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“Though I Walk”
Psalm 23
Rev. Shelaine Bird
April 13, 2008
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
An Old Poetry
You will not hear me read from the King James Version often. As someone who
cares deeply how my congregation hears the text, I’ve find it’s digest these
sacred scripts, much less apply them to our lives, when they’re heard in such
old, Shakespearean language.
However, this is one text I only want to read in the King James. I don’t particularly want Psalm 23 cleaned up. I don’t want it clarified. I don’t want it made to sound contemporary. When I read these words my ears hear Poetry, of an old sort, full of strange maketh’s and restoreth’s and antiquated valleys of shadows of death. Truth be told, I don’t believe Psalm 23 needs to sound new for the truth within it is so old.
For as long as I can I will try to remember a saint of the church I’ve known named Maurine, Miss Maurine as I called her. She was a kind and feisty pioneer woman well into her mid- 90’s, who was the quintessential matriarch in the church I served before St. Andrews. Miss Maurine knew everyone, what they did, where they went to church, and who their family was, and if she had a beef with you, you better watch out!
The congregation I served was quite elderly and during my years there I buried many of them. When I asked the family what Psalm they’d wanted read at the funeral their response was virtually unanimous: Psalm 23. Just as often I would ask Miss Maurine to be the reader of that psalm.
And so, in the middle of the funeral Maurine would stand and down the aisle she’d walk, her cracked leather Bible clutched in one hand and wooden cane wobbling beneath her in the other. And by the grace of God, as I held my breath, she climbed the rickety steps to the pulpit, and thumb through the tissue paper pages until she found these words.
I’d made a habit of scooting down to the front pew when Miss Maurine spoke so I could watch her and hear. And though her yellowed eyes might be teary, I’ll tell you right now, those eyes never once read from the page. I might say she memorized it, knew Psalm 23 by heart. But really, I think it knew her by heart.
This woman was not ordained as pastor or chaplain, but she had been a nurse. And she had been a Deacon, back when the west was still wild. She knew that this was the text most called on by people in pain, lying in hospital beds, hospice beds, sitting on Sunday morning pews. For decades she heard these antique phrases uttered on the lips of the sick and the dying.
And when Miss Maurine spoke them, a holy hush swept across the room, for every soul there knew that she was speaking some old word, that deep down we long to hear again, some true and risky word about Suffering.
Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?
Doing some research online, I came across an interview from 2004 by the PBS Religion and Ethics Newsweekly with Rabbi Harold Kushner, who is still known for his early 1980’s book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. It’s true of course that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people, and even good things happen to bad people. But the news with which we most struggle is bad things happening to good people.
Our immediate response is sometimes utter unbelief! How could she get cancer, she was an absolute angel! How could he have a stroke, he jogged 5 miles every day! How could something like that happen to a child? How can such bad things happen to obviously good people? And if they do and if they will, how can we live in such a dangerous, unpredictable world?
Those are the questions that rabbis and priests, imams and pastors hear from their people in pain, anger and grief. And Kushner’s book is a good one. I read through much of it years ago. He admits that in many ways, Psalm 23 was the theological backdrop to that work, and certainly to his more recent book titled The Lord is My Shepherd. After reading Kushner’s good words, I am ever more convinced that many of us cling to this Psalm because it does not try to give easy answers to a complicated life. Ps. 23 does not tell us that bad things won’t happen.
The ancient song-writer doesn’t promise that it’s painless to be embodied, physical, mortal. The psalm’s not trying to fast-talk that woman undergoing radiation, or ignore the teenager helicoptered to the ER after another drunk driving collision. It’s not even ignoring the pain that comes with wear and tear of even the most graceful aging.
Psalm 23 doesn’t assume that towers won’t fall and markets wont crash; that families won’t be broken or corrupt wars be waged. And that’s good, ‘cause we know better. It doesn’t pretend that life is easy.
On the contrary, Psalm 23 may just be more honest than I want. The verses of poetry build one on top of the another, until we reach the middle core: I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
Does it really say that? Yes, my friends, it really does.
Even through the beauty of poetry, that is one harsh reality, one that most of us, at one time or another have known down in our bones. Just ask the woman whose husband is disappearing behind Alzheimer’s or the parent who cannot make it through the day without popping painkillers. Ask the worker whose job is outsourced and house is foreclosed, or the child ripped apart Mon-Fri by bullies in the halls of Jr. High.
Many people out there are right there in the valley, or to translate literally, in the gully, in the crevice. More than a few of us know that dark gully as well, though we can be veritable acrobats, can’t we? Jumping behind the mask of Sunday morning smiles: How are you? Fine—and you? Fine! All around us, people are in pain.
And I would argue that pretty words don’t make them feel better, though that’s what we want to do when we see someone hurting.
But the most sanitized, sensitive, best “psychologized” words that we know to offer don’t often reach down into the untidy grief within. Might times not exist when what they—and we— need are old words? Old-fashioned, archaic, obsolete, outdated words of poetry, to remind us we’re not the first ones there!
Why do bad things happen to good people? How can we live in such a dangerous, unpredictable world? Friends, though we want to (and I really do want to!) and though there are stacks of books trying to, the bottom line is that we have no easy answers to these hardest of questions of Christian theodicy.
God-With-Us in the Valley
But as followers of the Christ we know one thing for sure. Looking up at the cross of Christ, we know that suffering is not only part of our lives. Suffering is part of God’s life too. And through Jesus Christ, we believe that God is with us in the midst of suffering. Not hiding from it. Not avoiding it. God—Immanuel—walks with us, right through our suffering.
Psalm 23 is a poem, and the central line is unmistakably clear. Though we try to eat our vegetables, do our homework, and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, even so times will come when we walk through the darkest valley.
But that is not the whole of the line. No, this centerpiece of Psalm 23 says, “Though I walk through the valley…” Even though. Regardless. Nevertheless. Even so…I will fear no evil.
Not the diagnosis that makes our hands tremble, nor the violence that threatens to undo us. I will not fear. Not the frenzy of financial woes, nor the surety of our own death. I will fear no evil.
And why is that? Is this psalmist some Superwoman who can be all things to all people at all times? Is he some Superman flying high above the vulnerability of fear? No!
“I will fear no evil for Thou art with me. Thy road and Thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me. Thou anointest my head with oil.”.
Kushner writes, “This is a scary, out of control world, but it doesn’t have to scare me, because I know that God is beside me…not on the side of the illness, or the accident, or the terrible thing that happened. And that’s enough to give me…hope.”
Psalm 23 gives us permission to stop fearing. That’s not to say that we won’t ever fear--of course we will. As children and parents, as spouses and partners we worry about the lives we love. We stay up at night and fret. We run up the long distance bill. But fear doesn’t have to be the last word.
This truth we already know is this: we will laugh in this life, and we will cry. We will celebrate new life, and we will grieve the death of life. We will live in peace, and in war. But the old and good news from Psalm 23 is that whether we are laughing or crying, whether we are on the grandest mountain or in the deepest gully…we are not alone.
And ultimately we need not fear for the one with us now, was and will ever be our greatest and truest Shepherd. The One who promises us that, by his side, somehow we shall not want. In his flock we shall lie down in the greenest pastures, drink from the purest waters, and the most soul sick among us will be restored. For his sake our loved ones, our enemies and even our own selves shall all be led down the paths of hope.
Our Presbyterian Brief Statement of Faith begins: In life and in death we belong to God. Through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, we trust in…God. It’s by that trust, not in ourselves but in God and God alone, that we are not held hostage by Fear!
And though it sounds like foolishness except to the ears of faith, we too can even celebrate with the psalmist that despite what valley we see or what chaos churns around us, by Christ’s side surely we are not alone.
Surely, surely goodness and mercy shall follow us. Not like puppies wagging their tails behind us, but in the old Hebrew sense of Follow, which means to Pursue, to track down, and like holy hounds from heaven, to find us.
This is no sweet cliché. This is a radical song of hope. Surely, surely—for the love of God surely—goodness and mercy shall find us, even in the valley of death, all the days of our lives. And surely, surely—by the grace of God surely, together we shall live in the house of the Lord.
What an old, relevant, archaic renewing Word to hear today! Amen!
Rev. Shelaine R. Bird
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week813/p-feature.html