Today, we look at a Day 3 text from this year’s summer curriculum, “From Generation to Generation.”
Prayer: Shepherding God, when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we admit that sometimes we do have some fears. Comfort us with the promise of your presence as you lead your people to green pastures and still waters, through Christ our Lord. Amen. Reading: Psalm 23 (Click to read text) Stop and GROW: After reading the text, discuss/ponder the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Book of Faith questions, which are part of Camp Mount Luther's GROW Time with campers. QUESTION 1: What scares, confuses, challenges, or doesn’t make sense to me in this text? QUESTION 2: What delights me in this text or is my favorite part of the story? QUESTION 3: What stories or memories does this text stir in me? QUESTION 4: What is God up to in this text? Reflection: This week marks the one-year anniversary of our pandemic lifestyle. It was this week last year that we were really made aware of the urgency of responding to COVID-19 and were called upon to make some drastic changes to our lives in order to “flatten the curve” and look out for one another. This week makes it official that our two-week quarantine has lasted a full FIFTY-two weeks. But you don’t need me to tell you that. The past year has brought with it tremendous change that we would have never imagined. From wiping down packages to mask wearing, from grocery pick-up orders to contactless delivery, it seems like we’ve embraced a whole sweeping series of cultural shifts. They’ve gone hand in hand with a year that all of the polite emails and business ads in our inboxes have affectionately addressed as these “unsettling” or “unprecedented” or “uncertain” or “challenging” times. But you don’t need me to tell you that. This past year has been a veritable slugfest of muscling our way through “new normals” that are only begrudgingly adopted by some around us while diligently maintained by others. It has harbored the resting places of over 530,000 people in the US and 2.65 million people globally from this pandemic, bringing heartbreak and isolation to so many of our families and loved ones. It has peeled back the veneer of our everyday life to disclose disparities and bring them to the surface of our awareness. But you don’t need me to tell you that. This past year has felt like nothing short of a prolonged journey through the psalmist’s valley of the shadow of death. But you probably don’t need me to tell you that either. It’s impressive to me, then, that when the psalmist puts their trust in the Lord who is their shepherd, they fear no evil. After the year we’ve had, throughout this valley that, it turns out, went deeper and darker than I think a lot of us first imagined, it seems reasonable to have at least a little bit of fear. In a year where we’ve turned to this psalm more time than we might have preferred, maybe we need the reminder once again: here, even in the deepest darkest valley, we are not alone. Even when and where it seems least likely, the Lord who is our shepherd improbably meets us to bring us through whatever tumult and fear might lie ahead. And this week we might just need the psalmist to tell us that. -- Justin Lingenfelter
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