April 13, 2008
by Pastor Laura Gentry
Psalm 23
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long. (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from God our Creator and from our Savior Jesus Christ.
In a Peanuts cartoon, Lucy stands with her arms folded and a resolute expression on her face, while Charlie Brown pleads with her. "Lucy," he says, "you must be more loving. The world needs love. Make this world a better place, Lucy, by loving someone else." At that Lucy whirls around angrily and Charlie goes flipping over backwards. "Look, you blockhead," Lucy screams. "The world I love. It's people I can't stand!"
We laugh at Lucy’s antics but her attitude here is all too prevalent. It’s funny because it is true. People trying to get along with people is a dicey business. We can get pretty jaded and exhausted trying to deal with the conditional love and the lack of love we see in the world.
And so when we stop to consider the love of God, it seems too good to be true. We are not used to such lavish love, especially when it is undeserved. The 23rd Psalm from our lectionary today is a famous song of God’s love and care for us.
It uses the metaphor of sheep and a shepherd. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” it declares. We are so accustomed to this language because of the popularity of the psalm but have you ever stopped to think about the implications of our sheepness in this metaphor? Sheep. Why would we be sheep? Why not something more exotic like an eagle, perhaps.
You may have heard that sheep are kind of stupid. That doesn’t make us feel too good about ourselves, then, does it? But you see, sheep in Biblical times were highly valued. They were central in the economy and so it isn’t actually an insult to be called a sheep. For us to be sheep and have God as a shepherd means that we are enormously valued.
The shepherd in this Psalm goes to great lengths to care for the sheep. There are many tender images here about the way our shepherd leads and cares for us. And the verbs in this passage are all talking about the shepherd. It is the Lord who does all the active things: leads, restores, comforts, anoints, and so forth. The sheep passively receive all this, simply enjoying the marvelous gifts provided by the shepherd.
In this Psalm, it is interesting to note, it says that the shepherd prepares the table. In Biblical times, this preparation meant preparing the fields for the sheep. The shepherd would have many things to do in order to make a field graze-ready for the sheep. There would be poisonous weeds and thorns to remove, along with snakes and scorpion’s nests. In the evening, the shepherd would corral the sheep and tend to the injured ones, treating them with oil and a curative drink sweetened with honey. The 23rd speaks of these things, explaining that this is what the Lord does for each one of us.
Another important thing to note about sheep is that they are communal animals. They don’t thrive alone. They need to be with others and they need a shepherd to guide and protect them. So, we need one another. As members of the church, we have the delightful assurance that we are not alone. We struggle to have faith and live God’s will, not as individuals but as a community. As a flock, we share a common life and this is, indeed, good news.
Then, in our gospel reading today, Jesus calls himself the good shepherd. He says that he calls the sheep and that they know his voice. I once saw a wildlife special in which a baby hippo had been orphaned and was being cared for by human caretakers. The little hippo looked pretty placid in the pen until his human “mother” came out to feed him. She called his name and little ears began to quiver with joy and he ran toward her with great vigor. It just sticks in my mind as a metaphor as to how we should respond when Jesus calls. So now you’ve been compared to not only a sheep today, but a hippo as well!
Jesus, as our good shepherd, calls us gently into a relationship. He never forces himself into our lives though that is where he most wants to be. No, he gently woos us into a loving relationship because of all the love he gives to us first. When the Lucys of the world scream “it’s people I can’t stand!” Jesus says, “it’s people I can’t stand to be without!” and he pours himself out for us.
Jesus, who is both the shepherd and the gate declares that he came for us, that we might be life more abundantly. As the gate, he has opened the way for us. He seeks us so urgently, that we—along with the rest of the flock—might be God’s own.
Yet it is hard to feel this loved. We feel beaten down by life’s hard blows, unworthy and unable to accept this love as it is lavished upon us by God. But that is the whole point. The theologian Walter Brueggemann once wrote: “The true joy and purpose of life are to love God and be loved by God, no longer alone, but in communion." True joy, my friends, true joy! Don’t you want it? Don’t you want to lay claim to it?
Can we admit that we are helpless sheep in need of a trustworthy shepherd? We accept the unfathomable love of God who loves us just as we are? What would living in that love fully mean for our daily living? How would accepting ourselves as God accepts us translate into the way we treat others? Let us prayerfully invite our good shepherd to love us that we may know and share this love.
In closing, I would like to share a brand new recording with you. Augsburg Fortress Publishers just produced this recording of modern renditions of Psalms by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan. The web site for this album is: The Psalm Project: Sharing the Road. In this version of the 23rd Psalm it calls the Lord “my love,” suggesting a deep, loving relationship with God. The pronoun is feminine, which might seem jarring at first, but it is intended to help us think of God’s presence in a mothering, nurturing way. Let us listen to it and pray along, inviting God’s love to overwhelm us today.
My Love is my shepherd; I need nothing more For she leads me into lush pastures of green And beside the still waters My life is renewed today Guiding me in the best paths of her way, Though I walk through the valley of darkness and fear, My Love is with me.
VERSE 2
Anointed and bless’d with abundance, I thrive With a table prepared in spite of my enemies And all my secret fears My soul lacks for nothing now Goodness and mercy are following me Every day of my life And I’m forever home in the presence of Love
Copyright © 2008 Augsburg Fortress. All Rights Reserved.
© 2008 Laura Gentry
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