The Lord is my Shepherd

“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” This is obviously an expression of confidence in God, but I wonder if it is not also an implicit rebuke to all the things that we seek to put our confidence in instead of God. I was discussing this psalm with an eight-year-old, who will remain nameless, and the eight-year-old in question commented, “uh oh, he doesn't know what's going to happen later on.” You see, this young man had been reading through the comic book story of the life of David, and he knew that later in David's life, David's own son would lead a rebellion against him and challenge his father for the throne, and there would be many other hardships, including a number of self-inflicted tragedies, owing to David's poor choices. The young man's point was that David would not have talked so confidently about the Lord's provision if he had known how difficult his life would be at certain points. Kids are great, because they're totally honest about things like that. There are at least two things to think about: there is a cause and effect relationship between the idea that the lord is my shepherd and the idea that “I shall not want”. One translation even says, “So long as the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in need.” A lot of the pain that came into King David's life came as a direct result of poor choice that he made. During those times David was like a crazed sheep that went bucking and bleating as he raced away from the shepherd and over the side of a cliff. Matthew Henry, the old Purtitan commentator points out that the focus has to do with our being satisfied with what comes from God's hand: "I shall be supplied with whatever I need; and, if I have not every thing I desire, I may conclude it is either not fit for me or not good for me or I shall have it in due time." The psalm expresses a simple confidence in God. A fundamental part of who we are so accustomed to defining ourselves in terms of what we do and what we accomplish, that we never stop to understand ourselves in terms of our most fundamental relationship—our relationship with God. Now, this is precisely the sort of thing that you expect someone to say in church, so I thought I'd flesh out the meaning of it a bit more. I used to go to Elementary School and High school with a guy who went on to become one of the higher-ups at DC comics. Another guy that I went to High School with, Sean, went on to become a biologist whose work was even written up on the New York Times [because he was able to find and identify the largest new species of reptile in North America in over a hundred years.] I later went to University with Blake, who had a book on Hebrew Poetry published by Oxford University Press, and also Mackenzie, who wrote a paper about American national defence that was the subject of an article by the Washington Post. At graduate school Lisa was in a small group of friends I used to get lunch with, and she got special mention from Christianity Today in one of their articles. Also at grad school I also used to ride to church with Nijay, who just wrote a Commentary on 1 &2 Thessalonians. I also used to work next to a guy who now earns several million dollars in commission every year in Real Estate. Finally, Andrew, whom I worked closely with in China is one of the higher-ups at a New York hedge fund, and from all appearances, he's crushing it, financially. And what do I do? Um... I'm a contract teacher at a school for kids with special needs. No write-ups in any news papers. Not quite the same level of – prestige – as so many of the people I've known. You may be wondering, hmmm, I wonder if Stephen sometimes looks at the particular turns that life has taken and feels like Marlon Brando in Raging Bull. I wonder if he goes to sleep murmuring to himself “I coulda been somebody. I coulda been a contender.” I guess the main thing is that I don't yell out “Stella!” in the middle of the night... that could be awkward to explain to Kate. Apologies if you haven't seen the movie, but, those are some of the lines. Anyway, do I ever feel like that? The answer: maybe. But the reason that I bring it up is that if I, hypothetically, ever start to define myself in terms of what I have accomplished rather than how I stand before God, you know it would be really good for me to observe that there is actually a cause and effect relationship between the first two sentences of this ancient poem: The Lord is my Shepherd. Therefore I shall not want. Now, the phrase, “I shall not want” is kind of an old-fashioned way of saying “I lack for nothing”, which is how some translations phrase it. I know that I can trust God. I know that he is not going to leave me lacking for any essential thing. Therefore, I do not need to tie myself up in knots over not attaining all the prestige that I might have hoped for, or whether, in day-to-day life, every one treats me kindly and gives me all of the respect that I imagine is due to myself, because at the end of the day, he is my shepherd. He provides what I need. Do I trust that? Do you? You wanna know something weird? Its something that quite a few people have pointed out. Its often only when we run out of other options, when we have no where else to turn that we finally look to God for our sustenance. It is as though our default setting is recognition from others, and only as an afterthought do we consider how we stand before God. But here's the odd part: when we are not in a close relationship with God, the praise of others does not satisfy, and when we are in a close relationship with God, the accolades of others do not matter. He makes me lie down in Green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Note here, please, that God restores and refreshes the soul before he leads his sheep in paths of righteousness. It is unwise in the extreme, (and this is really the whole point of the book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality), to believe that we should charge off to do great things for God without having taken the time to first be greatly filled with the goodness of God. Some people will, naturally enough, come to the end of that line and wonder what is going on with that phrase “for his name's sake”. What is going on here? Is God being megalomaniacal – doing everything for his name's sake? This phrase isn't a cause for worry, but for relief. This psalm gives expression to the one perspective in the universe according to which everything in the universe makes sense— the one perspective according to which our own human flourishing is possible. The focus is on God's glory. At first we might think “wouldn't it be better for God to draw our focus to the importance of love or mercy or something like that? Why is he talking about doing things for his name's sake?” When God acts in the world, it must be for his own name's sale, or else God himself is guilty of idolatry. I mean—is there some higher object to which God should be devoted? It is like the riddle from middle school: “I look to my left, to my right, in front of me and behind me, and every direction is south. Where am I?” Answer, you're at the centre of the north pole. Everywhere God looks there are created things. He alone is uncreated and eternal. God is, as Saint Anslem described him in the Middle Ages, “That than which nothing greater can be conceived.” God relates to the world in such a way that if he were to direct our praise or attention to anyone or anything other than himself, he would be directing us away from the greatest possible good. He would be directing our praise to a lesser, dependent being, a created thing. Humans, mountains, oceans, the stars, theses things all come and go. Each of them has a life cycle. The Mediterranean Sea and the Pacific Ocean were not always there. They came about as a result of the movement of continents. The brightest of stars will eventually fizzle out and be crushed into a black hole. Only God is forever. Only God is not dependent upon some other thing for his existence. Only God is the cause of the existence of all other things. And why did he create them? Why do time and space exist? There once existed no physical thing. {We can't even really say before time, because time didn't exist for one thing to be before another; }There was nothing, not even empty space, and then, according to astronomers, the universe suddenly and instantly sprang into existence, out of nothing, mind you. {The consensus view of astronomers is that this actually happened, and it was about 13.7 Billion years ago.} Okay, that is how, but why? Why did it all happen? Because God was going public with his glory. (First he had to create a public, mind you). And now we are going to tell the God who was behind it all, who spoke the universe into existence, that it is a touch vainglorious for him to direct all the attention to himself, or to do things for his own sake. No, on the contrary, if he were to seek to act for any other reason than to bring glory to himself, that would be a type of idolatry. Moreover, it's not just that God is eternal and everything else is finite. And it's not just that God is mighty, and the cause of all that exists. It is also that only God is good. As the poem goes, he shines in all that is fair. Just as an artist isn't physically in her paintings, but her wisdom and insights are everywhere present in the artwork that she creates, the wisdom, creativity and beauty of God is evident in all that he has made. When we value something, what we are valuing is itself a reflection of God's goodness and wisdom. As the moon reflects the light of the sun onto people during the night, God's created world reflects his goodness in a fallen world. It must be for his own name's sake that God acts, that is the only thing that is of supreme worth and value. So when God acts for his own name's sake in our world, he is investing our temporary, fleeting world with the only lasting, eternal dignity it could possibly have. Nothing on earth could be praised more highly than for it to be used for the sake of sake of God's name. Now consider for a moment the alternative. What if God did not act for the sake of his own name. What if no one did or cared to. That is the mental world that the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (among others) inhabited. Consider the quote from Sartre on the meaninglessness of life without God [Evangelical Dictionary of Philosophy]. Sisyphus rolling a rock up a hill. It served no purpose, and it was utterly pointless. Is that what we want? Is that what we're so desperate to preserve when we take offence at God doing things—like leading us in the paths of righteousness—for his own names sake. Again, we so unthinkingly get into the habit of approving selfless acts that we reflexively disapprove when scripture describes God doing something for his own sake. Because when God acts for his own sake—for the sake of his name, then we are delivered from the meaninglessness of a life that takes no account of God. What sounds off-putting or unapproachable about God is actually something that gives us dignity and meaning—we can confidently go through life with the knowledge that our own lives are connected to the ultimate source meaning and fullness in life. Even though I walk through the valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. This particular line is why this verse is why this psalm is commonly recited at funerals. Some recent research into Ancient Hebrew has suggested that the phrase Shadow of Death could also be interepreted as darkest shadow—sp there's a much wider application— God is not only helps us in death, but any terrible event: a child with a drug addiction, dashed dreams, or, of course, death itself. What is the shepherd's rod? Well, in English a rod is like a pole, or it can be like a club, with which he would beat back his wild animals. In fact, the word rod and it actually comes from an Proto-German word for club. The staff, or the shepherd's crook, by contrast, is what he would use to guide his own sheep when they were in danger of wandering off course. You know, English is a funny language. There is another word, rood, that comes from that comes from another Old English word for pole. But this other word, rood, can also mean a crucifix. In fact, one of the earliest poems in English is called the Dream of the Rood, in which a man dreams that he has a conversation with the cross of Christ. When I looked up the words online I couldn't believe that the word rood, was not etymologically related to the word rod. But, nevertheless, in this instance there is a theological link: What is the ultimate source of our confidence in God? How has he shown himself capable of beating back the enemies who would steal, kill, and destroy his flock? 1 Corinthians says that the final (the greatest ?) enemy to be destroyed is death. How has God defeated this enemy? He has triumphed over death through the cross of Christ. The shepherd's rod is the Saviour's rood. The cross of Christ is the rod by which God beats back our every foe. And now seems like a good time to ask a question. The psalm begins “YHWH is my shepherd.” How do you think the early Jewish community would have thought about Jesus declaring “I am the Good Shepherd.”? It would have been a subtle, but undeniable way of claiming that he was, in fact, God. For "you were like sheep going astray," but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. 1 Peter 2:25 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 will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the lord forever. For some of you it will feel like we have been avoiding an obvious question about God's provisions. Namely, what about the sheep of God's flock who have not gone astray, and yet still suffer. Here Christians have a deeper answer that what David himself would have been able to articulate, even though I think this poem shows that he was pointing us in this direction. We have God's presence with us. This is why St. Paul was able to say “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain,” and “If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.” Paul knows that even death is not enough to take us from the presence of the lord, so every other fact about his personal well-being is of negligible importance. But is it realistic to say that we can be satisfied in the lord despite our current hardships? I want to share with you the story of Tom who used to make it his habit to visit shut-ins in nursing homes in an attempt to bring a bit of cheer and love into their lives. One day he met a woman whom he could never forget: As I neared the end of [the] hallway, I saw an old woman strapped up in a wheelchair. Her face was an absolute horror. The empty stare and white pupils of her eyes told me that she was blind. The large hearing aid over one ear told me that she was almost deaf. One side of her face was being eaten by cancer. There was a discoloured and running sore covering part of one cheek, and it had pushed her nose to one side, dropped one eye, and distorted her jaw so that what should have been the corner of her mouth was the bottom of her mouth. As a consequence, she drooled constantly.… I also learned later that this woman was eighty-nine years old and that she had been bedridden, blind, nearly deaf, and alone, for twenty-five years. This was Mabel. I don’t know why I spoke to her—she looked less likely to respond than most of the people I saw in that hallway. But I put a flower in her hand and said, “Here is a flower for you. Happy Mother’s Day.” She held the flower up to her face and tried to smell it, and then she spoke. And much to my surprise, her words, although somewhat garbled because of her deformity, were obviously produced by a clear mind. She said, “Thank you. It’s lovely. But can I give it to someone else? I can’t see it, you know, I’m blind.” I said, “Of course,” and I pushed her in her chair back down the hallway to a place where I thought I could find some alert patients. I found one, and I stopped the chair. Mabel held out the flower and said, “Here, this is from Jesus.” Tom and Mabel became friends over the next few years, and Tom began to realize that he was no longer helping Mabel, but she was helping him. He began to take notes on what she said. After a stressful week, Tom went to Mabel and asked her, “Mabel, what do you think about as you lie here all day?” She replied, “I think about my Jesus.” I sat there and thought for a moment about the difficulty, for me, to think about Jesus for even five minutes, and I asked, “What do you think about Jesus?” She replied slowly and deliberately as I wrote. And this is what she said: I think how good He’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know … I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied.… Lots of folks would think I’m kind of old-fashioned. But I don’t care. I’d rather have Jesus. He’s all the world to me.” And then Mabel began to sing an old hymn: Jesus is all the world to me, My life, my joy, my all. He is my strength from day to day, Without him I would fall. When I am sad, to him I go, No other one can cheer me so. When I am sad, He makes me glad. He’s my friend. This is not fiction. Incredible as it may seem, a human being really lived like this. I know. I knew her. How could she do it? Seconds ticked and minutes crawled, and so did days and weeks and months and years of pain without human company and without an explanation of why it was all happening—and she lay there and sang hymns. How could she do it? The answer, I think, is that Mabel had something that you and I don’t have much of. She had power. Lying there in that bed, unable to move, unable to see, unable to hear, unable to talk to anyone, she had incredible power.