Br. Curtis Almquist

The Fourth Sunday in Lent

Psalm 23

Our psalm appointed for today, Psalm 23, is for many people the most familiar of the 150 psalms in the Hebrew Bible. Psalm 23 is the first psalm I memorized as a young child – maybe also true for you? – and it has been the last psalm I have prayed aloud with those who are “walking through the valley of the shadow of death.” The comfort and veracity of Psalm 23 has been tested across the millennia.

Jesus knew Psalm 23. Jesus would have known this psalm from his earliest childhood.[1] He would have sung Psalm 23 in his participation in high holy days at the Temple in Jerusalem, and in his weekly attendance in the synagogue on the sabbath.[2] Jesus grew up in a culture which lived much closer to the ground than we do. Sheepherding abounded in Palestine, sheep being a necessity for Temple sacrifice, an important meat in the Jewish diet, and their wool, a staple for clothing and blankets. There are more than three hundred references in the Bible to sheep and shepherds.

How Psalm 23 begins – “The Lord is my shepherd” – is not an exactly a compliment. Sheep are very dependent creatures and require an enormous amount of care and work from the shepherd, day and night.[3] Some years ago my Br. David and I spent several weeks living alongside a shepherd. The shepherd was constantly looking and listening, being attracted by a certain bleating sound, by the wandering of a stray sheep, by a limp, by a lamb’s being separated from their mother, by conflict shown in head-butting, by the circling of a hawk in the air or a predator on the ground. The ewe would allow our friend, the shepherd, to hold a young lamb. The shepherd’s perceptive care was never ending. We were in the presence of a good shepherd who knew the needs and vulnerabilities of the beloved flock of sheep.

Sheep are prone to get lost, and to be lost. No bearings. Quite clueless. If the shepherd takes their eye off the sheep, sure enough, they will wander. They get stuck on brambles. They fall into ditches and ravines. Which is why the shepherd’s rod and staff are absolutely essential. The staff – which is a shepherd’s crook – is used to hook either a back leg or hook the neck of the sheep. The shepherd will use their staff to rescue the sheep from rocks or thickets, or to catch a sheep in need of care because of sickness or a wound. The rod, which is a straight pole, is used to prod the sheep along. The rod also serves as a long club to ward off predators. Except for head-butting, sheep have no ability to defend themselves.

It is revealing that the psalmist does not say, “your rod and your staff, they protect me,” nor “your rod and your staff, they rescue me.” The psalmist is saying something more: “Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” Why comfort? Because of the shepherd’s interventions. Incessant, necessary interventions every day. Some of these interventions can be difficult, even painful for the sheep, and yet they’re ultimately for the sheep’s good. “Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” Do you remember the etymology of the English word “comfort”? com + fortis; fortis is strong (like in “fortitude”). Comfort, which is “with strength.” This is about the shepherd’s tough love. So it is also for us “human sheep.” The good shepherd will intervene to rescue us when we need it. Loving interventions may sometimes be quite difficult for us, even painful for us, too. We will ultimately find comfort, find strength, in the good shepherd’s intervention in our lives with the rod or staff.

Sheep are hopeless without help. Sheep are so dependent on the shepherd, not only for protection but also for provision. Sheep do graze and move on to wherever the pasture seems greener. But if they are confined, or if the “greener” grass is gone, sheep will gnaw the pasture clean, right down to the roots and thereby destroy the pasture. And sheep have no ability to find water on their own. The shepherd must lead the sheep to water, to “still water,” as we just prayed in Psalm 23. If the water is not still, they will not drink. If sheep are fearful, or hungry, or thirsty, they will not rest; they will refuse to lie down. For sheep to lie down in a green pasture, “they shall not be in want” or otherwise they remain standing and bleating. [4]

The Middle Eastern scholar, Dr. Gary Burge, writes how shepherds know their sheep intimately.[5] “Shepherds don’t simply know the terrain, they know how the flock will react. They understood the endurance of particular sheep. They know if any are ill or wounded. . . . They listen with skilled ears, knowing when the flock is agitated or when it is at rest. And when they lead, they sing to them or play a flute, and the sheep are comforted by the familiarity of these sounds.”

Jesus ultimately says of himself: “I am the good shepherd.” “I go ahead [and] my sheep follow me because they know my voice. They will never follow a stranger; in fact they will flee because they do not recognize their voice” (John 10:4-5, 14). I once asked a shepherd why sheep will follow? The shepherd answered, “The sheep will follow me because they know and trust me.” I heard another shepherd say: “My hunch is they follow because they think I am one of them,” which, of course, makes for a very good sermon. Jesus ultimately said about himself: “I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me” (John 10:14).

The good news about Jesus’ ultimately claiming his identity as our good shepherd, is the assurance that Jesus will seek us out and find us when we are like a lost sheep. Lost sheep do not find themselves; they are found. Jesus will find us – will find you – when you are lost.

You can get lost in childhood and adolescence.

You can get lost in the academy or in your work.

You can get lost in a midlife crisis.

You can get lost in the terror of war, persecution, and discrimination.

You can get lost in old age and in the face of death.

The Prophet Isaiah reminds us, “All we are like sheep” (Isaiah 53:6). We have in Jesus, our good shepherd: his power, and provision, and protection. Jesus incarnates – that is, makes real to us – the promise that he prayed, that we pray, in Psalm 23, that God Emmanuel is with us. Psalm 23 ends with a picture that spans eternity: “Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”

“A sheep found a hole in the fence.” This is a parable told by the Jesuit priest, Anthony de Mello.[6] “A sheep found a hole in the fence and crept through it. It wandered far and lost its way back. Then the sheep realized they were being followed by a wolf. The sheep ran and ran, but the wolf kept chasing, until the shepherd came and rescued the sheep and lovingly carried the sheep back to the fold. In spite of everyone’s urgings to the contrary, the shepherd refused to nail up the hole in the fence.”

We are like sheep, and that dependency will never change. We are rescued and provided for by the good shepherd. We will need that help for the whole of our life, God knows. The name for that help is love. God’s love for us all, who are like sheep. Receive God’s love. Our life’s vocation is then to participate in the work of the Good Shepherd in our country and world which is so full of need and so encompassed by predators.[7]

[1] References to Jesus as shepherd and us as sheep are found, e.g., in Matthew 2:6, Matthew 9:36, Matthew 25:32, Matthew 26:31, Mark 6:34, Mark 14:27, John 10:2, Hebrews 13:20, 1 Peter 2:25, 1 Peter 5:4, and Revelation 7:17.

[2] Luke 4:16 – “When [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom.”

[3] The shepherd and sheep metaphors appear repeatedly in the scriptures, e.g., Psalm 79:13 – “For we are your people and the sheep of your pasture; we will give you thanks for ever and show forth your praise from age to age.” See also Psalms 78:52; 95:7; 100:2; 119:176. Jesus ultimately calls himself a good shepherd: “I know my own and my own know me” (John 10:14-16).

[4] Insight drawn from W. Phillip Keller, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 (Zondervan, 2007).

[5] G. M. Burge, The Bible and the Land (Zondervan, 2009).

[6] “The Lost Sheep” in A. De Mello, SJ, The Song of the Bird (Image Books, 1984).

[7] Matthew 7:15.