Beside Still Waters
John Wilkinson Third
Presbyterian Church
May 7, 2006
Psalm
23
This morning we are pulling out all the liturgical and ecclesiastical
stops. In the first hour, we will celebrate the Sacrament of
the Lord’s Supper. In the second hour, we will celebrate
the Sacrament of Baptism and ordain and install Elders and Deacons
and recognize Trustees. At both services, we will recognize
our Music and Worship ministry, with a particular acknowledgement
of all those who provide leadership by sharing their time energy
and God-given ability to lead us in the worship of God.
There’s a lot going on – if anyone has the hankering
to get married or do a liturgical dance, today would seem to
be the day!
The late theologian Joseph Sittler asked one time: “Is
there anything new in Psalm 23?” Sittler worried that
the words we shared as our call to worship had become a cliché.
He answered the question with a resounding yes – that
every time one turned to those familiar words, beginning with
“the Lord is my shepherd,” one would find something
new, something fresh, some new interpretation, some new insight.
I dare say that these words are as familiar as any in the Bible,
perhaps as familiar as any in the English language. Perhaps
a biblical text has been set to music more than this one, but
I would not venture to guess which one. This morning we hear
a classic American version and sing a classic Scottish one;
this afternoon at St. Andrew Roman Catholic Church our Chancel
Choir will sing a contemporary version by composer Bobby McFerrin.
Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann suggests that “it
is almost pretentious to comment on this psalm.” (The
Message of the Psalms, page 154) Perhaps he is
right. Perhaps the task today is rather to let the psalm comment
on us, our lives, our church, our world.
The scholar Claus Westermann writes that “we will never
fully understand or appreciate” the world of the psalm
writer. And yet, Westermann insists, the words have “validity
for every age,” and are heard anew by each person in each
moment. (Praise and Lament in the Psalms, page 75)
We do not know the writer’s particular context; but we
can sense some things, things that we might share. We sense
one who is eager to pour out their heart to God, and who lives
with the assurance that God hears. We sense trouble, though
we do not know what it is. The King James Version, which we
earlier shared, speaks of the “valley of the shadow of
death.” The New Revised Standard Version, which we share
from week to week, speaks of the “darkest valley.”
Either way, we know that something is wrong.
There are enemies. They may be political or they may be personal,
Westermann says. But there are real and they are a threat. They
conspire and they seek ruin.
Biblical scholars spend lots of time and energy categorizing
our 150 psalms. Brueggemann calls this one a “psalm of
new orientation.”
• We are oriented in one fashion.
• Something happens to change that orientation.
• We emerge with a new orientation.
This Psalm is all about that. We are like sheep being led merrily
along the way. Something happens to threaten us. A wolf. Rough
terrain. Entanglements. Nothing to eat. Nothing to drink. And
the shepherd leads us through that threat into something new
and life giving.
“Our powerful solidarity with God,” Brueggemann
writes, “overrides the threat…God’s companionship
transforms every situation.”
It would be pretentious to comment on this Psalm.
Perhaps we would be better off finding some lovely patch of
grass by a lilac bush and reading it one time or ten times or
one hundred times, letting its words and images wash over us.
But perhaps there are some trajectories that we might consider
briefly this morning, directions that these old, and new, words
suggest.
• If we are artists, and I would posit that we are all
artists, then these words suggest something powerful. If we
are musicians – vocalists or instrumentalists, or painters,
or poets, or dancers, we must remember the salvific, saving
nature of our work. We must remember that every time we sing
a song or play a note or put brush to canvas or word to paper
something transformative happens. “The Lord is my shepherd.”
Something simple like that. Let it work its wonder. And always
be open to the spirit that works within you and through you.
• If we are a new church officer this day, or a continuing
one, please sense the hope and confidence that the psalmist
offers to us, even in the midst of troubling times. You will
be faced with challenges and decisions. The needs of this congregation
and the needs of this world are important and significant. We
will face policy debates, financial debates, programmatic choices.
People will hurt. Crises will emerge. But God is your shepherd,
even more so than the gifts that you surely have been given.
And remember also the fellow sheep you have been given to share
the journey with you. Rely on them; rely on each other.
• If any of us are facing threats. Big and small. A broken
relationship. Anxiety. Addiction. Loneliness. Isolation. Illness.
Cancer. Alzheimer’s. An awful job or no job at all. The
death of one we love deeply or our own mortality, sooner or
later. Any of us, all of us, facing a threat. Anything that
conspires against us. Can we not claim our forebear’s
hope and confidence in the one who will shepherd us through
every dark valley, through every shadow that makes us afraid?
God’s solidarity and companionship will transform and
make all things new. Not that threats will not emerge. They
will and they do. But they need not claim us nor define us,
because goodness and mercy shall follow us.
• But those are not the only threats. If we think about
the world in which we live, and all of us do, then we must claim
these words as well in a more global context. We must look to
bridge the false gaps we build between spiritually and social
responsibility. If we are suffering individually, then others
are as well. This Psalm speaks to them also, and it must speak
to us about their plight. The table God prepares and the cup
God fills are about spiritual food and drink, but they must
also be about real food and real drink and real shelter. That
is why we do things like RAIHN and CROP and travel to Louisiana,
but it is also why we do things like agitate for change when
any of God’s children are receiving anything less than
justice and equality. That could be as far away as Darfur or
as close as the statehouse in Albany, but if the gift of still
waters is for any of us, it must surely be for all of us.
I do not know if there is anything new in these words. But
even in their antiquity, there is truth, live-giving, world-changing
truth. There is truth in the promise of water in the baptismal
font, where things are made new. There is truth in the table
spread before us, in the simple food and drink that nourishes
us well enough that our journey may continue. There is truth
in the claim that enemies are all around us. And there is truth
that they will not have the last word.
Without pretension, that may be enough, an image and a promise,
for the living of our days.
The sure provision of my God, attend me all my days.
O may thy house be my abode, and all my work be praise.
There would I find a settled rest, while others go and come.
No more a stranger or a guest, but like a child at home.
May it be for all of us, and for the world so dearly loved
by this good shepherd. Amen.
