I Shall Not Want. I Wish.

Text: Psalm 23
Other texts: Jeremiah 23:1-6, Mark 6:30-34

George Orwell’s classic novel, Animal Farm, was in the news the past couple of days. That’s because Amazon.com had suddenly and without notice or explanation deleted that book from all the Kindle ebook readers in the world. They also removed another Orwell classic, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Both these books deal with how pathological and repressive societies develop. And how easily. (Some people find Amazon’s actions ironic.)

In Animal Farm the barnyard animals find themselves in control of a farm without a farmer. The story is about many things. One of those things is what might happen when people find themselves without political and moral guidance. The animals long for leadership in the face of uncertainty. Yet false leaders emerge. The result is evil chaos. The good of the community is betrayed, and people suffer.

This is not a new story. The prophet Jeremiah spoke out against kings who were not kingly, shepherds who abandoned their sheep as Jeremiah puts it. In the end, God gets fed up and intervenes, tossing all the phonies out. Though he says “woe to the shepherds,” it would have been clear then and it seems clear to us now that God is talking about rulers, not shepherds, and people, not sheep.

People need guidance. This need seems built into us. Discussions of politics and the best form of governance are serious. How can we live so that our safety and happiness, as it says in the Declaration of Independence, can most likely be assured. In the end, the arguments become theological. Are human beings basically good or basically evil? How are freedom and obedience related? And in the end, in whom do we put our trust?

Today’s psalm is the twenty-third. The best-known passage in the Bible, someone has called it. Though often read at funerals, it is about life rather than death. And it is especially about in whom we trust for safety and happiness.

It answers the question right off the bat, in the very first words: The Lord is my shepherd. In these words we have a small and complete theology. God, people, and the relationship between the two. It is a capsule summary of the story of the Bible. Let’s look closer.

The Lord. This is an unfortunate translation. The word “lord” in English comes from nobility. A lord is a male member of the ruling class. A lord is privileged and powerful. The word has little or nothing to do with God.

The word does not appear here in the twenty-third psalm. What does appear here is the name of God. God has a name. God’s name appears a lot in the Bible (about 6,800 times), but out of respect for God and for the commandment not to use God’s name in vain, most Jews and many others including Christians do not mention God’s name out loud. When the Hebrew characters for God’s name appear in the Bible, most English translations instead put the word Lord. Sometimes they put the word in small caps, so you can tell it means God’s name and not a reference to nobility. The Bible that is in the pews here does that. And if you look at the 23rd psalm, you’ll see that it says is my shepherd.

As an aside: in the New Testament the word Lord is a Greek word that means “sir.” Kyrios. There are lots of sirs in the New Testament, but again, this is not a religious word. When people call Jesus Lord, they are showing him respect, not much different than if you were to call someone sir. Jesus was a sir, but not all sirs where the son of God. We need to remember that the English word Lord has become a religious word, but that it was not especially so when the Bible was written.

Back to the psalm. Let’s pretend that God’s name is Fred. Then the 23rd psalm would start, “Fred is my shepherd.” I don’t mean to be flippant here. But I want you to see how different it might be to refer to God your shepherd by name rather than by God’s title or position. This is not just some god you are talking about, but this particular God whom you call by name. It is a different thing.

The Lord is my shepherd. The relationship between me and God is ambiguous here. The ambiguity is perhaps in all our dealings with God. Is this psalm mostly about me or is it mostly about God? That is, am I singing this psalm because I am so blessed, or am I singing it because God is so great? Is this me-centered or God-centered? Are we saying, let me tell you about me, I have a shepherd: it is God. Or are we saying, let me tell you about God: I am in God’s flock.

Who is doing the hiring here? Who takes the lead in our relationship with God? Are we the suitor, the caller, the agent, the petitioner? Or are we the pursued, the called, the patient, and the obedient ones?

It is like the story that I’m sure you know about the dog and cat. The dog says, my owner feeds me and shelters me and takes care of me when I am sick and plays with me. My owner must be god. The cat says, me owner feeds me and shelters me and takes care of me when I am sick and plays with me. I must be God.

Theologically the question is: are we blessed because of something about us or because of something about God?

The Lord is my shepherd. A shepherd was and still is a lowly occupation. Not one that required great power or management skills. In fact, this verse is almost an oxymoron. Lords are great. Shepherds are humble. What are they doing in the same sentence?

A shepherd is not an owner. A shepherd is not a boss. A shepherd is not a president: no shepherd is elected by the sheep. The shepherd is not one of the sheep with an advanced degree. The shepherd is not an attorney or admiral or spokesperson. Yet the shepherd is the Biblical metaphor for king. And that is because the proper role of kings, like the role of shepherds, is to ensure the life and safety of the sheep. A king’s job is to serve the people, just as a shepherd’s job is to serve the sheep. When God speaks so angrily in Jeremiah, it is because the kings have not attended to the people, it says, and the people have suffered. They are dismayed, and fearful, and lost.

In the 23rd psalm, God the shepherd provides all that is necessary for life. Pastures full of food for the hungry, clear water for the thirsty. Rest for the weary. The right paths on which the shepherd guides us keep us safe.

This psalm is intensely comforting because it is a picture of complete dependence on God and complete trust in God. The writer of this psalm seems to be happy and safe. We who are so often anxious and fearful in spite of everything envy the writer. We who are so full of sometimes desperate longing really long for being free of want. The Lord is my shepherd, the psalm says. I lack nothing.

This sounds so comforting yet so not the way things seem to work. Pasture and water and rest sound bucolic but fantastically inadequate. The world is competitive. Wolves roam about, sometimes in sheep’s clothing. Our rulers are human, after all, and some are pretty good and some not so good, but none are perfect.

In the end, God pursues us: surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. The writer is being pursued by God, the words say. The action starts with the shepherd. It is God who gathers the sheep, it says in Jeremiah. It is not the sheep who call on God. It is God who calls them into God’s house, as a good parent calls his or her children home. It is God who sees the sheep need help, and comes to help them. In the Gospel reading, it is Jesus who sees that the people are without a shepherd, and has compassion for them.

The story of this psalm is the story of human longing. We long for a good shepherd to attend to us. To love us, really. We long for peace and happiness and safety. In spite of all our riches and skills and knowledge, we know from experience that we will not find this on our own. We long for a guide we can trust. Who is trustworthy.

The story of the Bible is the story of our search for that faithful guide. And of our fretful hope that God is that good shepherd. And of our prayers that that good shepherd will patiently search for us until we are found.