Living Psalm 23
based on Psalm 23 and John 10:11-18
by Rev. Karen A. Goltz

            Have you ever been in a nursing home or a hospital, visiting someone who’s no longer completely in touch with reality?  Maybe you’re visiting a family member, someone very close like a parent or a grandparent, but they’re just not themselves anymore.  They may not even be able to remember who you are, or who they are.  It’s painful to see a loved one go through that, and I imagine it’s difficult and frustrating for that person to lose touch with everything that’s familiar.

            I’ve been on a few visits like that, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t uncomfortable for me.  It’s hard to connect with someone who’s so disconnected from everything.

            But then I’ll read the twenty-third Psalm aloud to them, and all of a sudden it’s like a light’s been turned on.  Someone who can’t recognize their own family or remember their own name will begin to recite the psalm along with me.  There’s just something about those verses that makes the connection, that soothes the soul.  This psalm, like all the other psalms, is a prayer of the people to God.  A prayer that speaks to God for us when we can’t come up with the words on our own.

            The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.  Just a simple confession of faith; one that’s so familiar that we almost take it for granted.  The Lord is my shepherd.  I need someone to guard me and guide me, someone to take care of me and see that all my needs are met.  The Lord is the one who does that, and I know that the Lord will make sure that I’ll never be without anything I need.  I know that as surely as I’m standing here today.  Such a simple statement of faith, but so profound.  It’s easy to understand why that one simple statement is so comforting to someone who’s losing touch with reality.  I think most of us are so firmly rooted in reality that the simple trust that the sheep has in the shepherd is difficult for us to emulate.  We’d rather guard and guide ourselves, believing that we’re better able to take care of ourselves than the shepherd.  But when we’re suddenly in a position where we have to acknowledge that we’re not the most qualified to see to our own needs, then we can hear the truth of God’s promise:  the Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

            He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters.  Is there anything more peaceful sounding than that?  I remember when I lived in downtown Boston, in the heart of the city, I would be struck by this urge to get out.  The pace of the city, the number of people, the never-ending noise, just had me on edge all the time.  I needed to find peace and rest, away from all the trappings and busyness that make up modern life.  And I’ve heard farmers in Iowa talking about how every once in a while they’ll stop working their land, for just a minute, and listen.  And when they take that minute to stop working, they’re able to see that land they’re on every day in a brand new light.  They’re amazed by how beautiful and tranquil it is, and they’re surprised that they sometimes feel like they’ve never noticed it before.  To just be, to rest and be still, surrounded by God’s good creation, and to realize that we’re a part of that creation, in harmony with it, is a revival for the soul.

            And that brings us to the next part of the psalm.  He restores my soul.  He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.  The Lord, our shepherd who guards us and guides us, knows what it is to be tired, knows our need to be fed.  The Lord feeds us and nourishes us, sustains our bodies and our spirits, and makes us whole.  There is nothing we need that the Lord doesn’t provide, and the Lord provides everything that we need.  Anything we feel we’re being denied is because we’re moving away from the shepherd, trying to find our own way as helpless sheep in a fallen world, and we get angry when the world doesn’t do what we want it to.  But the shepherd does not leave us to go astray, and is always nearby, ready to guide us back to where we should be, back to the place where the dangers are not overwhelming, back to where we’re safely under the careful and caring eye of the shepherd, who will see to all our needs.  And all this the shepherd does not because we’re exceptionally valuable in and of ourselves, but because the Lord has declared us valuable.  And it’s for his own sake, because he has chosen to love us and to care for us, that he continues to nourish and sustain us, and guide us through this fallen and often dangerous world.  As John’s gospel tells us today, Jesus is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.  He has chosen to make his life with his flock, and because he cares for them so much, he knows them as his own, and those who are his own know him.  There is danger in this fallen world, and Jesus is willing to put himself between us and that danger to keep us safe. 

            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.  The one thing that many people have in common is the fear of death.  All we know, all we’re familiar with, is this life.  Sure, we have faith in the life to come, but faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  Knowledge is what we have with absolute certainty.  We know this life; we’re living it.  We can have faith in the life to come, but we don’t know it yet.  So death is something a lot of us fear.  But the words of this psalm assure us that death itself is not evil, and that even as we confront death, whether we succumb to it or not, the Lord our shepherd is with us.  And the feelings behind these words are so intense that we’re no longer confessing what the Lord does, but we’re speaking directly to the Lord.  For you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.  We can be comforted by the tools of the shepherd: the rod he uses to beat off the dangers that come to harm us, and the staff he uses to find the way for us when we can’t find it ourselves, when we’re not sure where we’re going.  With his rod and his staff, our shepherd is there to guard us and to guide us, in this life and in the life to come.

            You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  The equation of humanity with sheep seems to be at an end, as the psalm paints a picture of us as honored and protected guests of the Lord.  There’s no question that we have enemies, that there are those who trouble us.  But even when they’re right there in front of us, threatening us, the Lord is there, honoring us and providing for us abundantly.  No one can truly bring us any harm when we’re being cared for so well by the Lord our God.

            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.  The life we know and the life to come are melded into one event here.  Despite this fallen world, despite our own sinfulness, God’s goodness and mercy are with us, as Christ is with us.  We can see it in the way our needs, somehow or other, continue to be met.  We can see it in those moments when we can feel our connection with God’s creation.  We can see it when our souls are revived by God’s kindness and love shown to us through another person, through a parent or a child, through a friend or a neighbor, maybe through a stranger or even an enemy.  Through someone sharing the love of God with us in word and in action.  God chose to become human and truly be one with us.  Jesus the Son said that the Father loved him because he lay down his life so that he might be able to gain it back again.  The full impact of that statement gets lost in the translation, but Jesus is talking about the resurrection.  He willingly laid down his life, meaning he willingly died, so that he might take possession of life once again.  And then he goes on to be perfectly clear that no one took his life from him; it was his and his alone to give, and he gave it.  And when he took possession of it again, it was more fully his than when he’d just been born into humanity.  When that had happened, he’d had life, just as each of us has life.  But when he took it up again, he owned it in such a way that it was fully and utterly his, subject to his will.  As much as we all like to think we have that much control over our own lives, the truth is we don’t.  We only have life, we don’t own it.  But Christ our Lord, the Lord who is our shepherd, does own it, and because of that, even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, even when we succumb to death, our life does not come to an end, because that is not God’s will.  The goodness and the mercy of the Lord shall follow us forever, and we will live under the Lord’s guidance and protection, forever.

            We go through our lives trying our best to be good people, trying to make a good living, trying to raise our children up right and care for our parents, and sometimes it feels like the weight of the world is on our shoulders.  For many people in the world, the struggle for survival is all-consuming, and there doesn’t seem like there’s room for anything else.  And the stress of those worries, the toll of that struggle, wears us down to a point when we wonder what’s it all about?  What’s the point of any of it?  But those of us who have been blessed enough to have heard the word from another person, a person who cared enough to share the good news with us, can take comfort in the promise: the Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.  And when we’re in the twilight of our lives, and reality is slipping away from us, the truth of those words can still grasp us, still connect with us, and we are assured that we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.  Amen