Eastertide
Psalm 23
There are probably no other chapters of the Bible that any of us know by heart other than the 23rd psalm. You may remember snippets of some other psalm, or a cluster of verses, but I’m betting that there is no other chapter that so many of us can still – to this day – recite from memory.
Shall we try it? If you need help, it’s in your order of worship. The psalm there is in the King James Version, since that’s the version I’m guessing many of memorized it in.
What is it about this psalm? Why is it the only Biblical passage most of us can recite from memory? Several summers ago, I worked as a chaplain intern at Mt. Diablo Medical Center in Concord. As part of that job, I had to make – as we interns referred to them – “cold calls.” I would walk into a patient’s hospital room and strike up a conversation with them, hoping that I could be, in some small way, spiritually useful.The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I
will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
It was a very hard thing to do. I had no idea what I was going to encounter as I walked into a patient’s room – a person sitting up, perkily eating her tray of food? Or a man halfway to death, barely conscious, coiled up on the bed? Someone who wanted me to be there or someone who barely tolerated my presence?
One day, I started up a conversation with a woman who was going in for surgery in a few minutes. I can’t remember the nature of the surgery – it wasn’t life-threatening, but it wasn’t a tonsillectomy either. But it was clear that she was scared, as are most people who are awaiting surgery. We talked a bit, and I held her hand. She was still obviously frightened, and I felt pretty useless. Finally, it was time to go. I really wanted to leave her with some comforting image, some word of solace. And that’s when it came to me… “Do you want me to say the 23rd psalm?” I asked. Tears appeared in her eyes, and she nodded yes. I began, and almost immediately, she started saying it with me. By the end, it was clear that the psalm had worked its spiritual magic in her soul. She was at peace. After that, I recited the 23rd psalm with many people: families standing around the bed of a dying mother and grandmother, a person who had just received a diagnosis of cancer. It never failed to offer solace.
What is it about this psalm that can calm our fears? That can offer us comfort when nothing else can? It’s not just Christians who love it, by the way. Rabbi Harold Kushner, who wrote a book on the 23rd Psalm a few years ago, says that no matter how grievous a funeral was, no matter how tragic a memorial service, if he just started to recite he familiar words of this Psalm, it “tranquilized the congregation.” He referred to it often in the months after September 11. In fact, he says that “in just a mere 57 words of Hebrew, the author of the 23rd Psalm gives us a more practical theology than we can find in many books.”[1]
I have turned to this psalm myself as much as anybody. Even when I was going through a time of deep doubt and cynicism about the Christian faith, I would – almost reluctantly – find comfort in these words in times of distress or anxiety. What is it about this psalm? As I read and reread it this week, trying to figure out its magic, I wasn’t able to get past the first verse. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” The Lord is my shepherd – OK, I have no difficulty with that. But “I shall not want.” Excuse me?
Rabbi Kushner tells the story of a minister who sat by the bed of a dying woman. Having no words of his own – much like me – he took her hand and began reciting the 23rd Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” At which point, the woman opened her eyes for a moment and weakly said: “But I do want!” I’m really glad no one said that to me when I was a hospital chaplain, because at the time I’m not sure what I would have done with it.
Of course, we want. That woman wanted not to die. She wanted to see her grandchildren grow up. Of course, we want. We want to be healthy. We want to be healed. We want the pain – whether physical, emotional or spiritual – to go away. Of course, we want. We want our children to find their heart’s desires, we want our parents to not have to suffer as their bodies age and die. We want a lot of things, and having God or Jesus as our shepherd does not mean that all those wants are going to be supplied. Children die young. Our parents suffer. We will see many of our deepest dreams go unfulfilled. It seems that, rather than providing solace, the first sentence of this psalm should make us depressed – or angry. No, none of us is given all we want, so please don’t throw that “magic God” stuff in my face.
But is supplying our wants really what is promised here? Kushner says the original Hebrew of this verse is more accurately captured by some more recent translations, such as: “The Lord is my shepherd. What more do I need?” It’s a subtle shift, but it makes me ask a subtly different question. Of course, we want. We want many things, and none of those things are guaranteed to us. But what do we really need?
We must not need safety, protection, the assurance that everything is going to be alright for us and our loved ones. Because we don’t get that. And, indeed, I don’t think the psalm is promising that. The Good Shepherd does not keep the psalmist out of the valley of the shadow of death. No, the person who wrote this psalm had to walk through it. He or she had to walk through the death of a loved one, or the betrayal of friends, or loneliness or fear. There was no protection from that. The Good Shepherd does not keep the psalmist’s enemies away—no, they are there, watching as the psalmist is fed from God’s table. But they are there. The Good Shepherd does not even keep the psalmist away from the presence of evil – evil is present, it’s just that the psalmist doesn’t fear it. There’s no protection here. So what is there? What do we really need that this psalm offers?
Some of you are familiar with the name of William Sloane Coffin, who died two years ago. He is often talked about in the same breath as Martin Luther King, Jr., as one of the great moral leaders of our country. He was a relentless activist for peace and justice, opposed U.S. military intervention from Vietnam to the Iraq War and was an ardent supporter of LGBT rights long before other clergy were. He’s also one of the most eloquent preachers I’ve read. His most requested sermon is a eulogy he gave at Riverside Church in New York City for his beloved son, Alex, only 10 days after Alex was killed in a car accident.
“As almost all of you know,” that eulogy begins, “a week ago last Monday night, driving in a terrible storm, my son – Alexander—who to his friends was a real day-brightener, and to his family was ‘fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky’ – my 24-year-old Alexander, who enjoyed beating his old man at every game and in every race, beat his father to the grave.”[2]
“Immediately after such a tragedy, people must come to your rescue,” he said. “People who only want to hold your hand, not to quote anybody or even say anything, people who simply bring food and flowers – the basics of beauty and life – people who sign letters simply, ‘Your brokenhearted sister.’” In the eulogy, he contrasted those people with others – often his own pastoral colleagues -- who quoted some verse from Scripture as a way of offering comfort that was, he says, only thinly disguised self-protection – as a way to pretty up a situation whose bleakness they simply couldn’t face. “Like God herself,” Coffin said, “Scripture is not around for anyone’s protection, just for everyone’s unending support. That’s what hundreds of you understood so beautifully. You gave me what God gives all of us – minimum protection, maximum support. I swear to you, I wouldn’t be standing here were I not upheld.”
Minimum protection, maximum support. This is what we are promised, says this great man of the faith, and I believe he is right. And this is what we are promised in this great psalm. What we need is not for anything bad to ever happen. What we need is the assurance that we will not be utterly destroyed by the things that do happen. What we need is not protection from pain and loss – not even God can give that – but assurance that pain and loss do not need to define our lives forever, that on the other side of the valley of the shadow of death there is land of light and warmth. What we need is to know that, even as we walk through that valley, we are being accompanied by someone who is walking with us, grieving with us. “My own consolation,” William Coffin said in his eulogy, “was in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex die; that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God’s heart was the first of all our hearts to break.” Minimum protection. Maximum support.
God will not – God can not, I think – protect us from pain and loss, but this psalm assures us that we will survive the worst life, and death, can bring us. We will hurt, but we will heal. We will grieve, but we will grow whole again. For God – and God’s people – are surely with us. Amen.
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[1] From The Lord is my Shepherd: Healing Wisdom of the 23rd Psalm.
[2] See http://www.pbs.org/now/society/eulogy.html.