Psalm 23

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

April 22, 2007

Text: Psalm 23

Psalm 23 may be the most well-known passage in the Bible.

In inviting people to join in reciting it at funerals, I have heard most voices join in. And when one person may stumble over a phrase, the one next to them recalls it and the whole congregation makes it through. In times of distress, if I could only remember one passage from the Bible, I would hope that this psalm would be the one. Why? Because it instructs me, it reminds me of what I want to believe, even when all of the outward evidence is to the contrary.

In the first three verses, we are talking to ourselves---have you ever noticed? I am telling myself what I tend to forget.

From time to time, I need to give myself a talking to! And instead of putting myself down or puffing myself up, when I can recite these words, I am lifting myself up----and placing myself on firm ground.

        The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
        He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.
        He leadeth me beside the still waters.
        He restoreth my soul.
        He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

I do not know about you, but I usually add a few parenthetical statements in between each line:

        The Lord is my shepherd--- (Help me live like it.)
        I shall not want--- (Even though I can think of many things I think I want!)
        He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, and leadeth me beside the still waters.
        (Keep me from filling up on junk.)
        He restoreth my soul------when I am quiet enough to listen for his voice.
        He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake-----even though I 
        am “prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love,” and resist being led by anyone except myself!

A PRACTICAL PSALM

Remember that the Psalms were the hymnbook of the people of Israel. The meaning of  “Israel” is “wrestlers (or strugglers OR CONTENDERS) with God.”

They were not known for placidly walking along with trust in God. They lose their way, they trust in other gods, they forget the rules, they fall into chaos-----and they are

judged, corrected,
 rescued, forgiven,
restored and reconciled. One can suspect that the Good Shepherd God had to use his “staff” often to bring these sheep into line again.

Their life, much like ours, was full of the same kinds of struggle and failures and breakthroughs we experience.

My relationship with God is quite often not placid. I have too many questions, too many failures and contradictions. And, I am very forgetful.

“This means that the last thing we ought to be doing is rushing to the 23rd Psalm to be reminded that everything is OK” all the time.

We are often scared and distrustful and lost--- and subject to the powers of evil. When we are scared, we usually run faster. (Rollo May: “Humans are strangest of all creatures, because they run fastest when they have lost their way.”)  (Craig Barnes, Christian Century, February 13-20, 2002)

So we can go to the Psalm 23 without pretending to be better than we are!

VALLEYS

There are all kinds of valleys and bumps in the road of life: Some are of short duration. Others can be big ditches. The “valleys of the shadow of death” we walk through may be long indeed.

It may be the threat of death, or an irreversible illness or a painful broken relationship.

It may be the loss of a job or the frustrations of being in a job which is torturous.

It may be a life-long struggle with depression.

It may be the long-term care of a loved one.

In the midst of our struggles, where can we turn? Are we alone?

NEEDY

“Confessing that we are frightened and lost is the first step.” (Barnes)

And then we remember and we pray, “Thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”  And this helps us walk through the valleys, because we are not alone. The Good Shepherd is with us.

Patricia Farris, United Methodist Pastor, quotes Richard Foster. Foster, as a little boy, experienced the trauma of moving with his family from their home is Nebraska to California. They ran out of money before they got there and spent the winter in a rather primitive cabin in the Rocky Mountains.

What was a very difficult time for his parents ended up being a treasured time for Richard. “Night after night,” he wrote, “I would fall asleep, watching this strange yellow blaze [from the big fireplace in the drafty cabin] that warmed us all. I was in my grateful center.”

Farris writes “God is our home. And the more we 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.” (Website:csec.org)

Rabbi Harold Kushner said, “People who have been hurt by life get stuck ‘in the valley of the shadow,’ and they don’t know how to find their way out. And that’s the role of God. The role of God is not to explain and not to justify but to comfort, to find people when they are living in darkness, take them by the hand, and show them how to find their way into the sunlight again.” (Online: Religion and Ethics, Psalm 23, November 26, 2004 Episode 813)

 I will look for patterns in my life and the life of the world, because I believe God is mightily and persistently and unceasingly at work for the salvation of the world, and our deliverance from evil in all its forms. In Christ, we believe that God’s work among us and in us will be like the work he has done in Christ. We look for that day when Love will be transparently present.

VIRGINIA TECH MURDERS

We have all been stunned, shaken and frightened by the events on the campus of Virginia Tech this past Monday. Such events call into question our belief in a Good Shepherd. Where was our Shepherding God in this?

There are those who will say that God, who is all-knowing and omnipotent, must be the cause for everything that happens; and that, though it looks senseless, God must have something in mind; that there are lessons about life to be learned in this. This is certainly the neat way of dealing with tragic events. Everybody looks for someone to blame, and God cannot defend himself from libel.

But I cannot hold to this.  Such a view of God goes against everything I believe about God as Jesus has taught me.

I believe that God remains the Good Shepherd.

I believe that God is always working in the lives of persons, drawing them into a saving relationship and seeking to guide them in right paths.  I believe God is in the healing and rescuing business. (Remember that Jesus cast out “demons,” to restore people to health and dared to touch people with physical illnesses as well.)

But persons can turn their backs, or seek to drown out God’s voice.

We are all subject to the forces of evil. We are realists about evil’s seductiveness.

We ask of those professing their faith and uniting with the church, “Do you accept the freedom and power gives you to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?” 

I believe that God actively offers to every person this freedom and power----but this gift has to be received. Some choose not to. Or some may be mentally unbalanced enough that they lose touch with reality. When someone’s compulsions are fed by violent fantasies, the result can be catastrophic.

I believe that we live in a world that is fallen and being redeemed. God has conquered sin and death through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But evil yet exists, and seems to get the upper hand so often. We are being led by the Shepherd in order to be in the service of God’s shalom-life---- that rich word which means peace, wholeness, happiness, contentment, and interconnectedness.

In our time, we are inundated with violent images every day in movies, TV, music, video games, forms of combat, etc.  Revenge is a common theme. We consume simulated violence so much that the most vulnerable and gullible begin to confuse it with real life. We live in a world where advertisers pay millions to commentators and entertainers who demean and vilify people and groups.

At the very least, we who follow Jesus Christ can talk up and demonstrate a different way of being human.

In the killings at Virginia Tech, I can only say, May God’s will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. And let it begin with me. It is not time to pontificate or lay blame. It is time to do much listening and praying.

FOR THE LIVING OF THESE DAYS
 
Meanwhile, you and I need God’s guidance, goodness and mercy for the living of our days---and especially for the valleys we walk through. We need God to pursue us (the meaning of “follow”) with these gifts, because we forget who we are. And God has and God does. For Jesus is our Good Shepherd. He knows our names and we listen for his voice.

“The psalmist’s trust is hard won---it is no romantic idyll where God and I walk untroubled through fields without thorns….[but is a trust which is] tested by the reality of death and the threatening [enemies] who make rods and staffs necessary….What we proclaim [in the Easter season] is life in the teeth of death. God is never closer to humanity than in the suffering of Jesus Christ.” (Frederick J. Gaiser, “Word and World,” Luther Seminary, St Paul Minnesota, 7/2/1987)

We are prone to use the words “Good luck.” We ought to say, “God be with you.” “You are not left to your own devices; you go with God….[Psalm 23] does not “depict God as a great but essentially disinterested watchmaker in the sky. God is the Shepherd who directs, cares, guides,” and comforts. “That is the force that moves the sun and the stars, and your life, too.” (Will Willimon, Sermon in Duke Chapel, 4.15.1999)

Adios.