Psalm 23: Part I: What Do You Want?
I have to confess that
this well loved and well known Psalm caused me trouble for many years as a
kid. I mean, “The Lord is my shepherd, I
shall not want.” That’s exactly how it
reads and that is exactly how I heard it for much of my life, beautifully read
out of the traditional King James Version.
For those here who know the 23rd Psalm by heart, I could
almost guarantee that is the version of it that you have memorized. It is truly beautiful, though I don’t know if
that beauty lies in the accuracy of translation or simply with how it connects
us to what is one of the most familiar passages of Scripture. The King James Version is so much a part of
what this verse is to so many, I have this King James Version of the Bible just
for the reading of the 23rd Psalm, in the event I have to read it in
a public setting.
However, I have
digressed. I mentioned that it caused me
problems as a kid. What was the
problem? It is because I didn’t know
just how to take that first verse, specifically the second part of the first
verse, “I shall not want.” What did that
mean? Did it mean that if God is my
shepherd that I will have everything that I want? Did it mean if I truly followed Jesus that I
would stop wanting so much stuff? I wondered
about this each time I would hear it read or read it myself, especially if it
fell around the fall of the year when, as I date myself, when the Sears “Wish
Book,” came out—for those of you younger than me it would be the predecessor of
the Christmas catalogues sent out now by stores such as Toys ‘R Us, Walmart,
and Target. We would go through that
catalogue and turn page corners and circle items…and trust me, there was plenty
that my sister and I wanted…but if the Lord was my shepherd…I wasn’t supposed
to want, was I? But I did…don’t we
all? Don’t we all have those wish lists
of things we would like to have that we don’t have? A place at the beach. A cottage in the mountains. A new truck, a reliable car, a new job, a new
computer, a new smartphone, new clothes, a date night with our husband or wife,
boyfriend or girlfriend, a nice meal, a book to read… I would suggest that everyone here has at
least one thing we don’t have that we would really like to have…so what do we
do with “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”?
It really becomes an
issue if you put it alongside the words of Jesus, “Ask, and it will be given
you; search and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone
who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened…”[i]and
“the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.”[ii]
You put all of those together and for a kid (and maybe some adults) it makes
God being our shepherd sound better than Santa Claus, because I could put a lot
out of that “Wish Book” on my list of things I wanted for Christmas, but I knew
Santa wouldn’t bring them all. Here it
sounds like with God, we are guaranteed to get everything we want.
It was not until I was
much older that I discovered that there were other translations of that beloved
passage...and that made all the difference in understanding. It actually wasn’t until I started seminary
at Duke that I considered translations that were not either the King James
Version or the Revised Standard Version (the translation favored by my home
church and my professors at Methodist University—the New Revised Standard
Version that I use was actually published while I was at Methodist and had not
gathered wide-spread popularity before I graduated). I don’t remember which class it was, possibly
Survey of the Old Testament, that introduced me to the New Jerusalem Bible and
its reading of the twenty-third Psalm.
As I read it the first time in this fresh translation, a light bulb
suddenly snapped on. Here’s what I read,
“Yahweh (the Hebrew name for God) is my shepherd, I lack nothing.” As I began to explore other translations, I
found that the New International Version echoed this wording…many translations
developed since then continue to move from “I shall not want” to “I lack
nothing”[iii]
or “I have all that I need.”[iv]
I lack nothing….I lack nothing…. You may have
already understood it that way, but it was a sudden shift in my thinking. I shall not want was not about that not having
everything I desire, but it was about understanding that I had everything I
needed. It all began to fall into
place. This understanding fell into
place with Jesus’ words as well.
When Jesus told us to
ask, seek, and knock…and that we would be given, found, and that the door would
be open, it followed a whole sermon about not worrying about what we would eat
and what we would wear. Jesus said, look
at the birds and how God feeds them…look at the lilies and how God dresses
them. He follows the ask, seek, and
knock teaching by asking, “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks
for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a
snake? If you then, who are evil, know
how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven
give good things to those who ask him!” As
we consider these words of Jesus, we realize that it is not about God giving us
everything we want or desire, but that God is going to give us everything we
need, exactly what we need. It might
mean that we desire Ralph Lauren but we will at least have George or White
Stag; it might mean that we want ribeye steak and baked potato, but we will at
least have peanut butter and jelly sandwich; it might mean we desire a Cadillac,
but we will, here in Burlington, at least have access to Link Transit.
What about the idea that
God’s supposed to give us whatever we ask in Jesus’ Name? Doesn’t that mean that God if we pray the
right way, God has to give us what we want, not what He thinks best for us?
Doesn’t that mean that if we want something that we just have to pray for it in
Jesus’ Name and God has to give it to us, kind of like a genie in a bottle?
God is no genie in a
bottle. There is no magic lamp or
special golden cross to rub. And using
the words, “in Jesus’ Name,” is not a magic invocation to get what we want. To ask something “in Jesus’ Name,” is to say
that we are praying in the same way Jesus would pray. It means we are asking for what Jesus would
ask for—and, to be honest, for most of us what we want and how Jesus taught us
to pray come into conflict, for Jesus taught us to pray this way; “Our Father,
who art in Heaven…give us this day our daily bread.” In other words, if we are truly praying in
Jesus’ Name about what we desire, it would be, “Our Father, Great Shepherd in
Heaven, give me this day what I truly need.”
And when we pray that way, we know that God is going to hear and provide
it for us.
All this means that we
realize that we do not lack anything we need…that if we are sitting here and
not naked, we have clothes to wear; if we had the energy to get here, we have
had food to eat and relatively good health; and that if we are able to be out
here in public, sitting, laughing, singing, praying, praising, without fear of
being gunned down, that we have peace and security. We do not want…we do not lack anything that
we truly need…clothing…food… health…peace…security. We do not want…we do not lack anything…God,
our Lord, our Shepherd…has provided all that we truly need.
Yet we look in the world
and we see many folks who don’t have those things. They are lacking food…they are lacking
clothing…they are lacking health…they are lacking peace…they are lacking security. It is like that, as Christine can tell us,
for many of the folks in South Sudan. It
is like that for many people living in the Philippines. It is like that for many people living in
Iraq and Syria. It is also like that for
many folks living in Chicago…in Baton Rouge…even in Burlington.
How will they every be
able to say, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I lack nothing”? That becomes part of the rest of our journey
through the twenty-third Psalm…and where we will find ourselves next week. Until then, may we develop an attitude of
thanksgiving that comes from the realization that the Lord is our Shepherd, and
there is nothing that we truly lack.
In the Name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…Amen.
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