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Reflections for Sunday, May 3, 2009

Boy feeding bottle to lamb“The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want;he makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I 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 annointest my head with oil, my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” (Psalm 23)

Reflections on Psalm 23 

Jesus says to us again this day … “I am the good shepherd.  The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. … I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.  And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice.  So there shall be one flock, one shepherd.” (John 10:11, 14-16)

“All we like sheep/ all we like sheep have gone a-stray/ … we have turn-ed ev’ry one to his own way/ …” (G.F. Handel; The Messiah, No. 26 – Chorus.  pace Isaiah 53:6)

boy feeding a bottle to a lamb“A sheep can hardly be called an animal; [for] an entire flock is required to make even one foolish individual.” (John Muir; My First Summer in the Sierra)

“The thing about light is that it really isn’t yours; it’s what you gather and shine back.  And it gets more power from reflectiveness; if you sit still and take it in, it fills your cup [cf. Psalm 23:5c], and then you can give it off yourself.” (Anne Lamott; Traveling Mercies, 228)

“On any given Dakota night, however comfortable we may be, or however secure our futures may seem, we remain vulnerable to a certain heaviness of heart that can come upon us for no apparent reason – like the wind.  It may begin as a flutter in the chest or a full-blown ache – a sudden hollowness inside, a peculiar melancholy, an inexplicable homesickness.  Have you ever felt it?  The sense that there is a place you belong that you’ve somehow gotten separated from, a place that misses you as much as you miss it and that is calling you to return, only you don’t know where, or how to get there.  All you know is that you are not there yet, and that your life will not be complete until you are …  And so, ultimately we’re not home yet.  It’s not the best feeling in the world, but it’s not the worst either.  It’s not a bad thing to know you belong somewhere, even if you’re not there yet.  I like to think of it as God’s divine tug, a kind of homing instinct planted in each one of us that nags at us, and turns us around, makes us look up and get us restless when we sit still too long, because none of us is home yet.” (j.r. christopherson; from a funeral sermon based on Psalm 23 and John 14:1-3)

 

Submitted by First Lutheran on Tue, 04/28/2009 - 2:33pm.