I Shall Not Want

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…  Like many of you I have recited this Psalm in times of fear, in times of hope and loss and grief and longing, in times of celebration and for comfort. I have said it on mountaintops.  I have said it on airplanes and in churches.  I have sung it, danced it and chanted it.  I feel as if it has been imprinted permanently on my heart.  The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want… But I never heard it, really heard it until I saw a shepherd walking his sheep across a piece of the Judean desert.  Not far outside of Jerusalem, the landscape changes dramatically.  The land suddenly cries out for water and life.  The scenery moves from groves of green to miles and miles of virtually nothing.  Without a close look, one might be convinced that life is simply not sustainable in a place like this.  Our bus pulled off of the highway and wound around a narrow road until we came to a stop.  Little boys greeted us with wares ready for purchase:  necklaces and fresh squeezed juice, camel rides and shemaghs (she-mags), which are Palestinian headscarves.  But even in all of the chaos, when my feet touched the ground my heart stopped.  There it was.  It was like nothing I had ever seen before.  It was miles and miles and miles of desert, but not like any desert I ever hiked in the cactus covered southwest.  This was the driest, windiest, sparsest place I have ever seen.  No succulents or blooming ocotillo; no coos of doves or the sight of squiggling lizards.  Just miles and miles of desert with some tiny specs of green scattered throughout, but you have to squint to see them.  There were endless mountains of beige upon beige, rolling into hills that seemed to choke on their own thick dust.  If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed that a shepherd and his sheep could make a home in a place such as this. 

But there he was.  In the heat of the day and the blast of the wind, a shepherd made his way with his sheep.  In a land surrounded by walls and tears and histories of pain, this shepherd walked along with his sheep.  His steps felt as profound as any eternal hope.  He made his way when life looked impossible.  Even when his land cries out for peace, this shepherd made his way with his sheep.  It was as if with each step he said to the world, that he would continue to hold onto life, to fight for it, even when the sun is oppressive and water is illusive and the dryness of death calls out from the rocks…he will continue to make his way with his sheep.

And then it hit me.  It stung me and rung through me.  The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…He makes me to lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul…  It always sounded so pristine and pure and pretty and now it was unfolding before me, unraveling perhaps.  There was a shepherd but nothing else.  There was just a shepherd and surveying this desolate lonely land, I saw no green pastures.  I saw no still waters and no place that could possibly restore a weary soul, just a sweaty solitary shepherd and his sheep and miles and miles of world to walk.

Those looking for God in the land of Jesus learn to be shaken and surprised.  Pilgrims come to the Middle East expecting to greet God in beauty and grace and quickly learn that the task of the pilgrim is to look for God in the messiness and the mundane-to find God amidst walls and barbed wire, to find God amidst destroyed houses and broken hearts, to find God in the unexpected and mysterious.  Being a Christian means being prepared to have your world turned upside down.  And that’s what happened to me as I glimpse this vast desert for the first time.  This Psalm of comfort that moved upon heart was churning inside me.  When I heard those sweet words, The Lord is my shepherd… my mind brought me to rolling lush hills and lakes upon lakes and rivers leading to pools…birds chirping, fish jumping… but as soon as I saw it, I knew that I could never be the same; I knew that these words could never be the same.  I pictured a comfortable place, a place that gave me rest and renewal; I pictured pure green oasis perfection.  But as a Christian pilgrim, I learned again that this is not how our God works.  What I pictured, when I thought of this beloved Psalm, was the Garden of Eden.  But as I stood there, I understood what I was missing… in the Garden of Eden there is no need for a shepherd! In my pure green oasis perfection, in the lush green wonderland, there is no want or lack or need and in such a place I might try to convince myself that I have no need of a shepherd.  I might be tempted to seek the green that sits just over the next hill.  But this green bliss is not the world I live in.  I live in a world that wants to quench my soul with dust and parch my spirit with the prickle of the sun.  I live in a world that is rocky and dry and vast, full of winding trails and unknowns.  We live in a world where people are hungry, where peace seems illusive, where war rages on.  This is a desert of a world where life, where life abundant is only possible with a shepherd, our Good Shepherd.  Without our shepherd all that remains is thirst and an insatiable yearning for a life than can never be.  We can walk and walk our own way only to find illusions of life, reflections of something that wasn’t real and mirages full of nothing.

The Judean desert, this desert where Jesus walked, is a place where the shepherd must toil for his sheep.  The sheep will not survive without him.  The shepherd pulls and pushes the sheep and works day and night to bring them to safety and shelter and nourishment. Without the shepherd’s effort, this dusty desert is no place of comfort, it is a forbidding place burdened with hard living.  He must seek the green for his sheep, seek the oases that shimmer in the light of the day, seek the soul reviving shade that might come against a hillside.  This seeking takes hours of walking and patience navigating the rocks that roll and the dust that blows only to return to a tiny spot of life, a green hope springing forth in tiny sprigs, offering it as nourishment for the tired flock.

As I watched the shepherd walk, I could only smile and whisper to myself.  “Of course.”  This is Psalm 23.  This is where it emerges.  It comes from this land that has seen little rain, little peace and years of pain.  It comes from this land where without the shepherd there is simply no hope for the sheep.  It comes from this land where the shepherd is the way to life.  The Lord is my shepherd...and now I see that without him there is no hope, no life, no nourishment, nothing.  Our shepherd travels with us over rocks and dusty nights…The Lord is my shepherd, he seeks the life giving places even where the bare path leaves little room for hope…without the shepherd, there is no life, just dust and danger and death looming over the next hill.  In this land, this land of shepherds, any valley could become the shadow of death, life is fragile and tender.  This is a desert place in a dry land where dreams have been shattered and comfort seems to sit just over the next mountain.  The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, not because I walk over easy paths with clarity and confidence, I shall not want, I shall not lack anything, not because of me, but because of my God, my Shepherd. 

As we pulled away from the outlook, the place where my heart met my Good Shepherd again for the very first time, the place where I saw that the only green pastures were the nourishment of God, the place where the only still waters found, would be the life-giving waters of God, the place where the only paths of righteousness are the paths of hope blazed by God.  The Lord is my shepherd, the only possible way to life.  The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.  Amen.