Cloud of Witnesses (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1993), 7. 1 William L. Holladay, The Psalms through Three Thousand Years: Prayerbook of a

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Maria Brooks
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1 Psalm 23 May 31, 2015 Chad Martin Psalm 23 is not like the other scripture passages we have been exploring and celebrating this year. It s different because, in an era when increasing numbers of people don t know the bible very well, practically everyone knows Psalm 23. Moreover, Psalm 23 is unique because it is spoken directly to God. I don t think any of the other 13 scriptures we have identified as most important to us as a congregation speak to God in the second person like this. One scholar outlines the difference this way: But when I repeat the Twenty-third Psalm, I am addressing God And when I address God, I am not only acknowledging God s presence, I am also interacting with God: I am shifting reality, if ever so slightly. The recitation is performative: I am helping to create a new situation between myself and God. And if I am reciting or singing the psalm with a company of fellow believers, then all of us, together, are helping to create a new situation between our company and God. 1 Today I want us to stop and consider these dynamics as we conclude a year of living up close with Psalm 23. To consider and remember how repeating these familiar words shapes us as individuals and as a community in relationship with God. What is going on when we recite this psalm? What memories or images come to mind when you hear these words? The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want One CMCLer wrote to me this week telling a story of a special moment in a counseling workshop led by a devout Jewish couple. Participants were to visualize a grand feast in a place they love. Then they were to visualize personally inviting each person they loved to join in that feast with them. I m not sure where this visualization was headed, but for the CMCLer who shared the story with me, it became a vivid image of abundance and joy. She says, To my surprise, a huge surge of joy sprung up from my innermost being, almost like a huge fountain. It was amazing. After the exercise, group members were invited to share what it was like for them. I shared the above and my amazement at the joy fountain. [The presenter] observed quietly that this was indeed Psalm 23, My cup runneth over. I was so deeply touched to realize that yes, it was Psalm 23. It was also the convergence of meaning for both devout Jews and a devout Christian. As I am currently in the valley of the shadow of death hard things, and ending experiences, I am reminded that God prepares a table for me in the presence of these enemies. I choose to focus on the richness and love also surrounding me, and not so much on the enemies hovering. Another CMCLer shared this story: 1 William L. Holladay, The Psalms through Three Thousand Years: Prayerbook of a Cloud of Witnesses (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1993), 7.

2 Psalm 23 was what my family spoke together at Mom s bedside the evening before she died. It was amazing, because after a day of not speaking, Mom spoke this psalm with us (sister, dad, me) in unison, the whole thing. It was a unifying moment of faith, hope, and presence together as a family. It brought us together in the midst of a dark and uncertain time waiting for her death. It was reassuring, gave us courage and hope for a brighter day. Psalm 23 was the last thing Mom spoke before she died the next day on Good Friday. Those of you old enough to remember the 1980s likely know who Rabbi Harold Kushner is; he wrote a book famous then called When Bad Things Happen To Good People. Kushner puts it this way: No matter how grievous a funeral was, no matter how tragic a memorial service was, if I just started to recite the familiar words, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures it tranquilized the congregation. It just made people feel calm. 2 What Kushner is describing is powerful. We feel this power as evidenced in our memories. We notice this power in the stories I just shared with you. This is what it means to say these words can shift our experience of God. To have words to steady us in the midst of grief and loss and darkness opens new possibilities for transformation and that is a powerful thing. Yet is this all Psalm 23 is good for? I think we do a disservice to the power of this prayer when we box it in as a funeral psalm. In fact, scholar of global Christianity Phillip Jenkins encourages us to read Psalm 23 as a political tract. 3 What is he talking about? Well, we can begin by recalling George Bush s speech to the American people on the night of the September 11 attacks back in America and our friends and allies join with all those who want peace and security in the world and we stand together to win the war against terrorism. Tonight I ask for your prayers for all those who grieve, for the children whose worlds have been shattered, for all whose sense of safety and security has been threatened. And I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us spoken through the ages in Psalm 23: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me." 2 As quoted on Religion and Ethics News Weekly (Nov. 26, 2004). Transcript and video online at: Accessed May 28, As noted by J. Clinton McCann in Commentary on Psalm 23, on Working Preacher (April 25, 2010). Online at Accessed June 1, See also Philip Jenkins, "Liberating Word: The Power of the Bible in the Global South," The Christian Century (July 11, 2006), 26.

3 This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. 4 Surely these were words of comfort for people whose world was turned upside down that day. And I don t want to diminish that. But here Psalm 23 also served as part of a call to war. Here there is no doubt that the personal is also political. In fact, one may quickly see that it is not just a question of whether or not Psalm 23 has power beyond just coping with grief. Instead, the question becomes how will we use that significant power? For military ambition? Or to transform the politics of this world? I think a few more images can help push our imaginations in a new direction. This is a mosaic picturing Jesus as the Good Shepherd in a chapel in Ravenna, Italy the mausoleum of Galla Placidia, built in the fifth century. 5 This is an image of the domed ceiling of a chapel in Ravenna, Italy, built in about the sixth century. 6 The figure in the center is not Jesus, it is Saint Apollinare, the namesake of the church. Christ is hard to see here, a small face in the center of the cross. But the thing to notice is the lush beauty depicted here. Though I recognize this image from art history classes in college, it was theologians Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker who drew my attention to this image. In their book Saving Paradise, they say: [This image] places beauty at the heart of the cosmos White lilies and daisies, red anemones, and mossy green rocks stud the meadow. Pine, cedar, and olive trees rise from it into a golden sky. Scattered among the flowers and trees are doves, partridges, parakeets, and larks. 7 And there are twelve sheep across the bottom, likely representing the twelve apostles, but reminding us today of the image of the Good Shepherd. Brock and Parker investigated early Christian art and discovered that there are virtually no images of Jesus dying on the cross in the first thousand years of church history. Instead, early churches were filled with images of paradise and beauty. These two theologians argue that it was only as the church became more and more entwined with the ambitions of the Roman Empire, the conquest of all of Europe and then the Crusades that a theology of redemptive violence and the centrality of the crucifixion as the predominating image of salvation took hold of Christianity. By contrast, they say, the early church linked beauty with ethics. Beauty integrated goodness with glory, ethics with grace, and spirit with flesh; all were essential to a fully realized humanity. Beauty made ethics possible by 4 As quoted on cnn.com (Sept. 11, 2001). Online at: Accessed May 28, st_apollinare_in_classe.jpg. 7 Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker, Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire (Boston: Beacon Press, 2008), 152.

4 evoking deep yearnings for justice, healing and peace. The ethics of beauty were grounded not in a mental list of rules to be obeyed but in a loving orientation toward the world. Beauty called humanity out into life and invited acute observation and attunement to the hear and now. Such cultivated attention grounded ethics in responsive relationship to the world. Transfigured in the Spirit and opened to beauty, the church did the work of Christ in the world. 8 These images pull us back to focus on Christ the Good Shepherd instead of the myth of redemptive violence, whether it be the violence of the medieval Crusades or America s crusades. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. That is, The Lord is my shepherd, not Rome or Washington! Consider another image. When I traveled to Palestine and Israel last year, we visited this Bedouin site in the West Bank. You can see by the backdrop that this was an extremely dry region. Yet Bedouin sheep-herders, who have fewer and fewer places available to live as nomads, raise their flocks and their families here. Nestled between rocky hilltops and in the shadow of an Israeli military base, they get creative to survive. Buying all their water from tanker trucks is a financial impossibility. And Israelis, who covet this land for military exercises, have no interest in building infrastructure that would make life easier. So the Bedouin worked at night, under the safety of darkness, to re-dig this ancient Roman water cistern. It catches rainfall as it trickles down the hillside and collects it underground as an extra supply for the shepherds. 9 [REPLACE WITH IMAGE FROM SHERI?] We gathered at one of the Bedouin tents to sip on harsh dark coffee and hear stories of life in the shadow of an occupying force. We could hear gunfire in the background as we talked echoes of military practice rounds. The shepherds recounted how Israeli military rumble into their camp on 24-hours notice every few months ordering them to clear out so the land can be used for extensive military exercises. They are forced to relocate for a few days or weeks while military personnel do whatever they do, including leveling the tents and temporary corrals the Bedouin build. It has happened dozens of times. How does the image of Bedouin shepherds shape our prayer? 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. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Back in the fall, when we began this year s focus on Psalm 23, Susan drew our attention to this: According to the Bedouin law of hospitality, once a traveler is received into the shepherd s tent, and especially once his host has spread food before him, he is guaranteed immunity from enemies who may be attempting to overtake him. In pastoral circles no human protection is greater than that afforded by the hospitality of a Bedouin chief. So the psalmist expresses trust in the good 8 Brock and Parker,

5 Shepherd by saying that in Yahweh s tent one finds a protecting and gracious welcome. 10 We know we read Psalm 23 differently; that it has been transformative in our times of grief and loss and darkness. Our memories of this passage affirm this. Our stories about this psalm affirm this. We know the Shepherding God has been with us in these times. We know this by heart. That is, we do not just know how to say the words by memory, but they are written on our hearts. They abide in us. For all of you children and youth in the room, this is why we wanted to learn Psalm 23 with you this year. Not just because it feels good to us when we hear your voices saying these words out loud with us. We wanted you to know it by heart too. To know that the Shepherding God is always with you even in times of sadness, even in darkness. Shepherding God is with you. The question remains, how is Psalm 23 shaping us, here inside these walls? How is Psalm 23 shaping our community beyond these walls? In Lancaster and beyond? How is Psalm 23 shaping our politics? May we know these words by heart. In our innermost being. May we see the transforming presence of the Good Shepherd among us and in the world. Amen. 10 Bernard W. Anderson. Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak for Us Today. Revised and Expanded Edition. (The Westminster Press: Philadelphia, pp

For You Are With Me Psalm 23 by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones First Central Congregational UCC 13 September 2015

For You Are With Me Psalm 23 by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones First Central Congregational UCC 13 September 2015 Today we arrive in our sermon series on the Psalms at Psalm 23. Of this psalm Walter Brueggemann