"My Cup Overflows"

Psalm 23:5 - You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. [NRSV] In the spring of 1983 I participated in my first wedding as a pastor. It was very awkward, because the mother of the bride was absolutely opposed to the marriage and she couldn’t manage a single smile about it. She was opposed because her daughter was still in college – she wanted her to wait until graduation. But the bride and groom were adults, they had found each other, and they chose each other as partners for life. Of course in this first wedding that I was involved with, I was very nervous about getting it right, so late into the night before the wedding I worked on the things I’d say the next morning. Around 3 AM it began to rain, not just raining, but pouring and pouring, and I realized that the hopes of the bride and groom for a sunny day were not going to happen. Sure enough, at 11:00 AM, when the wedding was scheduled, it was still pouring. But in the middle of the night I had found a theme for the day that would turn the rain from disaster to victory, It came from a song that was popular at the time, called “Waterfall” by Cris Williamson, that somehow came to mind at three o’clock in the morning. The refrain in the song was what I emphasized during the service: Filling up and spilling over It's an endless waterfall Filling up and spilling over … Over all Of course, everyone figured it out right away. The song was all about water, but it was really about love. Love in such abundance that it fills right to the brim, it dribbles over the side, it spills over the side, it pours over the side. If it was water, it would make a big mess, all that water spilling onto the floor, drenching into the carpet, soaking into the floorboards, but the song was really all about love, and everyone in the church that day felt the love of the bride and groom spilling into each other’s lives, spilling into the lives of everyone there, spilling into the whole world. Afterwards, Tom the groom came up to me and said, “How did you know it would rain?” He was amazed that I seemed to have planned for it to rain on their wedding day. He must have thought I planned it weeks ahead of time. He didn’t realize that I came up with the idea only a few hours before the wedding in the middle of the night during a heavy rainstorm. When I read the Bible I enjoy running across things I don’t remember seeing before. But I also enjoy finding unexpected gems in familiar verses. This is one of those times when we find a gem in the familiar verses of the 23rd Psalm. It would be hard to find a better-known reading from the Bible than the 23rd Psalm. 1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; 3 he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. 4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff - they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 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. So this time I notice right away that simple phrase “my cup overflows”. I’ve read it a million times without paying a lot of attention to it. But this time I do. It forms an immediate connection with the story of the poor woman and the empty oil jars. It captures a powerful image of God’s abundant love, but more than an image. It’s not at all like a still photograph, it’s like a video where you can see and hear and feel the cup overflowing, dribbles, splashes, and more. Just like the Cris Williamson song, it’s not about a cup and what is poured into it, like water, wine, milk, coffee, tea, or juice. It’s about what God eagerly pours into each person, and the love that spills out of you into the people around us. In fact this short little phrase captures the essence of Christian faith. First, it captures the intimacy of a God who knows you inside and out and is eager to offer you everything possible to love you, heal you, help you, encourage you, and save you. Second, it demonstrates God’s incredible vision and hope for the whole world. As you are filled to the brim and it splashes over the side into the whole world, God is touching more and more lives. Our faith is not a selfish faith in which what God gives can be hidden away or hoarded, our faith is not secret or private or hidden, but meant to spill into the lives of others. By its very nature it is meant to spill over the side into the lives of an incredible number of others, in prayer shawls, in backpacks, in coins for UNICEF, in goats and chickens for poor villages far away, in turbans for people in cancer treatment, in school supplies for Cameron Community Ministries in Rochester, in health kits for Haiti, in the next person you meet after this morning’s service in all of the ways that you receive all that God has to offer, in all of the ways that you let all that God has to offer spill into the lives of others. On that wedding day twenty seven years ago where everyone was enjoying all of the pouring rain that was going on at the church - there was the bride’s mother desperately trying to build a dam to contain the love that was beginning to overflow. I don’t think the bride’s mother felt it at all, but it’s hard to stop it, very hard when the love is not dribbling but sloshing over the brim. I don’t mean to be hard on that mother for worrying about her daughter, but I do ask you to think about her. What’s your attitude about God’s abundance?. Do you try to dam it up, hide it away, or bury it in your basement? Today, let the love of God flow!