A Psalm to Live By

If Psalm 23 where a picture, it might look like this: The sky is blue and wide open and bright with shining sun; green grasses wave gently in the wind, and the breeze blows calmly cooling our skin.  Sheep graze peacefully, and we can hear a stream trickling in the distance.   The earth is alive and smells fresh and clean.  We sense a presence, a warmth as if we are held by life itself, the arms of God wrapped around us from all sides, soothing our worries and stilling our fears.  Oh heavenly day, the picture perfect pastoral setting.  This is the picture we imagine for Psalm 23.   

 The Psalm is perhaps the best-known passage in the Bible.  It is a poem for the ages.  Though we may not literally occupy peaceful green pastures, the Psalm soothes our fears, provides assurance during bouts of anxiety, and comforts us in our valleys and shadows of death.  It evokes a serene picture that we can almost place ourselves into from the discomfort of these wooden pews. 

 Oh how comforting Psalm 23 is, and what a promise.  Often read at funerals, accompanied by a picture of the kind and compassionate Jesus.  The gentle shepherd who comes and leads us from day to day.

When you visit the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, and when you first see the motel room where the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. was staying when he was assassinated, you get this same feeling, this Psalm 23 feeling.  The glass-encased room, Room 306, has a stillness about it, a peace that passes our understanding.  As you approach, you see a typical motel room, as it looked back in the 1960s.  There’s a rotary telephone and the covers on the bed and wrinkled.  A door and windows open to the balcony walkway.  An aura of respect drapes this room and stills your mind and you can feel the gravity of this place, this place that memorializes history.  Over hidden speakers you can hear a hymn softly playing.  It’s Dr. King’s favorite song: Precious Lord, take my hand.  The music evokes the pastoral setting of Psalm 23: Precious Lord, take my hand; lead me on, let me stand…  It provides Psalm 23 comfort, soothing the soul, setting the scene for serenity.  The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures…

You know, this is a good message: God provides comfort.  This is good news, really good news, in a world where earthquakes destroy nations and volcanoes disrupt continents.  God provides comfort.  But this is only one side of the message.

We know this side well.  It’s right here in the text beginning in verse one, “The Lord is my shepherd.”  The end of verse six says, “I shall dwell in the house of the Lord.”  The Psalm begins and ends with the Lord, Yahweh.  God’s comfort, God’s assurance, and God’s green pastures are wrapped into the middle.  So are God’s mercy and God’s abundance.  Oh, the Lord is good, and the Lord provides.  But my question for us this morning is this: where are we in the text?  Where are we in the text? 

We are the Psalmist.  We are the authors, the composers, the voices that speak these words.  Just as David sang this poem long ago, we sing it today from our truest selves: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. 

And when we speak these words from our deepest and truest selves, they mean something our the ordinary, something radical, something revolutionary.  When we read this Psalm aloud this morning we declared that the Lord is our shepherd, that God is our ultimate concern.  We surrendered our need to control, our need for power and money, our need to be busy all the time. 

God restores our souls.  It is really a matter of where we place our trust. Is it our job?  No.  Our college search?  Our athletic ability?  Our musical talent?  Our own selves?  Not anymore.  Do we trust our bank account for security?  Not today. 

Now don’t get me wrong; trust in God doesn’t mean prosperity and happiness.  That’s not what the Gospel is about.  Trusting God means living a life of meaning. 

This weekend the annual meetings for our Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Church of Christ have been going on in Wenatchee.  I attended Friday and yesterday along with other representatives from our church.  The keynote speaker, a fellow by the name of Rodger Nishioka said this about the life of faith.  He said that most people today think the central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.  But no, emphatically no, that is not the case for us as followers of Jesus.  The goal of life is not to be happy or to feel good but to follow Jesus and in doing so to find meaning and to love and be loved.  He said it another way: your central Christian purpose is to live a worthy adventure of your life; not all adventures that call to you are worthy.

You see, there are two parts to this Psalm: the comfort and assurance that God provides, AND the trust that we place in God. 

Let’s go all the way back to Dr. King.  The song that plays in the Lorraine Motel there in Memphis, that song that memorializes his death, that Psalm 23 like song – Precious Lord, Take my Hand.  That plays there for a reason.  It doesn’t play because it’s a funeral song or a song that provides comfort in death.  It does those things, sure, and it was played at Dr. King’s funeral, but that’s only part of the story.  At the National Civil Rights Museum, that song plays because it was Dr. King’s favorite hymn in life.   It was played at civil rights rallies and sung with great hope by congregations around the segregated South.

Many of us haven’t ever thought of it as a protest song or a Civil Rights Song, but today we will and from now on, we will.  In the struggle for justice, we are not our own guides.  We are not our own Shepherd, and when we rely on God, it compels us to act in new ways.  What could be more of a protest than to sing, Precious Lord, take my hand, Lead me on?  This very thought denies and defies the systems and structures that tempt us to be led by things other than God. 

These are the structures of white privilege – the benefits we get simply because we are white.  These are the structures of heterosexual privilege – the rights we have simply because we are not gay.  These are the systems of profit – the wily ways that our groceries and our cheap goods and our salaries come at the expense of other human beings.  These are the cultures that would have us disrespect our bodies and our souls by letting power guide our actions rather than love.  These systems and structures call to us every day, but they are not our Shepherd. 

The Lord is our Shepherd.  Richmond Beach United Church of Christ, this is good news.  This is the news we’ve been waiting for.  Here is our liberation.  Now is the time to repent of our sins.  Now is the time for our faith to move to the center of our lives.  Now is the time for us to parent in Christ’s way of peace and justice.  Now is the time for us to give our money and time first to God.  Now is the time to speak out for justice.  Now is the time to let our worship be the place that gives meaning to the rest of our lives.

Precious Lord, take my hand.  The Lord is my Shepherd.  Psalm 23 is about life.  It is a Psalm to live by.

I invite you to stand and turn to #472 in the New Century Hymnal and join in singing Precious Lord, Take My Hand.