Psalm 23 Part 1 - 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, as usual, I have skewed from the point I was about to make.  I mentioned that this verse caused me problems as a kid.  What was the problem?  The problem is simple, I just didn’t know just how to take that first verse, specifically the second part of the first verse, “I shall not want.”  What does that mean?  Does it mean that if God is my shepherd that I will have everything that I want?  Does it mean that if I truly follow Jesus then I will 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, 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 Walmart or 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…and  if the Lord was my shepherd, it meant I would get it all come Christmas morning…or did it mean, that if the Lord was my shepherd, I wasn’t supposed to want any of that, 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 vacation home.  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 read Psalm 23:1 alongside the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:7-8, “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 John 15:16 - “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 made sense and was in sync 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.
What about the idea that God’s supposed to give us whatever we ask in Jesus’ Name?  Doesn’t that mean that 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, for folks in Panama City, for folks in Mexico Beach, for folks in Wilmington, in New Bern, in Morehead City, on Harkers Island, and many places in between….
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 in two weeks.  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.

[i] Matthew 7:7
[ii] John 15:16b
[iii] CEB
[iv] NLT

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