This week as I sat in my office and reflected on this well-known Psalm, the most
well known Psalm of all, I was struck by the beginning phrase: The Lord is my
Shepherd, I shall not want.
I shall not want? I just want you to imagine what it would be like not to want
for anything. To be honest, I couldn’t imagine it myself. Our entire existence
is center on wanting things and the process of acquiring things.
If you were to try and think of someone who has everything they want and doesn’t
want anything else, you might imagine a billionaire who will never have to work
again and never have to worry about not being able to buy what he or she needs.
But if you look at those people’s lives, they wouldn’t say that they don’t want
anything. What they want is different from what we want. But all their money
hasn’t eliminated the impulse to want something.
So when the author of this passage tells us that he wants for nothing because
the Lord is his shepherd, it’s clear that he’s speaking about something quite
different from what we might think.
The only way I can make sense of this claim is to think of times in my life when
I had this sense that everything was OK, that I didn’t have to worry about
anything because there was someone, something at work in the world that made my
efforts adequate, that compensated for my missteps, that accomplished something
much greater in the world than I was accomplishing.
I remember one of those times in my life was when we lived in upstate New York.
At the time Michelle was working at the newspaper in Syracuse and her friends
from the department where she worked invited us to go down with them to a ski
hill to do some tubing in the middle of the winter.
This ski resort was located, ironically enough, in the town where our former
pastor Keith became pastor after he left here. I didn’t know him, although I
think I may have met him later.
Anyway, I’ve gone inner tubing in the snow, and it’s a lot of fun. But this hill
was even better than any I had gone on because it had one of those hydraulic
ropes to pull you back up the hill. You didn’t have to walk back up the hill
with your tube.
We were having a blast, acting like kids. And I remember holding on to the rope
as it towed me back up to the top of the hill. It was a clear night. I looked up
at the moon and had this sense that somehow everything was going to be alright.
It was like, “God’s got your back. Just enjoy your life.”
It was the best feeling in the world. It wasn’t like I thought God was just
going to take care of everything for me. I don’t think that’s how it works. I
didn’t feel that I could just do whatever I wanted and somehow God would cover
for me. I don’t think that’s the case either.
It was just this sense of peace that I can trust God, that things are going to
be OK. I was at peace with myself and the world, which, if you know me, is not
always the case. When I read this Psalm, that sense of peace and connection with
God is the one that comes to mind.
Many people have tried to interpret this psalm in terms of its setting, when or
where it was written and by whom. But no one really knows for sure. It’s kind of
timeless.
But some of the evidence in the psalm itself may point to a time when the people
of Judah were in captivity, in exile, awaiting the day when they would be freed
and allowed to return to their homeland and rebuild.
They were captives in Babylon for 50 years during the 6th century BC. During
that time the captive Jews wrote about longing to go back to Judah rebuild. They
expressed hope that someone would come and free them from the Babylonians. In
the 530’s BC that’s exactly what happened.
When the Babylonians were defeated by another army, there was widespread
speculation among the Jewish people that this event was God’s way of helping
them get back to Judah and rebuild the temple. One passage in Isaiah even calls
that opposing king, King Cyrus, God’s Messiah
People talked about getting back and rebuilding the temple so that God could be
present with them again. The end of the psalm says that the author will live in
the house of the Lord forever. Future tense. Meaning, he didn’t live there now.
So he was probably still in Babylon when he wrote this.
In addition, no one actually lived at the temple, which was referred to as the
house of the Lord. So he was not literally going to be living in the temple for
the rest of his life. We’re not talking about the temple. I think this phrase
“house of the Lord” is a reference to the land of Judah itself, which is where
God was thought to have lived.
So the author is not in Judah, but he’s going to go there. And God is going to
lead him there like a shepherd leads sheep. The journey from captivity took them
through some pretty treacherous territory. It would be hard to find enough food
and water on the way.
But the Psalm expresses hope that God would lead them to whatever they needed.
Like a shepherd, God would guide them in the right direction. God would help
them find sources of water. God would show them places where they could find
enough food for the journey.
In one of the most quoted verses, the psalmist talks about going through a very
dark valley. That phrase has been translated “valley of the shadow of death” in
some translations, and that phrase has really taken hold in our consciousness.
People who were near death or had loved ones near death have often recited or
reflected on that phrase because of its promise that God will be present in the
worst times of life.
The Hebrew phrase should be translated “the valley of deepest darkness”. It’s a
reference to the way a shepherd led a flock of sheep through a valley so deep
that the sun didn’t shine down into it.
A shepherd needed to use tools or instruments to keep the sheep going in the
right direction. The sheep had no idea where they were going. They had no
concept of the danger that may be lurking around the corner as a predator
awaited them.
Last October Emma and I went to a couple of haunted houses for Halloween. One of
them was held at this former convent home on the campus of Catholic Memorial
High School here in town.
Emma was ten, so of course she was into all this scary stuff. They had guides
take us from one room to another, but the lights were always off. The guides had
a flashlight, but they often turned the flashlight off so that someone could
sneak up on us and scare the liver out of us.
We went upstairs and downstairs, from room to room, but we couldn’t see
anything. They only way we could know where to go was to follow that guide and
hang on to one another.
The thing was, I knew it was just for entertainment. I knew that guide was going
to take us exactly where we needed to go. I didn’t wonder that she might lead us
into a room where there was actual danger. There had better not be. I brought my
daughter to this place.
I trusted the guide to take us wherever we were supposed to go. I trusted them
to run the house in a safe manner and allow us to leave without personal injury.
Fortunately the wounds we left with were only psychological. Emma screamed so
loud that my ears were ringing.
That’s the same sense I get here when I read that the author has complete
comfort in God’s leading. There is nothing to fear. Potential threats are no
threats. There is no danger. Just follow the shepherd.
That next verse about God preparing a table in the presence of one’s enemies and
filling the cup and anointing one’s head – they mark a shift in the image the
author has of God.
God is no longer a shepherd, but is now a gracious host in these verses. That
host prepares a meal for his guests even though their enemies surround them. My
guess is that this idea of God spreading a table is a reference to God taking
care of the Israelites after they left Egypt and moved through the desert on the
way to the Promised Land.
Psalm 78 talks about how the people of Israel complained about the way God took
care of them on the way to the Promised Land. They are described as rebellious
and faithless, always questioning God’s ability to provide for them regardless
of how many times God saves their necks in the desert.
Psalm 78:19 says that they complained about God, saying “Can God spread a table
in the wilderness?” Notice how the author’s point of view is the complete
opposite in Psalm 23. The author has no doubt that God will spread a table in
the desert on the way to Judah.
It doesn’t matter if they encounter hostile tribes along the way. God will take
care of them like a host who has invited them for dinner. A good host will pour
oil on the head of a guest to moisturize the guest’s scalp after a day in the
hot Middle Eastern sun.
I know, that sounds kind of unpleasant. None of us want to have oil poured on
our heads. But it was a way of honoring people in that culture. The author also
describes God as filling his cup, probably a cup of wine, to overflowing.
You can’t imagine a more gracious host than the one the author is describing
here. That’s how he thinks of his relationship with God. God takes better care
of him than anyone else ever could.
The psalm ends with the author arriving in Judah again like royalty or like a
dignitary. When a person of importance traveled, he or she was usually
accompanied by attendants of some type. Those attendants would walk behind the
dignitary and aid or advise the dignitary.
In this scenario, the attendants are not people, but ideas which extend from
God’s own being. Goodness and mercy, which are God’s own traits, will follow the
author as he enters Judah and begins the process of rebuilding and repossessing
the land God had given to his people.
This is an incredible piece of literature, and its imagery has inspired people
for at least 2500 years. I’ve spoken these words at a graveside as a tearful
family prepares for the painful moment when their lived one is lowered into the
ground.
I’ve prayed this psalm as a prayer by the bedside of someone who was deathly
ill. It has the power to help people reconnect with God at a time when it seems
God is absent or uninterested.
But what I want to focus on in the time I have left is this idea that God serves
as a host and a guide to people who have lost their way in life. The New
Testament describes Jesus and his kingdom in a similar way using shepherd
imagery: God is in the business of leading lost people back where they belong.
The ways in which God does this are varied. Sometimes God uses people to get us
back on the right road. Sometimes events occur which have the power to move us
or change us in a way that no person or words ever could.
The church has always seen itself as an instrument of God to lead lost people
back into “the fold” as it were. Sometimes God has worked through the church;
sometimes God has worked in spite of the church.
But we can never lose the image of God as a guide, a protector, a companion, and
a host whose only purpose is to lead us to a place where we belong. A place
where we are centered with the world, a place where we are actually at peace
with ourselves.
God is that place. And the more we know that, really know that, and believe it
in our heart of hearts, the more we will shift from anxiety to assurance, from
fear to fullness, from getting to gratitude.
Richard Foster, a Quaker, tells a story about a time of temporary homelessness
in his childhood during which he learned how to find home in God, giving thanks
for it. He calls it "his grateful center."
When he was seven, his parents wanted to move from their home in Nebraska to the
West Coast. But they ran out of money before they reached their destination and
spent the winter in a cabin in the Rocky Mountains. What was surely a very
difficult time for his parents was heaven to this little boy.
For, unlike the coal furnace of their old house, the cabin had a big fireplace.
And every night, Richard slept near it on a sofa bed under a big, heavy quilt.
He wrote: "Night after night I would fall asleep, watching this strange yellow
blaze that warmed us all. I was in my grateful center."
As you grow older, that grateful center becomes a little more difficult to
identify. We lose track of it. It gets overshadowed by our jobs and our health
and our family concerns. Pretty soon we’re so off center that we forget what it
was like to be able to say, “I shall not want”.
It‘s also easy to start following some other shepherd. There are lots of them
out there. But the thing about having God’s Spirit live inside of you is that
somehow, despite how confusing things get, you always have this sense when
something’s not right.
You eventually realize that the rod and staff you trust aren’t really being held
by the right shepherd. Sometimes we become our own shepherd. Sometimes our
personal dreams and desires can sound mysteriously like that good shepherd, even
to the point where they drown out the shepherd’s voice.
This psalm reminds us that God is always there, waiting for us to allow God to
be the shepherd again, waiting for the opportunity to lead us beside still
waters and green pastures on the way to a place where we belong.
I want to conclude with a story by a pastor named Rev. Rosemary Brown. She tells
of a time when she and her family went camping in Colorado, and we were driving
over Trail Ridge Road one day. She says, “We were seeing rainbows dance from
ridge to ridge in those majestic Rocky Mountains.
“We were watching snowflakes fall as the sun turned them into crystals of great
beauty, when all of a sudden we came upon this lush, green, flat pasture and
there in the field was a flock of sheep.
I hit the brakes, threw everybody in the car out of their seats. I grabbed my
camera and ran across the road and began acting like a tourist as I snapped
pictures of those white sheep against that awesome green grass.
Then I looked out in the field and saw at a distance the shepherd. Now, mind
you, he didn't look like a Christmas card. He was sitting on the back of a
covered wagon wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat and he was strumming a
guitar.
As I was observing this pastoral scene, suddenly out of my peripheral vision I
realized that a little lamb was nibbling its way toward a deep ravine in the
earth. I began to holler at the shepherd, "Pay attention! Look here! Look!" when
all of a sudden, out of nowhere, came a dog.
He circled that flock and went straight for the little fellow in danger. He
nipped at his heels. He barked in his face, and he just forced him right back to
safety.” If you’re feeling lost, off center, out of place, or disoriented this
morning, know that the God who is the root of our very existence also wants to
lead you to a place of belonging.
That God can make you feel like an honored guest even when it feels like
everyone is against you. Our God fills our cups until they overflow. Our God
guides us even in the deepest darkness of life.
And the best part is that we don’t ever have to worry about our God abandoning
us. We will be in God’s presence for the rest of our lives, and then some.