Difference between revisions of "Sermon for October 2nd, 2016"

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Psalm 23

A Psalm of David.

1 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
2  He makes me lie down in green pastures;
  he leads me beside still waters;
3  he restores my soul.
  He leads me in right paths
   for his name’s sake.
4 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.
5 You prepare a table before me
   in the presence of my enemies;
  you anoint my head with oil;
   my cup overflows.
6 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.

Selah: Ancient Songs Our Souls Still Sing

A good shepherd was looking after his sheep by the side of a deserted road. Suddenly a brand new Porsche screeches to a halt. The driver gets out--he's a young man dressed in an Armani suit, Ray-Ban sunglasses, Apple watch, Patent leather shoes, designer shirt, with a Versace tie. He says to the shepherd 'If I can guess how many sheep you have, can I keep one?' The shepherd looks at the large flock of sheep and says 'Okay'.

The young man takes a few snapshots with his cell phone, uploads them to a NASA website, scans the field using satellite technology, opens a database in the cloud linked to 60 Excel tables, filled with logarithms and pivot tables, then downloads a 150 page report to his iPad. He studies the reports and says to the shepherd 'You have 1,586 sheep'.

The shepherd replies, 'That's correct. You can have the pick of my flock.' The young man packs away all his equipment, looks at the flock, chooses one and puts it into the back of the Porsche. Right as he is about to leave, the Shepherd says, 'Wait! If I can guess what your profession is will you return the animal to me?' The young man thinks for a minute and says 'Okay'.

The shepherd says 'You are a Management Consultant'. The young man says 'Correct, how did you know?' The Shepherd replied, 'Simple. You came here without being invited, you charged me a fee for something I already knew, and you don't understand a thing about my business. - Now, can I have my dog back, please?

The 23rd Psalm is one we all think we know pretty well. And we do, to an extent. We hear the words spoken at just about every funeral we go to; they are set to the music of countless hymns, they are printed on placards, refrigerator magnets, embroidered pillowcases, and wall hangings. Next to the Lord's Prayer and John 3:16, it's probably the Bible verse we are most likely to know by heart.

And yet, I wonder sometimes, do we really *know* this psalm? Or do we mistake familiarity for understanding? Psalm 23 is not quaint. It is powerful and profound, with a simplicity that belies its depth, its mystery, and its message. My hope is that today, we can look past the pretty picture frame that we often put this psalm in, and rediscover the bold and beautiful message that made this Psalm so famous in the first place.

Psalm 23 is described in the attribution as a "Psalm of David." We have no way of knowing whether David actually wrote this psalm, or whether it was written "in the style of" David, in his honor, in his memory--like English prepositions, Hebrew prepositions can be pretty interchangeable, so this could also be translated a "Psalm to David," or a "Psalm for David." Regardless, the connection with David is not accidental. David was the Shepherd boy who became a King. This psalm tracks with David's life journey, beginning in the shepherd's pasture and ending at the royal banquet table.

Verse 1: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. In English, that's a pretty simple statement at nine words. In Hebrew, it's just four. יְהוָ֥ה רֹ֝עִ֗י לֹ֣א אֶחְסָֽר (yhwh roi lo ehsar). God, my-shepherd--no emptiness. Except emptiness is a verb. No emptying, no diminishing, no wanting or lacking. I like how Presbyterian pastor Eugene Peterson puts it in his translation of the Bible, the Message. He says, "God, my shepherd, I don't need a thing.

Clearly, David (or whomever wrote this psalm) was not American. We want everything. We need everything. Every commercial, every billboard, and every advertisement reminds us how horribly unhappy and incomplete our lives are without this one more thing...which can be yours today for this limited-time offer of just $99.99 if you pick up that phone and dial right now--operators are standing by!

And we get so busy chasing all the money we need to chase all those things we need, that we think will somehow buy us more time to chase more money and more things, especially for our children, because we want them to grow up and have more money so they can buy more things, and maybe someday when we finally have enough we can stop all this craziness, but the more we get, the more we are told we need in order to keep what we already got, and it goes on and on and on and...

Do you know why I always read this verse to people who are about to die? It's because they're the only ones in our culture who can actually understand it. Only at the very end, when our time is up, do we realize how utterly pointless were all those things we thought we wanted. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Verse 2: He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters;