Psalm 23, part two: Contentment

The last time we were together, we talked about what it means for the Lord to be our shepherd. It may not be that good for our self esteem, but sheep are used throughout the Bible to represent God’s people. We may wish a more powerful, more dramatic animal was symbolic of us, but the truth is that sheep represent us perfectly. Forgive my bluntness, but as an article I read this week phrased it, they’re dumb, directionless, and defenseless.

This week, let’s talk about the next phrase in verse 1, “I shall not want”.  In his book A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23,  Philip Keller relates this story:

The tenant sheepman on the farm next to my first ranch was the most indifferent manager I had ever met. He was not concerned about the condition of his sheep. His land was neglected. He gave little or no time to his flock, letting them pretty well forage for themselves as best they could, both summer and winter. They fell prey to dogs, cougars and rustlers.

Every year these poor creatures were forced to gnaw away at bare brown fields and impoverished pastures. Every winter there was a shortage of nourishing hay and wholesome grain to feed the hungry ewes. Shelter to safeguard and protect the suffering sheep from storms and blizzards was scanty and inadequate.

They had only polluted, muddy water to drink. There had been a lack of salt and other trace minerals needed to offset their sickly pastures. In their thin, weak and diseased condition these poor sheep were a pathetic sight.

In my mind's eye I can still see them standing at the fence, huddled sadly in little knots, staring wistfully through the wires at the rich pastures on the other side.

To all their distress, the heartless, selfish owner seemed utterly callous and indifferent. He simply did not care. What if his sheep did want green grass; fresh water; shade; safety or shelter from the storms? What if they did want relief from wounds, bruises, disease and parasites? He ignored their needs -- he couldn't care less.  Why should he? -- they were just sheep -- fit only for the slaughterhouse.

I never looked at those poor sheep without an acute awareness that this was a precise picture of those two wretched old taskmasters, Sin and Satan, on their derelict ranch—scoffing at the plight of those within their power.

That’s what it means to “be in want.'' These neighbor sheep knew exactly what it meant to lack a good shepherd. They represent two of the trio of characteristics I mentioned about sheep. First, they’re simply not that bright. They can’t figure out how to fix their problems. They could look at Keller’s pasture and want it, but they weren’t really able to come up with a plan to get themselves there. Don’t kid yourself that humanity isn’t in the same position! Some of us might do better than others. But after all the years we’ve been on earth, we still face the same old problems. 

Sheep are also defenseless. We’re not talking about wolves, tigers, or grizzly bears here. We’ve all heard the phrase “fight or flight”. But they can’t do either one very well. 

Obviously, they have no claws, quills, sharp teeth, or anything else to fight a predator off. with. Not even a hard head and the desire to fight that we recognize in goats. 

 They’re also pretty clumsy.  I mean, they can walk on their own four feet, but they’re not going to evade a wolf with their agility. 

There’s a third thing some animals do to protect themselves, and we can call it ‘posturing’. Rattlesnakes rattle, dogs growl, cats puff themselves up, and lions roar. Granted, most of these animals  have something to back up this posing, but the sheep can’t even do this. It has nothing intimidating. Just ‘baa’. 

Keller tells another story in this chapter. He talks about one of his own sheep that points to that third characteristic of sheep. They’re directionless. Even the brightest of sheep don’t know what’s good for them. He writes,

 ”…I once owned a ewe whose conduct exactly typified this sort of person. She was one of the most attractive sheep that ever belonged to me. Her body was beautifully proportioned. She had a strong constitution and an excellent coat of wool. Her head was clean, alert, well-set with bright eyes. She bore sturdy lambs that matured rapidly. But in spite of all these attractive attributes she had one pronounced fault. She was restless -- discontented -- a “fence crawler.” So much so that I came to call her 'Mrs. Gad-about.' This one ewe produced more problems for me than almost all the rest of the flock combined.

No matter what field or pasture the sheep were in, she would search all along the fences or shoreline (we lived by the sea) looking for a loophole she could crawl through and start to feed on the other side.

It was not that she lacked pasturage. My fields were my joy and delight. No sheep in the district had better grazing. With 'Mrs. Gad-about' it was an ingrained habit. She was simply never contented with things as they were. Often when she had forced her way through some such spot in a fence or found a way through the end of the wire at low tide on the beaches, she would end up feeding on bare, brown, burned-up pasturage of a most inferior sort. But she never learned her lesson and continued to fence crawl time after time. …she was a sheep who---in spite of all that I had done to give her the very best care--- still wanted something else.”

It is this last story that gives us a hint about the answer found in today’s verse. Contentment. The solution to all of these problems a sheep faces is, of course, a shepherd. 

It’s almost like the old joke about the chicken and the egg. What came first, a sheep, or a shepherd? I think it’s entirely possible that God created sheep just so it could be a living metaphor for us. A way for us to see a mirror of our relationship to him. The two fit together that well. 

A sheep is not smart. It can’t formulate a plan to fix its problems. But a shepherd can. A sheep isn’t going to find itself a greener pasture---but a shepherd will. Especially a good one. Just like we can’t figure out what to do about our fallenness. Our essential brokenness. The ocean we talked about swimming across the last time we got together. The only idea humanity’s ever come up with is to keep on doing it. To do more of it. Deep in our hearts, we know this can’t possibly work. But we try it anyway.  And you don’t need me to tell you where that kind of thinking leads. 

A sheep has no way to defend itself except its wool. But David himself describes perfectly in the lead-up to his battle with Goliath how a shepherd helps a sheep in this way. He tells King Saul in 1 Samuel 17:

“Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock,  I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear” 

Okay, first of all, that’s pretty gutsy. David punches bears and lions and kills them? But that’s going to have to be a subject for another time. The point is, a shepherd fulfills the role of not only defender, but rescuer for the herd. Even if a predator reaches the sheep, even if it carries one off, the shepherd can still bring it back safely. 

And finally, a shepherd helps with the flock’s lack of direction. Even in the rare case when some sort of super ewe, the Einstein of sheep, manages to find a hole in the fence, it has no idea what to do once it’s on the other side. It has no plans. But the shepherd does. They’re thinking ahead about shelter, food, protection, and many other things far beyond the sheep’s imagination. 

And in this last sense, Jesus is the good shepherd in the best way of all. We can barely understand how spiritually broken we are. But even when we get a glimpse of this, we don’t know the answer. In fact, we’re proud of ourselves for even recognizing that there’s a problem. 

But God is so far ahead of us that it’s as if we’re a flock that’s looking up at our good shepherd and saying “Wait, you know what? We have no idea where we are or what we’re doing! We can’t protect ourselves, we’re totally lost, and it’s getting dark!” And Jesus says, Yes, I know. That’s what I’m here for. I’m leading you home. Just trust me.

C.S. Lewis describes this perfectly in his book The Great Divorce. He writes:

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." 

So which will you say?