Thursday, March 19th, 2020
By Leigh Bonner
Psalm for the Day: Psalm 23:1–3
I imagine that you’re reciting the rest of the psalm in your head right now, probably King James Version, with all the beautiful, poetic words. I imagine that you are remembering all the times this psalm carried you. Maybe it was at a loved one’s funeral. Maybe you helped your children memorize it. Maybe you clung to these words as you stood alone in your own turmoil. With all that’s going on right now, many of us are clinging to these words.
One thing I like to do when I read familiar passages, especially in the Hebrew Bible, is place emphasis on different words than I usually do. Reading Psalm 23 today, I placed more emphasis on the word Lord. Some texts in Leviticus start with a commandment and end with, “I am the Lord.” I sometimes read those texts with emphasis on the “I”: “I am the Lord your God.” As in Leviticus 19:4, for example: “Do not turn to idols or make cast images for yourselves: I am the Lord your God.” As in, God is the Lord, not the golden calves of rulers, power, principalities, money, possessions, the market…With that emphasis, we might look at this psalm as an acknowledgement that God is the Lord, and David, an earthly king, is not.
In David’s day, rulers were seen as shepherds of their people. If you know about work on a farm, you know that people who tend livestock do not practice gentleness. They poke, prod, yell, and if necessary, send in the dogs. Shepherds, like David was before becoming king, carried rods to hit sheep back on the road. So the analogy comparing a ruler to a shepherd, such as the one that permeated David’s culture, was not bucolic.
But David’s shepherd is the Lord. “The Lord is my shepherd,” he declares. He follows that up with what the Lord’s shepherding is like: God “makes me lie down in green pastures,” “leads me beside still waters,” and “restores my soul.” We all know David messed up, royally (pun intended). There were definitely times when God was not his Lord. But here, David acknowledges that if the Lord is his shepherd, then the acts of oppressing and lording over the people, his wife, mistress, workers, or anyone else, are not the shepherd. And neither is David.
In these times, it feels like we’re being whacked around with depressing information. And some of that information is necessary to keep us safe and informed. But if we allow that information to become lord for us, we will get whacked around. Allowing God to be our shepherd and Lord, we will be made to rest in green pastures, led by still waters, and restored in soul.
