Scripture: Psalm 23 (King James Version)
Of the 150 psalms that make up The Book of Psalms in the Hebrew Scriptures, the 23rd Psalm is one of the most familiar and well-loved.
Our familiarity with it can sometimes keep us from listening to it closely and carefully. For one thing, in our lives do we really know much about shepherds, and what it means to be a sheep in a shepherd’s flock? Would this image of shepherd and sheep have said more to the people of ancient Israel than it does to us, about what it means to be in saving and good relationship with God?
The name used for God in this psalm – “the LORD,” is the English version of what is rendered in Hebrew as “YHWH,” (pronounced Yahweh). This is the name and aspect of God revealed to Moses just before, and then all the way through the exodus from Egypt and the journey through the wilderness towards a promised land. In other words, Psalm 23 is a journey psalm.
In Hebrew this name of God is virtually unpronounceable, because it is spelled with only the four consonants and no vowels. The grammatical structure of the is also odd and hard to translate. It means roughly “I am that I am” or “I am what I will be” or “I am the Great I Am” or something like that.
Because we’ll be exploring Psalm 23 in
five stages beginning today, we’ll read the psalm in a different translation
each week. You may be happy to know
we’ll read it this week in the version many people first learned it – the King
James Version.
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.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;
thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Reflection
We experience Psalm 23 as a psalm for the dying
As Japhia came near to dying, one thing she wanted was that the last reading of Scripture she would hear in this life would be the 23rd Psalm – the one that begins with “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want” and ends with “and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”
There is such deep comfort in those affirmations, isn’t there? To know that at the end – no matter what we no longer have in the way of possessions, pleasures, property, people around us, personal dignity, or even another day of life on Earth – no matter what we have lost, or has been taken from us – no matter what fear or anxiety we may feel about the unknown we are entering, we do not want for the one thing that is important above all else, which is the faithful presence, the good purpose, and a place always in God’s love for us.
Not surprising that we often hear this psalm read at funerals, along with passages like Isaiah 43:
But now (which basically means “in spite of how things seem, remember this…”)
… this is what the LORD says –
He who created you, and formed you,
‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you.
I have called you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep you away.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be lost;
the flames will not burn away the “you” that you are.
For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One
who has created you and who calls you.
You are precious in my sight… and I love you.’”
Dying is a journey into a great unknown and Psalm 23, like Isaiah 43, is a song for the journey. It’s a statement of faith and trust. A word of promise and hope. A reminder that helps you not be undone by fear and anxiety. A song to sing against sorrow and grief.
Psalm 23 is also – perhaps even more, a psalm for the living
Which makes it, really, not just a psalm for the time of our dying, but also a psalm for all the days and nights of our living. Because fear and anxiety, sorrow and loss are matters of life as well as of death. Every day is a journey into the unknown. Which makes Psalm 23 a psalm not just for the leaving of our life on Earth, but also for the living of all our days on Earth – a psalm not only for our journey to eternal peace promised us beyond this life, but also for our day-by-day journey in the good meaning and purpose we are given to live in this life.
Even the name used for God in the psalm leads us in this direction. The psalm says “The LORD is my shepherd…” That particular name of God is the English version of what is rendered in Hebrew as “YHWH,” and this is the name and aspect of God revealed to Moses just before and then all the way through the exodus from Egypt and the journey through the wilderness towards a promised land. A very this-worldly journey, and the archetype image of faithful life in the Hebrew Scriptures.
That journey was a time and a way in which the people of God were set free from what enslaved them, and from what they were enslaved to. They were called to leave things behind – both the bad and the good, and take only what was needed and what they could carry. They were to leave behind the ways of the Egyptians, and also of other people they knew. They were called to learn a new way of life, a new way of being together as a people and a community, and a new way of being of service to others around them, and a blessing to all life on Earth.
It was not an easy journey to make. It was as hard, as long, as wandering and up-and-down, as sorrowful and as scary as life itself.
And what makes the journey possible and thinkable is the fundamental promise that the LORD will not leave them nor forsake them. That the LORD will be with them all the way through. That the LORD will mark out the journey ahead of them, and suffer it alongside them. That the LORD will turn all they experience – both easy and hard, wanted and unwanted, towards their good and their spiritual transformation. That the LORD will be faithful to them and to their good end, no matter what.
Ever since Japhia passed, Psalm 23 has become part of my morning prayer – in part to remember and celebrate her being with God beyond this life, and even more to remember and to rest in God’s being with me in this life. And as I repeat the psalm out loud to myself – quietly, slowly, meditatively, I become aware of a number of things.
It gives me hope and courage in the face of anxiety and fear. It reminds me that no matter what loss is suffered, what danger is faced, what weakness or loneliness is felt, what welcome or unwelcome surprise waits around the next corner, the God of the journey is with me – showing a way, walking with me, caring about me, caring for me, even carrying me along when needed. It helps me remember what we say in our New Creed: “We are not alone; we live in God’s world… In life, [as] in death, [and as] in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God.”
The psalm also helps me deal with regret and remorse. It helps me not be paralyzed nor unduly beaten up and beaten down by guilt and shame. Because the journey of life – whether it’s mine or someone else’s, whether it’s ours or that of the people of Israel on the way to the Promised Land, is never a straight-line easy expressway to where you need to be. Rather, it’s a long, drawn-out, seemingly endless wandering through all kinds of challenges and trials, all kinds of mis-steps and mistakes, detours and stumbles, all kinds of incidents and encounters that, first, reveal how broken we are inside, and how evil we can be in our behaviour – and, then and only then, give us a chance to be redeemed and set free (at least until the next time!) from what we are and what we carry within us.
The wonderful affirmation that “the LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want” repeated every morning, helps me know that no matter what I did or didn’t do the day or the night or the week before, or all my life to that point, this day and all days the LORD is my shepherd. Still and always caring for me, and about me. Still and always watching over me and watching for me, as needed. And whenever I wander off too far, still and always going out to find me and carry me back.
As long as the LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want for a new chance every day to be one of the flock living with others towards God’s good will for all the world.
Psalm 23:1 is an invitation to let the LORD be my shepherd
As long as the LORD is my shepherd … which means, of course, that every day I am invited and challenged to let the LORD be my shepherd. To let myself be a sheep, following the LORD’s leading. To let myself be one of the flock the LORD gathers to lead through the world both for our own, and for all the world’s well-being.
And that’s not always easy.
Pride can get in the way. As can shame. The desire to be in control of our own life with five-year and ten-year plans, retirement desires, and that ever-present attachment to stuff as the meaning of life.
The name of this LORD, after all, is both hard to pronounce (YHWH ??) and is without a clearly defined and controllable meaning (“I am that I am” or “I am what I will be” or “I am the Great I Am” or something like that ??). It takes a certain humility and a measure of radical openness to commit to to follow a God that you can neither completely articulate nor explain to other people, let alone your own want-to-be-in-control mind.
And speaking of not being in control, there’s also the matter of being part of the flock the LORD gathers and leads through the world. Wonderful that the LORD calls me to be part of the flock … and I kind of like most of the other sheep … but that one? And that one over there? And that whole bunch of odd, troublesome sheep just over there?
Not easy all the time to accept the LORD’s shepherd-ship of my life. As hard for its own reasons, I guess, as it was for the people of Israel to let the LORD lead them out of Egypt, through the water and the wilderness, stage by stage towards the promised land.
“The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want” is both a comforting statement of faith, and a challenging invitation to a particular way of living.
I wonder: what comfort do you find, in knowing the LORD as your shepherd?
And what challenge do you face in letting the LORD be your shepherd?
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