The 23rd Psalm is one of the best known and best loved parts of the Hebrew Bible. You may have found yourself reciting it or listening to it for comfort in times of trouble. It’s often heard at funerals and memorials. These were the last words my father’s body heard as we stood around his bed, repeating it with the hospital chaplain.
But what does it mean to say that God is our shepherd?
In many parts of the world, shepherds guide their flocks up into lush mountain meadows in the spring. All summer they lead the sheep from meadow to high meadow and from pond to pond. In the fall, they bring the flocks back down the mountains to the barns where sheep will be sheared and where that year’s lambs will be born.
Shepherding demands focus and dedication, even all through the lonely nights. There are predators in those mountains: wolves, coyotes, cougars, lions—even eagles that can carry off young lambs—so the shepherd has to protect the sheep. The animals can wander off and get lost or fall off high places or get themselves stuck in narrow places or thorny bushes. So the shepherd has to search for them, rescue them, and return them to the flock. In the early spring, shepherds may spend days and sleepless nights helping the ewes give birth, checking on newborns, making sure the mothers and babies are bonding. And at all times, the shepherd must make sure that the sheep are getting enough to eat and drink.
Shepherds are experts on when to move their flocks on to the next meadow or water source, when to let them just rest in the long grass, which plants will nourish them and which will harm them, and how to avoid the dangers of the mountains.
These are the attributes of our loving, caring God, who knows what we need, who calls each sheep of the flock by name, and who goes in search of those who are missing.
The 23rd Psalm is a praise poem, a poem of thanksgiving, to the ultimate Good Shepherd. It’s a hymn to unwavering care, guidance, protection, and compassion.
And, as I read this so very familiar Psalm again recently, it suddenly sounded like an itemized list of how to be a good neighbor. It became a description of how the people of Minneapolis are serving as good shepherds to their neighbors, who are being threatened by wolves and cougars in the form of anonymous bullies.
Let’s look.
God is my shepherd; I shall not lack anything.
What do you need? How can I help? What can I bring you? Do you need groceries? I can shop for you. I know you can’t get to the laundromat right now. Can I take your laundry home with me? I just want you to know I’m here for you.
God makes me lie down in green pastures; God leads me beside still waters. God restores my soul. God leads me in right paths for the sake of the holy name.
Large groups of neighbors walk children to school every day, acting as crossing guards to keep the kids safe from ICE agents who are more than willing to harm or even kidnap children, as we’ve seen. The adult neighbors also stand guard at schoolyard gates so students can study and play safely.
Green pastures and still waters are resting places for the sheep of God’s flock. The love and concern of neighbors help ease the chaos of the invasion and give frightened people time to breathe.
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.
A shepherd’s staff is a tool for compassionate, protective action. It has a crook on the end, to help newborn lambs stand up and to gently guide sheep that are going astray back into the safety of the flock. It’s. It helps keep the sheep from straying into danger.
Alex Pretti was murdered while trying to comfort a woman who had been attacked by ICE agents, trying to show that her community was still there for her. Other good neighbors show up at marches with milk and water for faces and eyes burned by pepper spray. Still others wait outside detention centers in the freezing Minnesota winter, because kidnapped detainees are being released from ICE custody in the middle of the night with no warm clothing, no phone, no money. Neighbors offer the warmth of the cars they keep running, blankets, hot food and drinks, warm clothing, and burner phones so freed detainees can call their families. These are all ways of assuring traumatized people that they are not alone—that they still belong to the flock.
The shepherd’s rod is a weapon to fend off predators and thieves. Minnesotans are using huge mass demonstrations, whistle brigades, lawsuits, and social media to warn of danger and to let the world know what is being done to them and their neighbors.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
Neighbors are buying and collecting food and delivering it to families who are afraid to leave their homes. They also do laundry chores for people who fear going to laundromats, and they shovel snow off their sidewalks and steps. Recently, ICE caught on to what they were doing and started tailing deliveries to individual homes. Yet the neighbors continue to do this work, even in the presence of their enemies: They’re taking new routes to families, delivering at odd hours, maybe even dropping the supplies off at intermediary homes, to be delivered safely later.
You anoint my head with oil;
Anointing with oil is a ritual that affirms consecration of a life to God, and the presence of the Holy Spirit. It’s also used in healing ceremonies for the sick. Anointing turns an ordinary shepherd into a King, a recent graduate into a priest or pastor, a patient back into a participating human being, or a citizen into a compassionate neighbor. A life after anointing is a life dedicated to living with and through the Holy Spirit.
A Minnesotan named Allison McGhee recently posted a note to Facebook about the work of mutual aid groups in Minneapolis. She says:
Everywhere here, neighbors band together to do for each other what your own government won't: help each other. Support each other. Watch over each other. If you have money, give it. If you have a "clean" car—I think she means it has no outstanding tickets—pick up and deliver supplies. If you have a strong back and a good shovel, take care of your neighbor's sidewalk and steps.
My cup overflows.
Allison continues:
The other night a friend told how much she loved the mutual aid groups she now belongs to, because it makes her feel less lonely, less afraid, more deeply rooted. "I needed more friends," she said, "and it's so wonderful to meet people this way. People who just want to help make the world better."
The members of these mutual aid groups have consecrated themselves and each other to the holy work of loving their neighbors in any way necessary and possible. And they have consecrated their neighbors as God’s flock: lives that matter, lives that are worthy of protection, service, and love.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of God my whole life long.
Allison writes: There is so much more to come in the next months: closed businesses, closed mom and pop restaurants, plunging school grades due to absences, and ongoing trauma from this invasion. But now there is also this deep, invisible, certain knowledge, lived out the past few months: we will take care of each other.
This is the God of love in action. This is how the anointed one, the Messiah, the Christ, appears among us as the Good Shepherd. Isaiah said, “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them next to his heart, and shall gently lead those that are with young.”
We also recognize that we are the hands and feet of God in the work of shepherding. Many of us are helping to support the people of Minnesota, and Portland, Oregon, and Maine—and Lake City and Rainier Beach and Shoreline and Mt. Vernon—and the many other places where our neighbors, friends, or employees are being rounded up. In Seattle, we support organizations like Neighborhood House, Literacy Source, Community Lunch, and our neighborhood Food Banks. We call our congresspeople to voice our concerns and let them know we support their work for justice. We stand or march with signs and banners, or sit in lawn chairs on sidewalks and overpasses if we can’t march. We pray.
The 23rd Psalm is our handbook for being a good neighbor.
But of course, it’s so much more than just that.
It is also a promise—to you.
It is an assurance that you are worth being cared for, protected, called by name, and searched for when you feel lost, lifted up when you are weary or hurting. It acknowledges that your work as God’s hands and feet also requires rest and sustenance, and a respite from chaos. It reminds you that your exhausted soul, your broken heart also needs to be restored. Those green pastures, those still waters, the overflowing cup, the comforting staff and protective rod, are there for you, too.
The green pasture where you can lie down might mean turning off the news or your Facebook feed for a day or two, or even only accessing them for a limited time each day. It also means taking the best care you can of the body you’ve been entrusted with—eating nourishing foods, staying hydrated, exercising to the best of your ability, getting enough sleep. The still water may be a time you’ve set aside for prayer or meditation or your favorite form of recreation. The overflowing cup can be filled with your conscious awareness of the blessings that each day still brings to you.
To mix our metaphors, the Gospel of Matthew speaks for Jesus:
Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry.
A yoke is a tool that distributes a burden between two bearers. Each of them carries or pulls only half the weight—not the whole load. So taking on Christ’s yoke means that you will always have a partner in the work of being a good shepherd. You don’t have to do it all yourself. You don’t have to do it alone. Remember the mutual aid groups in Minneapolis, and their joy in working together. You are not alone, just as those frightened, house-bound neighbors in Minneapolis are not alone, just as their helpful allies are not alone. God is with you.
And God is telling you, is telling me that the promises of the 23rd Psalm are for us. For you.
Let God be your shepherd too.
AMEN