We Shall Not Want

We Shall Not Want

Rev. Dr. Thomas Calnan Sorenson

March 22, 2020

Scripture: Psalm 23

We are living in difficult times. Not the worst times people have lived through or that some people are living through now, but times like nothing any of us have ever seen before. Like so many people around the world I am self-quarantined. I rarely leave my house except for brief walks around my neighborhood that I can do without getting too close to anyone other than my wife, who walks with me. On the very rare occasions when I do go out I am careful not to get too close to anyone else, to use hand sanitizer, and to scrub my hands as prescribed as soon as I get home. My calendar is empty. It usually has at least what were my five weekly commitments on it, two lectionary groups, two choir rehearsals, and in person worship on Sunday morning. They’ve all been suspended until at least the end of April and probably longer.  I have one appointment at the end of this month. It isn’t essential, so I will probably cancel it. Life for most of us just isn’t what it used to be, and we don’t know when it will return to what it used to be or indeed whether it will ever do that at all.

So far I’m handling my domestic exile fairly well, but I’m lucky. I’m retired. There isn’t anywhere I have to go. I live with my wife, not completely alone like so many do. My Social Security and United Church of Christ retirement automatic deposits keep coming. My wife is still employed, albeit half time with about a one-third time compensation package. We’re OK. We’re lucky. A great many of my sister and brother human beings aren’t. Many have lost or will lose all of their income because of the way our national life is shutting down. Our federal, state, and local officials tell us to maintain a good distance from other people. Several state governors (including the governor of my state) have issued stay at home orders. Various levels of our government may do something to help at least some of the folks who are suffering economic hardship because of the coronavirus, but it won’t be enough. A great many people face loss of their housing or other calamities because of the current pandemic. I wish I could help them all, but I can’t. I frankly have no idea what they’re going to do.

I don’t know what people are going to do to meet their financial and physical needs. I do know that difficult times like these can be difficult in ways other than financial and physical. They can be emotionally draining and spiritually deadening. Fortunately I have a good idea of where we can turn for help with at least our spiritual needs. Fortunately I do know where we can turn when we are feeling spiritually drained and emotionally dead. Especially those of us who live our lives within a faith tradition but really everybody can turn to the world’s great religious faiths for comfort and support. All of those faiths offer that support in one form or another. Buddhism teaches peace through meditation and non-attachment. Islam tells us that no matter what God is closer to us than our jugular vein. Qur’an 50:16. And those of us who live our lives with God in either the Jewish or the Christian tradition can turn to the prayer book of ancient Israel, the book of Psalms, for comfort and support.

There we find, among many other wonderful things, Psalm 23. I suspect it is most people’s favorite Psalm. (My favorite Psalm is Psalm 139, or most of it, but never mind.) Many of us memorized Psalm 23 in Sunday School, in times past probably in its King James Version translation. Scholars can pick this Psalm apart and say that it doesn’t really mean quite what most of us take it to mean. I’ve done that myself in my book Liberating the Bible. I’m not going to do that here. Scholarship has its place, but sometimes we need to read a biblical text for what it says to us, not what it may say to some scholar or other. These times are those times. In times like these Psalm 23 speaks powerful words of comfort to us. That’s what I want to talk about here.

Psalm 23 has a lot of powerfully reassuring lines in it. God provides us green pastures and quiet waters. God restores our souls. God walks the darkest valleys with us. The Psalm however begins with what is essentially a topic sentence, one that succinctly states its premise: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? It is wonderful, but like so many wonderful lines in the Bible it raises questions as much as it comforts and reassures us. When I read this line the first thing I want to ask is: What does it mean that I shall not want? After all, in these difficult times I want many things. I want my former life back, and I suspect that you do too. Is God going to satisfy that want and give us our former lives back? Someday maybe, but not now. Not soon. I want COVID-19 to go away. Will God take it away? Someday maybe when we have developed a vaccine against it, but not now. Not soon. I could name a lot of other things I want, but these two related wants are at the top of my list these days. There are a lot of things that I want and shall want.

I don’t think God is just going to give them to me, at least not now, not soon; so is Psalm 23 lying when it says we shall not want? I don’t actually think so, but to understand the truth of “I shall not want”  we have to understand just what God does and doesn’t do for us in this life. I do not believe that God intervenes directly in the external circumstances of our lives so as to address and heal those external circumstances. Yes, I know. You can find passages in the Bible that say otherwise. Still, I am convinced that human experience proves beyond any reasonable doubt that God doesn’t do that, or at least God doesn’t do it consistently for everyone. Instead God does something that is even more important given the nature of human life. When life gets hard, and life does for all of us sooner or later, God is there with us loving us and assuring us that no matter what we are existentially safe with God. Yes, we may suffer physically. Yes, our lives on earth will end. No matter, for in all that we are held in God’s hands and are safe there. Not necessarily physically safe. Spiritually safe. Not only in this life. Safe beyond this life too.

So if you’re feeling down in these difficult days. If you’re afraid of what might happen to you or your loved ones. If you’re frustrated because you have to stay home and can’t go about your normal life, please understand. God is with you. Turn to Psalm 23. Read how God is your good shepherd and how with God you shall not want. Read, and take heart. With God there really are green pastures and still waters for you and for me.  With God we truly shall not want. Thanks be to God!