The Lord is my Shepherd
Once upon a time our oldest son, Rob, wanted the latest gaming system in the worst way. Nintendo or PlayStation, I can’t remember which, but it was a big ask. Mom was on his side, so I knew where this was going but we agreed to have him earn it. Rather than add to his list of chores, I challenged him to three tasks:
1. Memorize the Lord’s Prayer. That would give him an immediate sense of accomplishment, the boy had been saying it in church his whole life, as long as he could remember. But I wanted him to say it alone, to prepare him for the times when he would be really alone, really scared, in deep need for God’s presence and to feel God’s grace.
2. Read Stuart Little, because E.B. White was an excellent author and it was one of the books that Meg and I both love and had when we combined our lives and our stuff. He was at just the right age to enjoy that adventure.
3. Memorize the 23rd Psalm.
I chose that for a couple of reasons at the time. It is, behind the Lord’s Prayer, the most beloved prayer in scripture and in our Book of Common Prayer. Like the Lord’s Prayer, I wanted him to have that in his bones and for the same reasons. (The stuff we memorize as kids really sticks!) Today, I’d have many more reasons. The deeper we look at Psalm 23, the more we understand why it has been so dear to so many for so long. It is 3000 years old, after all.
“The Lord is my shepherd” is a formational statement for Christians and Jews as well. The image of the shepherd is so strong that it’s our defining vision despite the fact that, as far as I can tell and I could be wrong, there are no sheep in Polk County. (We do have goats.) We’ve got beautiful images in stained glass and our logo to go with our name.
It affirms our utter reliance on The Lord, our deepest, soul-comforting security in the midst of all the struggles and uncertainties life entails. We follow our shepherd without hesitation. Everything else in the psalm expands on this simple statement.
“I shall not want” implies total reliance on The Lord[i]. This is distant, of course, from our sense of want, tantalized by an entire multitrillion-dollar industry dedicated to making us want stuff, now collecting every scrap of data they can to do it. This speaks to the core of need: food, drink, shelter and protection from all manner of threats, including death.
“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.” While it’s quite easy to train a lot of animals including dogs to lie down, in this line, “maketh” is not a command. You cannot command a sheep to lie down, and they’ve been domesticated for at least 10,000 years. They will only lie down when they are full, watered and feel safe. So here, the shepherd has made all of these conditions come about, and thus has made the sheep able to rest. As Paul wrote towards the end of his letter to the Philippians, “Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” (Philippians 4:11)
“He leadeth me beside the still waters” contains two interesting parts. First, a good shepherd leads the sheep. It is possible to drive them, poking them along with sticks. But out in the open wilderness it is best to lead them. The Good Shepherd uses his voice; a call he sings. His sheep listen to his voice. This allows shepherds to work together. Two or even several shepherds can combine herds, which is helpful for keeping them safe, and work together. When it comes time to separate them, a shepherd need merely call his own sheep and only they will follow him. Just as Jesus said, “And they will listen to my voice.”
It may seem odd, but sheep will not drink from moving water. Shepherds will lead sheep to spots along streams or rivers where there are natural places where the water pools. They also have been creating such places for thousands of years. They dig a trough or notch out a spot for the water to be still. The same is true when they water from a well. They draw the water and pour it into a trough.
King David certainly knew his share of trouble, much of it self-inflicted but some coming from external threats. When he wrote, “He restoreth my soul,” it is easy for us to identify with God soothing our disquieted spirits with his overwhelming grace and love. That is true. A literal translation here would be “He brings me back,” God is bringing our minds back to a sense of peace rooted in our secure place with Him. A shepherd always brings a sheep back who has wandered off, lost, afraid, alone and exposed to danger. Often the sheep must be carried, hence the image of a sheep on Christ’s shoulders.
Leading along a path implies there is a well-established way forward. This is related to the idea of aim, target or goal, which are all very useful when we think about our futures, make our plans, set our calendars and so forth. Time is linear for us, but life isn’t. The path is rarely very straight. There are always curves and dips, hills and valleys, swamps, lakes and oceans and man-made barriers walling or fencing us in various ways, all of which means we can’t see very far ahead.
David’s prayer was to God, whom no one had ever seen. David knew God, felt God and followed God despite his well-document failures. Jesus is the visible revelation of The Lord as our shepherd, the Good Shepherd, leading us through all the uncertainties that life brings – and beyond. He meets our real needs, leading us to green pastures and beside still waters, leading us along right paths and calling us back when we stray, and when necessary putting us on his shoulders, then calling us with His sweet song and leading us ever onward. We know this isn’t just something he will do. We have witnesses’ testimony that he has already done it as well.
As many of you know, Meg’s oldest brother Robbie died a couple of weeks ago. Robbie’s full name is Robert Raymond Norris, Jr. Our oldest son’s full name is Robert Raymond Nunez. All of our kids loved their uncle. But, being our oldest, Rob knew his uncle the longest time. And due to the phases and stages of life, we lived much closer while Rob was young. He spent a lot of his early years out in the groves with his uncle and Robbie’s son Stephen who is a week younger than Rob. They were close.
The Baptist pastor who officiated at Robbie’s funeral service built his sermon around Psalm 23. He read the King James Version and invited us to join in as we were able. I looked at our son and saw his lips moving. Our son, who did 2 tours in Iraq. Our son, who braves Tampa traffic every day. We were – always are – in the valley of the shadow of death. We were all very sad, but we were not afraid. His rod and his staff, they comfort us. That is what I wanted for my son, in that moment and moments like it.
AMEN
[i] Sheep facts and Biblical themes drawn from Kenneth E. Bailey’s The Good Shepherd, 2014 InterVarsity Press, Downer’s Grove IL