January 11, 2026 · Rev. Derek van Gulden · Psalm 23; Matthew 11:28-30
When the news is relentless and the stress feels overwhelming, Rev. Derek van Gulden turns to Psalm 23 and Jesus' easy yoke: God provides, but we still have to take part. Turn off the news for a while, learn to really listen, and try a breath prayer: breathe in peace, breathe out whatever's in your way.
Transcript
People of God. Would you join me in a moment of prayer? Gracious and holy God, this day I ask you to move the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts by your love, and help each of us not to be the instrument of our own or anyone else's oppression, but to be an instrument of peace in every breath and every step, in every moment of every day. Amen.
The reason I picked those two pieces of scripture for today last night, was I'm not I don't know about you, but. We came through the pandemic learning a lot of new things. We also learned that life can be stressful, which it always has been, and it can be joyous. Since the pandemic, as we move back into some regularity or the new Regularity. Things have also been tough all over the place and many members of this community. Call me and talk to me and the other pastors in town about the unbelievable stress and fear and unease they have these days. With the amount of violence going on in the world and in our own country. I was talking to one of my brothers who is black, and he said, I know this is new to you people, but in my world, we've been dealing with it forever, but we're at a time and I can only speak for myself. As I always say, when it just seems overwhelming. The news is constant, and quite often I invite people to take a respite from the news to turn the TV off. Turn off your radio. Turn off your computer, your cell phone. Put it down. Even if you do it for one hour or a half a day, you won't be bombarded by all this negative energy. I'm not saying to ignore what's going on because that's the opposite. Let your mind rest so that you can come back and see how to do these things in Scripture.
Psalm twenty three is probably one of the most the best known pieces of Scripture. And I love it because when things get hard, when I find myself feeling anxious or lost, I read that. I have it in different versions. I keep it with me, and it reminds me at different times that what the psalmist is saying is that God provides. But we have to be active with it.
I heard someone say the other day, they asked me to come visit him and I was sitting with him and they said, I don't. What is the answer? I don't know, and I'm just sitting there kind of formulating. And she said, don't tell me to lean on God. I get that. What are you going to do? So I said, well, let's figure that out. I ran into them yesterday and they said, I went two days without looking at the internet. Two days without having whatever news thing, twenty four hours a day on. And she said, thank you. What can I do for you? And we talked. And I asked her like she asked me, what can you do to help me? And you know what she did? She put her hand on my head and she prayed for me. Amazing.
It's hard to find hope when things seem hopeless. But we have each other. We have communities. We have a world where people are feeling the same way we are. People are calling out for help and there's so many things we can do.
The second piece from Matthew. People say, well, Jesus is going to pick everything up and take it for me. That's not what it says. It says, Jesus says, take my yoke. It is light. But he doesn't say he's going to do everything for us. He's giving us a place and a way to find some respite, to let go of some things that are wearing us down. And saying he will be there with us. But we still have to take part. We still have to do things and it gets hard.
I'm lucky that I have two different clergy groups that I hang out with. One that I've been with for fourteen years. It's a UCC clergy group and another one with a cape in the Associated Clergy of Cape Ann. I always have to remember that. So it's a number of pastors from Cape Ann, more progressive Christianity. And we do a lot of things together. A lot of things. And sometimes we just need to sit together and share what we're feeling. And I think we need to learn to do that with each other. It's a great place to start.
As I say often, and if you come to coffeehouses, you have to endure five minutes of me doing this every time. Peace. Is action. It won't come about by just praying for it. Praying is action. That's great. We have to do. We have to take steps.
Last night at the coffee house. I think it's the first time I've actually said one thing you can do is learn to listen. And learning to listen means you listen to what the person is saying, and you're not trying to figure out what to respond to them, why you're supposed to be listening. Listen, they can be like Christ for you, and you can be like that for them by listening, and you're going to listen to each other until you come to a point where you go, aha! That aha moment where you both come to the same place. And it might not be on everything, but you find that same place, and then you go off and you meet other people and you talk to them and you listen to them, and you come to a place of awe with them. That's how that part of Matthew was explained to me By a very brilliant, theological minded person. That wasn't a pastor, didn't have a doctorate or a master's degree. Just heard and listened. Truly listened.
So I want to give you one thing that you can take away. And this is because I've spent my life, as somebody says to me, often as a purveyor of breath. That's what I did professionally. I didn't walk around with, well, I did walk around with an oxygen tank. So I invite you to close your eyes, and I invite you to do something that you do constantly. And most of the time you don't think about it. And that's to breathe. But I want you to breathe in a circular motion. So when we inhale, we're going to inhale through our nose nice and deep, all the way down to the bottom of our belly. And then we're going to blow it out hard. And the next one, you breathe in through your nose. And this time all the way down to the tips of your toes and your fingers. Sit with it for a second, then blow it out hard.
And I invite you now to continue breathing in that circular way as you breathe in. Breathe in peace. And breathe out. Stress or breathe out anger or breathe out tension. Whatever you wish. Breathe in peace again. And blow out the other stuff that's getting in your way. This is called the Breath prayer. You can insert whatever word you wish, but concentrate on your breathing before you start. It is, after all, the key to life in biological ways.
May we all be blessed. With the energy to take a moment when we need to. To breathe in peace. To blow out anything else that's in your way. To invite others to join you. And then maybe for me, I find hope. I find hope in that breath of life. I find hope in listening to Scripture, but I find hope in listening to other stories and sharing mine with them. The more we do that, the more we listen. The more peace becomes prevalent, the more we hold each other up because it is up to us, everyone. Amen.