· Isaiah 25:1-9
· Psalm 23 (5)
· Philippians 4:1-9
· Matthew 22:1-14
"The Lord is my shepherd." We usually hear this psalm at funerals, but it is my favourite prayer for daily living.
Many of us, when we pray, babble like pagans, saying "Lord give me more loot, a better job, a better relationship, better health, and for my friends also, we ask this in Jesus' name, amen." The psalmist doesn't. The guy who wrote this psalm was probably rich and didn't have to grow, kill or cook his own food, but still he lived in a time when life expectancy was about 35 years; most babies did not live to five years of age; there was no medicine for anything, not even for a headache; and his country was almost always at war. Does he say "Lord give me a long life and lots of loot"? No.
In his troubles, the psalmist writes "the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." There are various translations: "I shall not be in want", "I shall not be in need". Notice that we say "shall", not "will." I looked up "shall" in the Oxford dictionary and it says "in the first person, expressing emphatic intention; in the 2nd or 3rd person, expressing a strong assertion, command or duty." It's not just that we "will" not be in need, but because the Lord is our shepherd, we have a duty or emphatic intention not to be in want or need.
"Want" and "need" are much the same in this case, referring to lack of something rather than desire, but we could also think of it for ourselves as "I shall not desire more." We certainly do not need more, no matter how much we ask from the Lord. We Canadians are the richest people the world has ever seen. We have so much food, we are eating ourselves to death. We have pills for almost every ailment or suffering we can even name. We can transplant internal organs! People with literally no heart can live for years! We survive stroke, cancer, leprosy, plague, cholera and yellow fever! Our houses are warm in winter, air-conditioned in summer, with hot and cold running water, sewer, electricity, dozens of forms of entertainment, refrigerators and freezers for our food, and fire extinguishers. We have cars to travel in speed and comfort on beautiful roads. We have not had a war on our soil in two hundred years, something that I doubt ever happened to Israel. We are the richest, fattest, most pampered people the world has ever seen. We do not need anything. We are not in need, and we shall not be in need. We shall not find fault with what we have and ask the Lord for more. Much less shall we want more from the Lord.
The first verse continues, "he makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters." Notice this is in the present tense. Although we often use this psalm at funerals and fancy that the "green pastures" are the afterlife, the psalmist did not say "he will make me lie down". No, he does, right now, present tense, make me lie down in green pastures. What we have, right now, is the green pastures, and what the psalmist had, with the high infant mortality, the wars, the absence of sewers and medicine, that was his green pastures, and he was not in need of more, nor did he want more.
Then we say, "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death", and we think that this life is the valley of the shadow of death. But it isn't. In fact, we can read it as "though I am walking through the valley", but we could also read "even if I was to walk through the valley." We can think of our present condition as the valley of the shadow of death, or we can think of the worst thing that could happen to us as said valley. In fact, because both are in the present tense, we can consider that the green pastures and the valley of the shadow of death are really one and the same. In the green pastures, in God's perfect world, there is also suffering; there is also the valley of the shadow of death. But then again, in the valley of the shadow of death, in the deepest pit of despair, there also are the green pastures of God's perfect world. Read Corrie Ten Boom and see.
Either way, the psalmist does not ask for deliverance from this suffering. "I shall fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me." Again, "shall". I emphatically intend not to fear any evil. The Lord is with me. Right here, right now, in the valley of the shadow of death and/or in the green pastures, the Lord is with me, and he comforts me. And again, "you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil, and my cup is running over." Notice it doesn't say, "when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you will beam me out of it to the green pastures, and you will smite my enemies and then set a table before me." No, the psalmist does not ask for relief from his suffering. In his suffering, the Lord comforts him, and in the very presence of his enemies, the Lord sets a table before him and his cup is running over. Right in the middle of our sufferings, be they immense or trivial, the Lord is with us, comforting us and caring for us, and our cup runneth over. Again, read Corrie Ten Boom and see how those who really suffer ask less from the Lord than you do in your wealth and ease.
And then there is the line most people don't even remember: "you restore my soul, O Lord, and guide me along right pathways for your name's sake." Again, this is right now, here amid our sufferings in the green pastures in the valley of the shadow of death. Right now, God restores our soul. God lifts us up. And God leads us along the right pathways. Does the psalmist say "remove my sins from me"? No, he says "you guide me along right pathways." God shows us the right way. Jesus Christ came to us in person to show and explain the right pathways. But it is for us to walk them. The Lord does not remove our sins any more than he removes our sufferings. He guides us. He shows us the way. We choose to follow or to stray; we make the effort to walk the right pathways, or not. The Lord will not remove our sins: we ourselves must struggle against our sins and win; and meanwhile the Lord prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies, our temptations, our stumbling blocks.
This is a psalm of trust, which we use in our darkest times, and yet it says nothing about removing our sins or our sufferings, about giving us more, about granting our requests. What it tells us is that we already have God's perfect world, complete with suffering, and as we walk through it, we emphatically choose not to crave more than we have, and we make the choice to follow the right pathways that God shows us; and God is with us, comforting us, restoring our souls, leading us and feeding us as we need, not as we want. And as we do so, "surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
No comments:
Post a Comment