In God’s Care
Psalm23
Rev. John P. Wesley
April 25, 2010
Late one morning I was called to meet a doctor on one of the floors at the UK Medical Center. I was serving as a chaplain, working on a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education. The doctor met me at the door to a patient’s room. Before walking away he quickly briefed me. All had been done. The patient was dying. They needed God’s help now, not his.
I knocked and heard a muffled voice. When I entered I saw a young woman lying in the bed. She appeared to be unconscious. A man sat by the bedside, his hand in hers. An older woman was nearby. The morning sunlight, filtering through the window seemed an intrusion in this solemn room and I felt out of place, a stranger, infringing on this most private moment. In the next few minutes I was told this wife and daughter had been sick for a number of months. She’d gone through many treatments, suffered a great deal. She’d been unconscious for several days and the doctor’s said it was just a matter of time. They had said their goodbyes, had tried to release this wife and daughter from her body of pain. But she seemed to be holding on.
So what could I say? How could I enter into this holy, precious space as a stranger in a way that might bring comfort and strength? I had not words that could make things better, no wisdom to share. But I did have these words that I’d learned in a Sunday School class many years earlier. So I softly recalled the 23rd Psalm, and when I finished, I offered a prayer of surrender and trust in the God who brought Jesus Christ through the valley of shadows. And when I’d finished something seemed to have changed in the young woman. She never regained consciousness, but the tension left her face. Her breathing grew shallower, and then she was gone.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve leaned heavily on Psalm 23 to give comfort and peace during trying and difficult times. These ancient words never grow old. Even if we’ve never seen a sheep or shepherd, these words have a calming, soothing affect on those who are going through hard and difficult valleys. For those who are dying there is the reminder that the Good Shepherd will not leave us alone but will walk with us through the shadows. And for those who have suffered a great loss, for those whose loved one has died, comfort is found in the reminder that goodness and mercy are found in the house of the Lord forever. For those in distress this psalm is like a peaceful mantra capable of centering us in God and transforming our inner being. There is no question in my mind that this Psalm belongs front and center when we are facing death or when we are dealing with grief.
But is that the only place where this Psalm can speak with authority? Is it just a Psalm of death or does it have something positive to say about life? Lisa Davidson who used to teach Old Testament at Lexington Theological Seminary and is now at Lynchburg College, makes an argument that this psalm is more about life in this world than the next. She says most translators declare that the Shepherd restores our souls. But basing her comments on a Jewish understanding of life and on the Hebrew word used, she says a more accurate translation is that God renews our life. The purpose of this psalm isn’t just to remind us that the Good Shepherd can restore our souls in another life, but it is to remind us that God wants to be about the business of renewing our lives again and again in this world. And to that end God provides for us the things needed for that renewal.
Phillip Keller, in his book A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, writes, "It is almost impossible for (sheep) to lie down unless (certain) requirements are met". Keller explains that before sheep will lie down they need to be free of 4 things. Because of their timidity, sheep "refuse to lie down unless they are free of all fear . . . Sheep will not lie down unless they are free from friction with other (sheep within the flock). If tormented by flies or parasites, sheep will not lie down . . . Lastly, sheep will not lie down as long as they feel in need of finding food" Now Phillip Keller isn’t just another preacher writing a book. He was a shepherd and he understood that the 23rd Psalm was written to renew life in this world. In the Psalm the needs of the sheep are met. The Good Shepherd protects and guides with rod and staff. The Good Shepherd creates an environment where all sheep have sufficient grass and water. The Good Shepherd anoints the head of the sheep with oil, an old trick that kept the flies and gnats from buzzing around the face and getting into the eyes. And the Good Shepherd makes sure that food has been provided for all. Mirrored in this psalm is the care God intends capable of giving us life and renewing that life after we have lost our way.
This is a wonderful psalm when we are feeling like sheep, when we feel we need someone to guide or shepherd us. But let’s be truthful this morning. While we may like the image of the Good shepherd, there is something inside us that rebels against the image of being sheep. It sounds so weak, so helpless, so dependent and needy. And few of us want to apply those images to ourselves. Rather we like to think of ourselves as strong and self-sufficient. When faced with adversity we push on believing that with a little more work and a lot more patience we can be victorious. William Henley lived during the late 1800’s. He was a writer and poet. He contracted tuberculosis at a young age. It settled into his bones and caused him to have a leg amputated. He was sickly most of his life. But he had such an indomitable spirit that many of the great writers of his era called him friend. He was a large chested man who moved along swiftly on his wooden leg, making a large noise as he moved down the street. Robert Louis Stevensen said he fashioned the character Long John Silver after William Henley.
Henley faced his adversity with strength and vigor, unwilling to surrender his life to his illnesses. We know him for his most read, best loved poem Invictus. When Nelson Mandela was in prison for thirty years in South Africa, this poem kept him sane.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Now that causes us to stand a little straighter, to feel a little bolder. Who’s afraid of the challenges of life? Bring them on. We are not sheep. We are masters of our own fate, captains of our own soul. So we dig in and we work harder and we burn the candle at both ends and we push aside anyone who gets in our way. We look at ourselves in the mirror and we see conquers, champions, victors one and all. It feels so good.
But the psalmist just lowers his voice and says, “Sheep.” And Jesus raises his voice and says, “My sheep.” This is not to say that we are not to be strong when facing adversity. This is not to say we aren’t to stand tall when the storms come our way. But the source of our courage, the place where we go for hope isn’t in our own ingenuity and skill, but it is in knowing how God sees us. We are in the care of the one who made the universe, in the hands of a creator who has shown over and over again that we are God’s delight.
This image of sheep is not intended to reflect our weakness but our greatest strength. We belong to a Shepherd who is capable of keeping us through the small problems and the large ones. God has acted down through history in a way that ought to make us view ourselves differently, as creatures precious in God’s sight.
Sweet Honey in the Rock is a performing group of Black Women that been together for 36 years. They started in Washington, D.C. as an a cappella that wanted to share rich stories from their history and culture, stories that could renew hope and life in others. One of their songs is entitled “No Mirrors in My Nana’s House.” One of the singers explained how this song was created. One of her friends was telling her about growing up in a very poor neighborhood, and she grew up in her grandmother’s house and she said, “You know, in my nana’s house there were no mirrors.”
Her friend asked her, “Well, how did you know what you looked like?”
“Well,” she said, ‘my nana told me. Every morning I would get up and get dressed and comb my hair, and then I would go to nana and I would say, ‘How do I look?’ And she would tell me. She would tell me I was beautiful. She said my skin was smooth and golden brown, kissed by the sun, and she said my eyes shone like silver moonbeams. In my nana’s house, there were no mirrors, so I saw myself though my nana’s eyes who loved me and the beauty of everything was in her eyes.”
The psalmist tells us we are in God’s care. The picture is painted and we are being led by the One who knows the way through every dark valley. We may be sheep, but not ordinary sheep. We are prized sheep. We are the delight of the shepherd’s eye. We are worth so much that the shepherd is willing to lay his own life down to protect us. We are in God’s care. But do we believe it? That’s the question that challenges us today. Do we believe that we are in the hand of God and nothing can snatch us out?
A few years ago I knew someone who went through a real battle with anorexia and other eating disorders. When I looked at her I saw a beautiful woman, a skilled professional, a great athlete, a person blessed with a lot of friends and a family that cared so much about her. But she couldn’t see any of that. She saw herself as faulted. She punished herself by withholding food. No one really knew what was going on until she had damaged her liver and other organs and almost died.
I appeared she had so much, but she could hear that and it almost cost her life.
God renews our life, offering us great love, great guidance, great hope. Can we hear God words today? Can we be reformed through surrender to his care?
