What Sheep Risk

Psalm 23

“Of course, we’ll have Psalm 23.” It’s often the first decision made about funerals.  It feels right: It’s traditional, helps us imagine paradise and the promise of dwelling in God’s house forever, and it’s familiar. So it’s an easy decision for a funeral, and it’s become a promise that we turn to when we face death or fear death — when we walk through that valley of the shadow in our lives — as well as when we grieve.

But hundreds of years ago, when the first Christian communities were adapting the beautiful Hebrew poetry of the Psalms to Christian worship, they linked the 23rd Psalm to baptism. To a sacrament of birth and renewal, hope and commitment.

Because this psalm, this poem, is life-giving, and it’s all about living the promise of baptism.

The baptized world is described in the shepherd psalm, in beautiful poetry: green pastures, quiet waters, a path of righteousness, rod and staff ready in our defense, anointed wounds and overflowing cups.  

It’s a vision of refuge, guidance, protection, healing and abundance — sign me right up! 

The darkest valley is part of the path, yes, and enemies are still in front of us - baptism isn’t a free pass - but the psalm proclaims confidence that we can face trauma and fear supported by the presence of God.

That’s the promise we come seeking in baptism, after all: the gift of our relationship with God that we nurture in Christian community, in prayer and worship and giving and celebration.

And it requires a promise from us, as well.

In the Episcopal Church today, as in many centuries of Christian practice, we “examine” the candidates for baptism, requiring them to declare in front of the faithful community that they renounce evil and turn to Christ.

“Do you put your whole trust in [Christ’s] grace and love?” we ask. 

“Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord?”  

The Book of Common Prayer provides baptismal candidates with the necessary answer, a simple “I do” (we’ll also take “yes” if you forget to look at your book), but wouldn’t it be just as appropriate to answer those questions with the words: “The Lord is my shepherd, I need nothing more.”

That, after all, is a profound statement of faith. To claim God as my shepherd means to confess my absolute dependence on God’s guidance, to give up the desire and the illusion of control over my own destiny - to follow and obey.

And then there’s the second half of that statement, the “shall not want.” It’s better translated as I lack nothing, I need nothing. 

In a world full of advertising and stuff and social pressure, it’s a huge leap of faith to really, truly believe that I need nothing more - that I can’t find anything online, or in the mall, or in other people to make me even a little happier, better, or more secure.  

It’s a tremendous act of faith to truly put my whole trust in Christ’s grace and love. 

One of the most culturally familiar phrases we use in the church, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,” is also one of the most counter-cultural truths we can proclaim.

So it’s the promise we ask from people who come seeking baptism.

We asked you this, too, at your baptism, by implication, even if you didn’t use these words. 

So as Christians, that’s a statement of how we live — or how we’re supposed to live, at least — and when we do it, it’s revolutionary.

Try praying this commitment all one day:
The Lord is my shepherd / I depend entirely on God (without backseat driving)

I shall not want / I need nothing more. Nothing.

Pray it at work and at home, in traffic, online, at the grocery or the mall. Feel the challenge of the tension between the demands of the world we live in, and the one we’re baptized into.

It isn’t easy, but there’s a sneaky promise in both baptism and the psalm that’s worth remembering when the familiarity and pressures of the world we live in make the world we’re baptized into seem hard to reach.

When we baptize someone, we sign them with a cross, holy oil that’s quickly absorbed into the skin and invisible, but still permanent:  “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.”

All these years after my own baptism, under sunburns and foundation and lines and acne and all the other things that happen to our faces, God can see that mark.

God has a claim on me that won’t let go, in spite of the fact that I regularly screw up the work of being a sheep and forget to depend on God.

The psalmist knew that kind of claim.

We’ve gotten used to hearing it as a sort of promise, that “goodness and mercy shall follow me” all my life, but more literally, it’s a bit more of a warning, a heads up:

that goodness and mercy pursue us, chase us, every day.

God’s claim on us just won’t let go, comes after us, whether we’re following the shepherd’s guidance or wandering out on our own.

It’s a risk we take, being baptized.

We risk being claimed by God, despite the fact that it’s easier, most days, to focus on the claims of family, work, and self. Risk depending on God, even when it’s more natural and more attractive to control our own days and destiny. We risk being pursued by goodness and mercy, disrupting our self-interest, our natural limits, and our limited attention, with gratitude and trust we probably weren’t even looking for.

It’s a risk we take in baptism, one we renew when we pray this psalm: risk being relentlessly pursued by grace, and it can change your life, and maybe even the world,

if you let it.