NB: this is the third sermon in this series, not the first. For a variety of reasons, not every sermon in this series will be posted.
It has been said of the Gospel of John that it is a pool in which an elephant can swim and a child can wade; the same can be said of Psalm 23. At first glance, it’s a simple poem, easy to understand and easy for us to claim for ourselves; the water is clear enough to see the bottom with no blurring or distortion. The deeper we look, however, the deeper it gets; if we dive in, not only will we not hit the bottom and hurt ourselves, the bottom will grow further away the deeper we dive. This simple poem is also an exceptionally complex poem which is working on multiple levels at once, casting meaning in multiple directions at the same time. What I have to say about it this morning will be true, to the best of my ability to discern; it will not be exhaustive.
I need to begin by acknowledging my great debt to one of my heroes of the faith, one of my two or three greatest intellectual influences, the late Rev. Dr. Kenneth E. Bailey. Dr. Bailey was a Presbyterian missionary, teacher, and scholar who could say of himself, “For sixty years, from 1935-1995, my home was in the Middle East.” He lived for decades among what he once called “the last generation of Jesus’ day,” and drew on that experience and two millennia of Middle Eastern biblical translations and scholarship in teaching and interpreting the Scriptures, particularly the New Testament, and especially the parables of Jesus. He was an amazing man, humble and full of grace, with an equally amazing life story. My understanding of God’s word is much deeper and richer because of his work and example, and I am profoundly thankful. Hang around me, and you will hear his name—often.
Dr. Bailey’s last book, of which I also have yet to reach the bottom, was this one, The Good Shepherd; not long before his death, he told a friend of mine, “It only took me forty years to write,” as he saw it as the culmination and completion of his life’s work. I’ll quote this book a few times this morning, but my debt to him runs through every paragraph of this sermon, as does my gratitude.
So, with that said, let’s open this psalm together. To start with the glaringly obvious, Psalm 23 centers on the image of God as shepherd. This image was a common one in the ancient world for both human and divine rulers, especially in the cultures of the Golden Crescent, which stretched from Egypt up through Syria and down to Babylon and the Persian Gulf. These cultures used the shepherd image extensively; thus, for example, King Tut was buried holding a shepherd’s staff, Marduk the head of the Babylonian pantheon was described as a shepherd, and so on. In the same way, Scripture uses shepherd imagery of God and of the rulers of Israel—not just the kings but also the priests. Most interestingly, Micah 5 says of the Messiah, “He shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord.”
The relationship this image portrays is one of utter dependence. Sheep are dumb fuzzies, as stubborn as they are stupid. They’re also completely lacking in any means of defense or self-protection, unable either to fight off or to outrun anything that might want to eat them. If the shepherd is not good—in both senses, competence and character—the sheep are doomed, because they aren’t finding their food and water in the safety of the village: they have to go out into the wild. As Dr. Bailey paints the picture, “The moment [they] left the shelter and protection of the villages along the north-south ridge, they were on their own. . . . ‘The Lord is my shepherd,’ among other things, means, ‘I have no police protection.’ In those open trackless spaces the traveler and his companions are alone. Thieves, wild animals, snakes, sudden blinding dust storms, water shortages, loose rocks, and furnace-like heat are all potential threats.” To carry out that mission faithfully, the shepherd had to be willing to lay down his life for his sheep.
Given that reality of utter dependence, to say “The Lord is my shepherd” means the Lord will provide what is needed, as the psalmist says in the second half of verse 1. This is not, be it noted, a promise that he will give us everything we ask for, as my kindergarten self thought from the King James translation “I shall not want.” It is not a promise that all our desires will be satisfied, but rather that all our needs will be supplied. Of course, when it comes to imagining what our needs are, many of us are just like Han Solo—we can imagine quite a bit. So how do we know what’s included in the statement “I shall not be in need”? Well, read on, because that’s what the rest of the psalm is about.
First, the shepherd provides food; specifically, he leads the sheep to green pastures, which is a striking statement. The eastern Mediterranean is not, by and large, a green place. The rainy season begins some time in November and continues until some time in February. The pastures may be green by the beginning of December, and once the rain stops they quickly revert to yellow-brown. The Lord is a shepherd who provides good food, not the bare minimum.
The second need is water. With sheep, this is complicated because you can’t just march them up to any old stream—sheep are afraid to drink from rippling water. For them to drink, the water must be either entirely still or else flowing so slowly as to look still. It doesn’t matter how thirsty they are, sheep will not drink until they find quiet waters. I don’t know if shepherds ever tried digging irrigation ditches, but I know they would dig short ditches to give their sheep still water from which to drink.
So, the shepherd gives the psalmist good food and water; third, he also provides rest. The traditional translation, “he makes me lie down,” is grammatically understandable but misleading, as you can’t make a sheep lie down. The shepherd leads the sheep to a place where their stomachs are full, their thirst is quenched, there are no other animals around, and no biting insects to disturb them; then, and only then, will the sheep settle down to rest and digest their food. As Dr. Bailey notes, even “the barking of one stray dog can cause an entire herd to jump up and even run off if not stopped by an alert shepherd.”
Fourth, the shepherd provides guidance. On the way out from the village to the place of pasture, he does not walk behind the sheep and drive them with a stick, he walks ahead of them and calls them to follow with a brief tune, maybe ten seconds long. He might play it on his shepherd’s pipes or he might sing it; either way, he would repeat it regularly and often to keep the sheep focused on him. The sheep know the shepherd’s voice and are eager to follow.
The fifth point is one which our English translations obscure, because the traditional translation “he restores my soul” is inadequate. It has come to mean something psychologized about having our spirits lifted, which isn’t wrong as far as it goes but doesn’t go anywhere near far enough. The restoration the psalmist envisions here is correction, rescue, and deliverance. The verb in the first part of verse 3 is shuv, which most basically means “to return” or “to turn,” either physically or morally, and thus in the right context means “to repent.” To try to capture both the sense “he brings me back” and “he causes me to repent,” I decided to translate it “he brings me back when I stray.” The image is a sheep which has strayed from the path, wandering away from the flock and the shepherd, and is lost.
When the shepherd discovers one of his sheep is missing, he goes looking for it, because he’s that sheep’s only chance. As I said earlier, sheep are dumb fuzzies that look no farther than the next blade of grass. They wander off easily and can get themselves thoroughly lost and isolated before they notice—but when a sheep looks up and realizes it’s alone and doesn’t know where it is, it will not try to retrace its steps. Instead, it will find the first thing it can hide under—a bush, a rock, whatever—collapse shaking in fear, and start bleating at the top of its lungs. This, of course, is like a homing beacon for every predator in the area, so the shepherd is racing against time. When he finds it, he’ll have to carry it—most likely around his neck with the legs hanging down in front—because it’s too traumatized with fear to walk.
Once he’s brought the sheep back to the flock, he will lead it in the right path, the path in which it’s supposed to walk. Now, note this: what is the right path for a sheep? The answer is simple: it’s the path which leads as safely as possible to the next green pasture and still water. The shepherd hasn’t chosen the path because he doesn’t want the sheep to enjoy life, or because he’s on a power trip, but because he knows the other paths the sheep might follow would not end well for them. This one might lead to the top of a sheer cliff; that one might lead into a box canyon. This is the path which leads to life for the sheep. And note well: the shepherd doesn’t do this for money, or because someone’s making him, he does it for the sake of his integrity, his honor, and his reputation as a good shepherd who cares well for the sheep.
Now, if there are paths which look like ways to life which ultimately lead only to death, it’s also true the path of the shepherd, though it is ultimately the way to life, sometimes looks like a death road. The psalmist acknowledges that reality. There will be times when the shepherd will lead his flock through the valley of the shadow of death; that cannot be avoided. And be it noted here, this isn’t only a metaphor—these are real places. We have one in this country, in fact, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison on Colorado’s Western Slope. I’ve been there—it’s impressive. The Black Canyon is 48 miles long, 2722 feet deep at its deepest point, and just 40 feet wide at the narrowest part of the canyon floor. One side of the canyon is a cliff, while the other is the next thing to it—turns out canyon walls don’t erode much if they don’t get any sun, which they mostly don’t. There are parts of the canyon floor which only get 30 minutes of sun a day (and I believe that’s in the height of summer)—which, as I’m sure you can guess, is where the canyon got its name.
Now, those David and his fellow shepherds would have known were much shorter and much less deep. The Armenian Methodist pastor M. P. Krikorian, who herded sheep in Palestine roughly a century ago, describes one just south of the road from Jerusalem to Jericho which seems to have been well-known to every shepherd in the region. That one, by his account, was five miles long and twelve feet across at the widest point; at the narrowest points, it was almost impossible for sheep even to turn around. These valleys were fairly common due to the seasonal alteration betwen dry, sunbaked weather and heavy, sometimes torrential rains—and they were most dangerous during the rainy season, when flash floods could hit without warning.
Even during the dry season, these steep, dark valleys were still places of increased danger from robbers, predators, and loose rocks. Danger lurked in the dark, and so they could be terrifying; but the psalmist declares, “Even in the valley of the shadow, I will not be afraid.” Along with everything else, the shepherd gives peace in place of fear, in two ways. One is the peace of the shepherd’s presence—“I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” This connects back to the guidance provided by the shepherd. To us, the valley of the shadow is dark and unknowable and we cannot see a way through; the shepherd knows there is a way through, and he knows the way.
The other is the peace of the shepherd’s protection. “Your rod and your staff comfort me.” The rod was the shepherd’s main weapon. Think of a wood bat; make the handle a lot thicker so it doesn’t break, and make it a denser, heavier wood; then embed pieces of iron, spikes and nails and the like, in the business end. This is the “rod of iron” we talked about last week from Psalm 2, and it’s the weapon David told Saul he used to kill the lion and the bear when they came after his sheep. The staff, meanwhile, was a walking stick around five feet long, useful for long hikes in hilly terrain, with a crook on the end. The crook is the reason it comforts the sheep. As Dr. Bailey put it, “When a lamb cannot scramble down from a ledge or falls into a crevice or down a bank into a stream, the shepherd is able, with the crook in his staff, to catch the lamb by a leg or a shoulder and gently lift it back onto the path.” The rod is protection from others; the staff is protection from yourself.
In verse 5, the image shifts from God as shepherd to God as host. The scene envisioned is a typical meal—a low, round table, the diners sitting around it cross-legged on the floor; each of them had a flatbread, with the meal in a common bowl sitting at the center. You would tear off a piece of bread, dip it in the bowl, and eat it, repeating the process until you were done. Normally, the host would provide the food and the servants or the women would prepare it; here, God prepares the food. God welcomes the psalmist as an honored guest, anointing his head with scented oil and making sure his cup is constantly refilled. What’s more, God does all this openly, knowing his guest’s enemies are watching, knowing how they will respond, and disregarding it. Think of Jesus with Zacchaeus, mortally offending the entire village by going in to that man’s house to eat with him. That sort of behavior was one of the things which fueled Jesus’ enemies; they loathed and despised his costly love for sinners. He did not care.
This brings us to the last verse; let’s take it in chunks. First, “goodness and hesed.” Goodness is as straightforward as it sounds, but the Hebrew word hesed, which I translated “unrelenting love,” is loaded. It’s the concept at the heart of covenant, the relentless, unyielding, unfailing commitment to love and faithfulness to one’s covenant partner; it’s what Sally Lloyd-Jones in the Jesus Storybook Bible calls God’s “Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love,” which always keeps its promises and refuses to love us any less no matter what we do. It’s my favorite Hebrew word, and you’ll hear it again from me. Second, the psalmist says, “they will follow me.” There are two aspects to this, which we’ve seen in the psalm. One, hesed is the love which pursues us, and will always pursue, bearing goodness in its arms, following the lost sheep to bring it back. Two, this is protection: as the sheep journey home, they know the way, so the shepherd walks behind them as their rearguard.
Third, “I will dwell in the house of the Lord.” Does that mean the church? Yes, but not only. In this world, this reality is anchored in our corporate worship. Remember, a sheep on its own is lost, and all the blessings laid out in this psalm—even rescue, in a way—apply to sheep as part of a flock. In addition, though, this also means learning to live in the whole world as God’s house. He made every inch of it and loves all of it, he is alive and at work in every particle of creation, and we ought to live in it as his sacred space, not ours to do with as we please.
And just a quick note: this doesn’t mean, “Oh, I can go play golf and feel nicely spiritual.” It’s more like asking, “Did God want this turned into a golf course?” To be clear, I’m not saying he didn’t, at least not around here where there’s plenty of water. People who’ve built golf courses in the middle of the Mojave Desert, though, contributing to there being no Colorado River by the time it reaches Mexico, might have more reason to re-evaluate their actions.
All this will be true, David says, for as long as there are days. The goodness and hesed of God are new every morning; they will never run out and never fail to reach us, all the days of our lives. And when all things are made new, that will still be true for all of God’s days—eternally.
We, like the sheep, are not at home, but out in the wild, dangerous world, but we are homeward bound, and we need not fear. God’s goodness and hesed pursue us when we stray, and they are our rearguard against the attacks of the enemy. Our Shepherd is with us, and no matter what we may face, he will bring us safely all the way home.
Photo © 2016 Nicolas Daskalakis. License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.
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