A Psalm of David
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. – Psalm 23
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Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. 37 At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. 38 Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, “Please come to us without delay.” 39 So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. 40 Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. 41 He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. 42 This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. 43 Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner. – Acts 9:36-43
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After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. 10 They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 11 And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15 For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. 16 They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; 17 for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” – Revelation 7:9-17
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We have some truly wonderful scripture readings this morning – passages that can inspire, uplift, and encourage us. The story of Dorcas from the book of Acts is especially sweet to hear on Mothers’ Day, and all the wonderful things she did for her family and community.
But today I’d like to focus on Psalm 23 for three reasons:
- We’re still in the Easter season, and this psalm is directly related to Easter because it speaks of the Messiah;
- I think too often we only hear Psalm 23 at funerals – and while it’s very meaningful to be reminded of these words when someone we love has passed, it’s a shame to only read it at funerals, because these words are meant for the living! And…
- the job of a shepherd and the job of a good mother are very similar. Shepherds guide, feed, protect, lead, care for, and defend the sheep; and that’s also what a good mother does for her children.
One thing I want to point out about Psalm 23 before we dig into it: Psalm 23 is found in our Bibles between Psalm 22 and Psalm 24. (I know you all have figured that much out!) But here’s the thing: the numbering of the Psalms, like the numbering chapters and verses throughout the Bible, was done centuries ago, more for convenience than anything else. The original books of the Bible, in their original languages, didn’t even have periods at the ends of sentences let alone verse numbers!
The chapter and verse numbers were developed over time in an almost random way. But in this particular case, the numbering and order of Psalms 22, 23, and 24 turns out to have great meaning, one that theologians have remarked over for centuries:
- Psalm 22 is a prophecy of the crucifixion, and it describes in detail a form of execution that hadn’t been invented yet, and would not be invented until the Roman Empire came about. It was a Roman form of execution.
- Psalm 24 is a prophecy of the coronation of the heavenly king, the Messiah: a window into our eternal future.
- And sandwiched in between these two passionate and descriptive psalms is this quiet green pasture of Psalm 23, that tells our story – how God cares for, and has cared for, us – God’s people.
God is always with us. Jesus’ name – Emmanuel – means “God with us”. It is said that John Wesley’s dying words were, “The best of all is, God is with us.” It doesn’t mean that life is easy or perfect but it does mean no matter what happens, we are never alone. We are never without someone who cares for and loves us. We live in between the cross and the crown, and we are cared for here by our Good Shepherd.
In our culture today most of us don’t have a whole lot of experience with shepherds or sheep. Just curious: how many of us here have ever met a shepherd? How many of us have ever touched a sheep? For those of us who have met a sheep, how many of us have tried to get a sheep to move?
I can remember a number of years ago an episode of The Amazing Race, one of the tasks the competitors were given was to move (I think it was) three sheep from one end of a pasture to the other. It was clear none of the competitors had ever met a sheep! Sheep don’t follow instructions, and they won’t move unless they think there’s a reason to… unless you happen to be the shepherd. The sheep know the voice of the one who cares for them.
For those of us who, like myself, have extremely limited experience with sheep, the Bible tells us a good bit about sheep and about shepherds. Here are just a few of the sheep-related and shepherd-related passages in scripture:
- The first mention of the word ‘shepherd’ in the Bible is made by Jacob on his deathbed, when he is blessing his son Joseph. Jacob describes God as being “my shepherd all my life to this day” and he says that Joseph has been blessed by the same God.
- In Psalm 28, the psalmist prays to God: “save your people, and bless your heritage; be their shepherd, and carry them forever…”
- In Isaiah 40 we find a prophecy of the Messiah that we often hear at Christmas-time: “He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead [those who are with young.]”
- In Ezekiel 34 God makes these promises to his people: “I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep… says the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice. […] I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd.”
- In the New Testament, Jesus uses the word ‘shepherd’ to describe himself:
- John chapter 10: “The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. […] I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (We see some of the truth of this in the Old Testament when David describes how he used to tend the sheep: he would even attack bears and lions with nothing but a slingshot!)
- In Matthew 18 Jesus says: “If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine… and go in search of the one…? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. [Likewise] it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.”
- And in our passage from Revelation 7 today, it says: “They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
As we listen to our great Good Shepherd being described in Psalm 23, we hear good news – all the good things our shepherd brings to us. Verse 1: we lack for nothing. If Jesus our shepherd is with us, how will we be without anything we need?
By contrast, an American author I was reading recently pointed out that there’s a difference between needs and wants, and our entire American economic system is based on wants. That’s what advertising is all about: to convince us that we want something we never knew we needed. We want, and so we shop, and when we get what we wanted, we want the next thing! We are taught from childhood to want the new thing, the cool thing – and not just to want, but to have.
This author I was reading – his name is James Howell, he’s a United Methodist pastor down south –concludes that “the reason sheep need a shepherd is [because] sheep nibble themselves lost.” He says: “Leave a sheep without a shepherd, and he nibbles a bit of grass here, wanders over there for some more, sees a patch just past that rock; and before you know it the sheep is lost, or has fallen into a ravine, or been devoured by a wolf.”[1]
“Nibbling ourselves lost” – what a great word picture that is! Isn’t that really how it works – a little tiny bit at a time? Very few people abandon God in a hurry – most of the time it’s a little bit here and a little bit there.
So what is it that we really want? What really matters to us today? Or in the final hours of our lives? What we really need is just one thing: an intimate friendship with the Good Shepherd. We need to know Jesus is with us. We need to know that our home is with Jesus – in this world and the next.
Until the day the great kingdom comes, we need to know that Jesus is with us now. In the psalm, the Good Shepherd provides “green pasture” which is good food; and “still waters” – peaceful places to drink. Jesus restores our souls: he removes the grime and corruption of this world from us so that we can be in an intimate relationship with God.
Jesus leads us in ‘right paths’. This is so important to know. How many of us, when we look back over our lives, start to second-guess ourselves? We wonder sometimes where we might be if we had chosen a different school, or a different career, or a different neighborhood to live in? What might our lives have been like if we had delayed getting married for five years or delayed having kids for five years? There are so many possibilities… so many roads not taken that we might have chosen… the “what ifs” can become overwhelming. But we can be confident our Good Shepherd “leads us in right paths for his name’s sake.” The paths we walk may not be the easiest ones; but each path we are led on is the right path for us, to get us to where we need to be and who we need to be.
Even when we go through dark times: “through the darkest valley” – “through the valley of the shadow of death” – when we pass through places where we can’t see the future and where there may be danger – we don’t need to be afraid. Why? Because of the shepherd’s rod and staff: the rod to defend us against attackers, and the staff to guide us. Both of these give us comfort.
Our shepherd even sets a feast for us right where our enemies can see it! In the ancient world, hospitality and food were a matter of honor: Abraham even entertained God when he appeared outside his tent. Maybe this feast the Psalm talks about is a place where enemies will set aside differences to join in doing something together. Maybe after eating together we will no be longer enemies. The psalmist doesn’t say, but it’s a possibility.
Our good shepherd anoints our heads with oil. There are two meanings to this: the first, literally putting oil on the head of a sheep protects it against parasites (of all things!); oil help keep sheep healthy. And second, for us human sheep, it anoints us as children of the king. Back in ancient days, anointing with oil was a way to say “this is our next king or queen” – it marks us as members of God’s royal family.
With Jesus as our shepherd, we are safe. We will find goodness and mercy even in the darkest places. And we will be with Jesus – in the house of God – forever.
The phrase “surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life” is actually better translated “surely goodness and mercy shall pursue me…”. The word is the same word used to describe how the Egyptians chased after the Israelites when they were leaving Egypt. Goodness and mercy will chase me down. God will chase after us with goodness. God will not rest until we discover a place of goodness and mercy.
It may take us some time to get there. Some of us have seen or experienced very difficult things in our lives, and it takes time to heal, and it takes time to trust. But God will be there like a shepherd: feeding us, guiding us, protecting us… preparing us for a future of beauty beyond our imagining.
This week – as we celebrate Mothers Day – let us each make this psalm our own. Read it over a few times this week; pray its truth over our families and the people we love. And as always we say: “Thank you Lord for your word and your truth and your love.” AMEN.
Preached at Spencer United Methodist Church, May 8 2022
[1] James Howell, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-in-lent/commentary-on-psalm-23-23
Getting Started 
Thank you, Peg! It is true that we need to remember Psalm 23 at all times.