; how present are these images in our own life?
When we make ourselves available to God’s creation, we come to experience the presence of the God of creation. Something in us awakens in the natural world, and leads us to the very dwelling place of God. And when we set aside time to spend in nature with God, to let our souls be revived in it, then it gives us the strength to go back to our daily lives.
God is always our shepherd. The one who walks with us and cares for us amongst life’s troubles, but sometimes to experience God as shepherd—to remind ourselves of God as shepherd, we have go to green pastures and still waters and rocky hills and ocean beaches and swampy wetlands and prickly scrubs and quiet forests.
The practical question of the last time you went on a nature walk, is actually a profoundly spiritual question. Because as powerfully as we meet God in this place, sometimes we also need to meet God in the wild beauty of all that God has made. Creation is, after all, the first word of God. “Let there be,” God said, “and there was.”
In Pathfinders, our Adult Sunday school class, this is the exact theme we’re exploring right now: how we encounter God in our relationship with the natural world. And in two weeks from today on May 25th, St. Peter’s is going on a nature walk and sharing communion together outside along the path just around the corner from here at McIntosh Preserve. My hope and prayer for these offerings is that like the Psalmist we may open ourselves to experiencing the presence of God in the natural world around us, and that in doing so we may know that God is right there with us as our shepherd. So today after church, go take a walk outside. Tonight before you go to bed, look up at the stars. Tomorrow before you start your day, listen to the songs of birds. And let God your shepherd revive your soul. Amen.
Questions for Personal Reflection
- Where in the natural world have you encountered the presence of God?
- How do you experience God as your shepherd?
- Where can you go in the next two weeks to experience the presence of God in nature?
- What role does the natural world have in your spiritual life?
- In what ways does your soul need revival?
Thoughts on Faith 