Richmond Way in the Valley

A sermon preached by Rev. Jonathan Brown with Foundry UMC, April 26, 2026.

If there is one truth I want us to carry today, it is this: God’s presence in suffering is our courage, but it is never an excuse to accept suffering as normal. That is the tension these texts hold. Psalm 23 gives us one of the most beloved images in all of scripture: the Lord as shepherd. First Peter gives us Christ as the shepherd and guardian of our souls. Both texts offer comfort. Both texts speak to people who know pain. But neither text tells us to make peace with injustice. Neither text tells us to baptize suffering. Instead, these texts tell the truth. There are green pastures and still waters and restoration, yes. But there are also dark valleys, enemies, unjust suffering, and wounds. And in the middle of that truth, scripture makes a defiant claim: we are not alone.

Psalm 23 is so familiar that we can miss how honest it really is. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” can sound soft in our ears, but this is not a psalm written from a safe and easy life. It is the prayer of someone who knows danger, fear, and threat. It is the testimony of someone who knows what it means to walk through what the NRSV calls the darkest valley. And that matters, because Psalm 23 is not beautiful because it denies suffering. It is beautiful because it refuses to let suffering speak the final word. “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me.”

And it is worth pausing to say a brief word about the psalm itself. The superscription says, “A Psalm of David,” and for generations that has connected the psalm to David the shepherd-king. But most modern scholars are cautious about treating that as proof that David personally wrote it. Like many psalms, Psalm 23 is difficult to date with precision. It does not give us firm historical markers. So it is often understood as part of Israel’s worship tradition, preserved and prayed over time, shaped by a people who had learned to trust God through danger, worship, memory, and hope. That deepens the psalm for me. It means these words endured not because they belonged only to one famous person, but because generations of God’s people found them true.

Notice what the psalm does not say. It does not say, “I will never enter the valley.” It does not say, “If my faith is strong enough, I can avoid the valley.” It does not say, “The valley is secretly good.” It says, even there, even in the darkness, even in the fear, even in the threat: you are with me. That is the center of it. The courage of the psalm is not that life is easy. The courage of the psalm is not that the valley disappears. The courage of the psalm is the presence of God in the valley.

That distinction matters, because Christians have not always handled suffering well. Too often, people have taken texts about endurance and presence and turned them into permission slips for oppression. Too often, religion has told people to quietly bear what should have been confronted. Too often, the suffering have been told to be patient while the powerful remain comfortable. Too often, faith has been used not to heal wounds but to explain them away. But Psalm 23 does not glorify the valley. It does not bless the darkness. It does not say that enemies are acceptable because God can still set a table. It says that God remains God even there, and that the Shepherd does not abandon the flock even there.

And that shepherd image matters more than we sometimes realize. A shepherd is not just a sweet religious metaphor. A shepherd protects. A shepherd guides. A shepherd goes looking. A shepherd defends the vulnerable. A shepherd takes responsibility for lives that can be easily harmed. That is why the psalm says, “Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” Those are not decorative objects. The rod is for protection. The staff is for guidance and rescue. So the comfort here is not vague spirituality. The comfort is active care. The comfort is the nearness of a God who is not detached from danger and not indifferent to fear.

Then the psalm says something almost startling: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” Not after the enemies are gone. Not once the danger has passed. Not once everything is tidy and resolved. In the presence of my enemies. In other words, God does not wait for perfect conditions to sustain life. God nourishes in hostile places. God restores in wounded places. God anoints in threatened places. But let us be clear: that is not the same thing as saying hostile conditions are acceptable. God’s presence in suffering is not God’s approval of suffering.

And that is where First Peter needs careful handling. “If, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly…” Those words have too often been used badly. They have been used to tell people to remain in abuse, to stay silent under domination, to take the hit and call it holiness. But that is not good news, and that is not what this text should mean for the church. First Peter is speaking to vulnerable communities under pressure. It is trying to encourage people already suffering because the world is not arranged according to the justice of God. It is not praising the injustice. It is not calling suffering good. It is speaking to wounded people about how not to lose their souls in a wounded world.

And then it points to Jesus: “When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.” That is not weakness. That is not surrender to evil. It is Jesus refusing to become what the world is. He refuses to let violence dictate the shape of his spirit. He refuses to answer domination with domination. But hear this clearly: the suffering of Jesus is not God saying suffering is good. The cross is not heaven’s endorsement of violence. The cross reveals what human sin does when confronted with divine love. And the resurrection is God’s refusal to let that violence be final.

So when First Peter says Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, it does not mean Christians should seek pain. It does not mean people should stay in dangerous situations for the sake of appearing faithful. It means that when righteousness is costly, Christ has already gone ahead of us. It means that when suffering comes, we do not meet it alone. It means the Shepherd knows the valley from the inside.

That is where these two readings reach toward one another in a powerful way. Psalm 23 says, “The Lord is my shepherd.” First Peter says we have now returned “to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.” The Shepherd of Psalm 23 is not far away. The Shepherd of Psalm 23 is not abstract. In the light of Christ, the Shepherd has scars. The Shepherd has known abuse. The Shepherd has known grief. The Shepherd has known the machinery of injustice. So when we say God is with us in suffering, we do not mean that in some thin, sentimental way. We mean that in Jesus Christ, God has entered the full reality of human pain. God knows what it is to be wounded. God knows what it is to be abandoned. God knows what it is to be crushed by the powers of this world. God knows.

So yes, there is courage here. Real courage. Because some people in this room know what it is to walk through the valley. Some are carrying grief. Some are carrying fear. Some are exhausted. Some are dealing with illness. Some are trying to keep going under burdens no one else can quite see. Some are watching the pain of the world pile up and wondering how much more human hearts are supposed to bear. And the good news is not that none of it is real. The good news is that none of it is faced alone.

But now let me say the other half of what must be said. God’s presence in suffering must never be turned into permission to tolerate suffering. It must never become an excuse for passivity. It must never become a way of spiritualizing injustice. It must never become a reason to tell the suffering to stay quiet.

There is a scene in Ted Lasso where Ted Lasso, the coach of AFC Richmond, is being underestimated during a game of darts. He recalls a line he says he once saw painted on a wall while driving his son to school: “Be curious, not judgmental.” In the scene he attributes the line to Walt Whitman. Whether or not Whitman actually said it, the point lands. Ted realizes that the people who dismissed him never asked real questions. They assumed they already knew who he was, and so they judged him instead of trying to understand him. The church has too often done the same thing with suffering. We have judged where we should have listened. We have explained pain where we should have shown up. We have sometimes treated suffering like a spiritual test instead of a human crisis. But the Shepherd of Psalm 23 does not stand at a distance judging the sheep in the valley. The Shepherd enters the valley.

Because if God is with the suffering, then suffering should matter to us. Human suffering anywhere should trouble the conscience of the church. Poverty should trouble us. War should trouble us. Racism should trouble us. Displacement should trouble us. Abuse should trouble us. Systems that crush people while blessing the already secure should trouble us. The church cannot say, “Well, God is with them,” as a substitute for justice. Yes, God is with them. And that is exactly why suffering can never be treated as normal, holy, or acceptable.

And when Psalm 23 says, “I shall not want,” that is not a promise of luxury. It is trust that the Shepherd will sustain. Trust that what is necessary for life with God will not be withheld. Trust that the valley does not cancel the care of God. And when First Peter says, “By his wounds you have been healed,” that is not cheap denial either. It does not mean every hurt is instantly repaired. It means that Christ’s love breaks open the power of sin and violence. It means there is healing deeper than domination. It means restoration is possible even in a world that knows how to harm.

So what do we do with all of this? We take courage, and we tell the truth. We take courage because we are not alone, because the Shepherd is in the valley, because Christ is not a distant savior offering advice from safety, because goodness and mercy are still moving even when the road is hard. And we tell the truth that suffering is real, that injustice is real, and that pain should never be romanticized. It is never God’s plan for people to suffer. It is God’s will that people be comforted and protected in suffering. That is what the Shepherd does. The Shepherd leads, guards, restores, and stays near.

So let me leave you here. If you are in the valley, hear this: the Shepherd is with you now. If you are wounded, hear this: Christ knows woundedness from the inside. If you are weary, hear this: goodness and mercy are still on the move. And if these texts teach us anything about the Richmond way in the valley, it may be this: be curious, not judgmental. Be curious enough to listen to pain instead of explaining it away. Curious enough to see suffering instead of spiritualizing it. Curious enough to trust that it is never God’s plan for people to suffer, but always God’s will to meet people with comfort, protection, and mercy in the midst of it. Because the Shepherd does not abandon the valley. The Shepherd enters it, stays with us there, and leads us toward life.

Amen.