Reflections on Psalm 23: Words Revealing MYSTERY

On this Good Shepherd Sunday, I am delighted to be joined by the members of Holy Cross’ Worship Team as we reflect together upon our experiences with the 23rd Psalm. We begin with a familiar translation of the Psalm. Our own reflections are punctuated by Rabbi Jamie Arnold’s translation from the original Hebrew.

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.

For most of my life, the words of the 23rd Psalm, as they were translated and interpreted by the authors of the King James Version of the Bible, have been with me, here and here. When I was just ten years old, we moved to Newmarket and lived here less than a year. It was a lonely year.

My brother and I were what we called back then, latch-key kids, which meant that we pretty much took care of ourselves while Mum and Dad had to work. I vaguely remember a brief friendship with a girl who lived down the street, who had the audacity to invite me to join her for a week of Vacation Bible School. Never having attended church, I had no idea what to Vacation Bible School was. Nevertheless, my parents’ discouragement about church, was all the encouragement I needed to want to attend. There was something exciting about the independence of striking out on my own, without parental encouragement, to explore the goings on at this place my parents avoided; indeed disparaged. I remember very little about that week except for the ongoing lessons of a gifted teacher who taught us the 23rd Psalm. I say taught us, but it would be more accurate to say, that he imprinted the 23rd psalm on our memory-banks, where it remains to this very day. I remember a sense of confusion about the meaning of these strange words. I remember feeling their weight, their importance, as if they were to be treasured and remembered because of their power. Power which my ten-year-old mind equated to the only other thing I had ever memorized, my twelve-times-table. If I could only capture those words, the way I’d captured the twelve-times-table, the power of numbers stored in my memory, would pale in comparison to the power of these magic words. I remember the teacher carefully explaining that these words together are poetry and that it is important to memorize poetry because poems are alive; they are sacred living words.  At the time I had no idea what the word “sacred” means, but like the strange and mysterious words of the poetry of the psalm, the word “sacred” sounded mysterious and so filled with wonder.  So, I stored the word “sacred” away as a precious gift. Over the years the sacred gift of Psalm 23, graciously given by wise teacher, has over and over again, filled me with wonder and opened me to the power of MYSTERY.

The King James Version of the 23rd Psalm, lends itself well to the mysterious power of poetry. Recently, I discovered another version of the 23rd Psalm translated from its ancient Hebrew origins by Rabbi Jamie Arnold. Rabbi Arnold’s translation adheres to the original Hebrew and like the King James Version captures the mysterious power of poetry to reveal the SACRED. Earlier, I invited the members of our Worship Team to briefly reflect upon their most vivid SACRED encounters with the poetry of the 23rd Psalm. What follows is a reading of Rabbi Arnold’s translation wrapped around some of our Worship Team’s reflections. Rabbi Arnold’s translation of the 23rd Psalm, which he calls:

Six Verses of Refuge (Equanimity) begins, “A song for LOVE’s sake: When our LOVE’s the Guide by-my-side, I want for nothing… Continue reading

Jesus, How Long are You Going to Keep Us in Suspense? – Easter 4C, Good Shepherd Sunday

Beyond the Beyond - Dawn Hutchings

Readings Psalm 23 and John 10:22-30

Listen to the sermon here

I was about 10 years old, when I first encountered the 23rd psalm. I never went to church when I was a kid. Church simply was not part of my family’s life. But one summer, my brother and I were left in the care of my Mother’s aunt who lived down in the Adirondacks, and as a way of filling our days, Aunt Madge sent us to a local Vacation Bible School. I don’t remember much about the five days we spent attending Vacation Bible School. But, I do remember very well the glimpse of God that I encountered that week. To this day, I can still recite word for word just what I learned that week:

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 forever.

I can still hear the minister carefully translating each phrase into language that children could understand. I remember thinking that I had learned some secret knowledge that had been hidden from me all my life. For the first time in my short little life, I caught a glimpse of God and he wasn’t some angry old man who was sitting up on a cloud thinking up ways to punish me.  He wasn’t some mean Father who sent his only son to die on a cross.  

For the first time in my life I caught a glimpse of God the shepherd, who wanted nothing more than to take care of me, who provided beautiful green meadows with lovely rivers flowing through them, were I could feel the warmth of the sun and know that even if hard times were just around the corner, God would go with me, and take care of me. Best of all, this God would fill me with so many blessings that my life would be just like a chocolate mike-shake that was so full that it would never end. I had absolutely no idea what a shepherd was, or what a shepherd did. I simply knew that God is my shepherd and following God was the greatest, safest, most rewarding thing I would ever do.

The metaphor of God as my shepherd carried me to a place beyond the words of the 23rd psalm, to a paradise more sublime than my ten year old self had ever imagined before. A place of beauty, safety and security, that at the tender age of ten, I was already longing for.

Metaphors are quite literally words strung together to carry us beyond the words themselves, and for me and for millions of people, generation after generation, the words strung together in the 23rd psalm have carried our longing souls far beyond the words themselves to into the midst of our hopes and dreams.  As a ten year old, who was always the new kid in town, the nomad, wandering from new school to new school, the mere mention of a being led to a place of safety, where I would find comfort and rest from the shadows that haunted me, was all the goodness and mercy that I needed to know about in order to want to know more about this Shepherd. Those first glimpses of God, still comfort me.

My life has not been particularly difficult. I am blessed, I am loved, I am privileged, I am wealthy, my cup does indeed overflow with goodness. But, like all people, I have my dark valleys were the shadows of death frighten me. There are moments of longing in which I long to be swept up into the arms of a Good Shepherd, who will hold me close in an embrace of LOVE so that I will be able to rest, knowing that I am at home. But I’m not ten years old. The metaphor of a shepherd no matter how good or great that shepherd might be, cannot satisfy my longing to know the One who is at the very core of our existence. Continue reading

Jesus Dancing Upon the Rings of Saturn – a sermon for Good Shepherd Sunday, Easter 4A

Readings included:  Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23, John 10:1-10

Technical difficulties resulted in a failure to record the audio of today’s sermon. You can read the sermon below.  Before you read the sermon watch the video: Crashing Into Saturn

As a little girl, I remember staring long and hard at a model of our solar system. My young eyes were drawn to Saturn. Round and round and round my eyes followed those rings marvelling at the mystery of those colourful rings. I remember wondering if Jesus could dance upon the rings. I didn’t have much of a grasp of who Jesus was but I had the distinct impression that Jesus existed somewhere in the great beyond; a place beyond our grasp, out of reach, far away. I imagined Jesus dancing upon the rings of Saturn followed by a large flock of sheep, bouncing up and down much the way sheep do in meadows; colourful meadows, that’s how I saw those mysterious rings; colourful meadows on which Jesus danced, and sheep bounced.

This week, as I watched the animation of  Casini crashing through the rings of Saturn and listened to the sounds of something and nothing brushing against the outside of the spacecraft, I heard a sound emanating from my imagination: “Baaa, Baaa, Baaa!”  and there on the big screen inside my tiny brain, I saw Jesus dancing, and sheep bouncing.

The Cosmos is a vast, expansive, MYSTERY in which we live and move and have our being. “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” Within this vast, expansive, Mystery I have everything I need to live life abundantly. I can lie down in not just green, but colourful pastures.

My English teachers always insisted that we ought not mix our metaphors, but as Casini crashes through Saturn’s rings, I am overwhelmed by the mixtures of metaphors that dart all around us, encircling us in a plethora of abundances. We don’t have words to convey the splendor with which our cups runneth over.

“Baaa, Baaa, Baaa!” We are like sheep darting back and forth not knowing where to begin to partake of the sweet, succulent grasses that promise to nourish, ground, and sustain us all the days of our lives. Jesus insisted that he came that you might have life and live it abundantly.

Abundant life! Allow me if you will to ask a good Lutheran question, a question that Lutherans have been trained for 500 years, to ask, a question that Luther asked over and over again in his Small Catechism: “What does this mean?” Abundant life, what does it mean to have life and live it abundantly?

Today, as the rain falls, and the grass grows, we can’t help but see spring bursting forth. We are in the midst of the abundance of Creation. Abundant life, abounding life, generous life, bountiful life, large life, huge life, great life, bumper life, liberal life, prolific life, teeming life, plentiful life, bounteous life.  Look around and you will see the Cosmos living abundantly.  Take a deep breath and you can taste the abundance of life, teeming life, bounteous life, plentiful life, abounding life.  The life of the Cosmos is indeed abundant.

Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life and live it abundantly!”

Sadly, over and over again, generation upon generations of the followers of Jesus have failed to embrace the Gospel, which Jesus lived as he proclaimed the Good News of abundant life, by living fully, loving extravagantly and being all that he was created to be.  For too long now the followers of Jesus have failed to embrace abundance as the core, the very essence of the gospel.   We have opted for a smaller, lesser, more confining, indeed, a more restricting narrative with which to proclaim the gospel.  For most of the past 2000 years, the master narrative the followers of Jesus have chosen to tell has been the story of the fall of Adam and Eve and the need from redemption through the suffering, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.  Humanity has been defined as fallen, broken, in bondage, sinful, less than, small, worthy of contempt.  The followers of the One whose passion was the gift of abundant life, have opted for a story that portrays life as little more than a testing ground for some other life, some after-life, some place other than where we are now, a place to which we can escape the smallness of this life.

But look around, taste and see that it is as our ancestors imagined our Creator declaring after each marvelous day in the Genesis of Creation, it is good, it is very good. Continue reading

What’s a Meta FOR? – a sermon for Easter 4A – John 10:11-18 and Psalm 23

John chapter 10 causes me to remember Mrs Tanner, my grade ten english teacher. I can still see her handwriting all over my carefully crafted compositions. Red ink everywhere as she constantly admonished me not to mix my metaphors. Clearly the writer of the Gospel of John never had the benefit of Mrs. Tanner’s guidance, or he would not have dared to record Jesus words the way he does in his long and rambling I AM passages.

Before we even get to chapter 10, we read that Jesus says:  “I AM the bread of life.”  and “I AM the light of the world.”  In chapter 10, we read, Jesus says, “I AM the gate,” “I AM the Good Shepherd.” Later we will read, that Jesus says, “I AM the Resurrection”, “I AM life.” “I AM the true vine.”  “I AM the way.” “I AM in God.” “I AM in you.”

But in the tenth chapter the writer of the Gospel of John goes all out and has Jesus using not just a metaphor but a mixed metaphor. For in chapter 10, we read that Jesus declared: “I AM the Gate. The gate through which the sheep must pass.” and then mixes it up by saying,  “I AM the Good Shepherd.”

Which is it? Gate or Shepherd, come on, I know your Jesus but I’m trying to understand how Jesus, who is after all, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world is both the Gate and the Shepherd.

I wonder if Mrs. Tanner ever took her red pen to the Gospel According to John? If she did, the letters MMX would have appeared all over this Gospel. MMX = mixed metaphor wrong! Looking back, I know that Mrs Tanner was just trying to help us to be more careful about our ideas. But today I would have to ask of her, and indeed of the writer of the Gospel of John, “What’s a meta for?” Continue reading

Jesus, How Long are You Going to Keep Us in Suspense? – a sermon for Good Shepherd Sunday

Beyond the Beyond - Dawn Hutchings

Readings Psalm 23 and John 10:22-30

Listen to the sermon here