Going Deeper

“Going Deeper”

Rev. Stephen Milton

Lawrence Park Community Church

May 11, 2025

Psalm 23

Last week, we heard Jesus say to Peter, “feed my sheep.” This was a clear allusion to the idea that Jesus is a shepherd, who guides his followers as a shepherd guides sheep. Indeed, Jesus told parables about God being like a shepherd who would leave the flock to find lost souls, lost sheep. 

Vatican Shepherd image 1

There’s a lovely modern sculpture depicting this in the Vatican museums. It shows Jesus holding a lost lamb, while leading the rest of the flock. 

Vatican Shepherd image 2

The curators have placed the sculpture next to a window so Christ is seen against the greenery of the Vatican gardens. The imagery is clear - when a person strays away from a moral life, perhaps lost in some kind of sin, then Christ will not give up on them but seek them out. Bring the lost sheep back to the fold. This is what shepherds do.

I think as Christians we are so deeply influenced by this image of Christ the good shepherd that we bring that sense to the Psalm we heard today. In Psalm 23, the opening line is “the Lord is my Shepherd.” It was written at least 500 years before Jesus was born. It was written for Jews whose spiritual life was divided between life in their villages, and periodic visits to the temple in Jerusalem where God’s spirit resided. Indeed, at the end of the psalm, it speaks of living in the temple for one’s entire life:

I shall dwell in the house of the Lord

my whole life long.

Taken literally, that would suggest that this is a psalm written about a priest who really would live in the temple. But the rest of the psalm doesn’t sound like that at all. It is obviously addressed to all people who follow God. There is no sense that the person in the psalm is special in any way. This is a psalm for everyone, so if it ends with living in the temple for the rest of one’s life, it must be a metaphor. It is a statement that a good life feels like being close to God all the time, as though one was living in the temple.

This psalm is probably the best known, and has often been prayed by people in trouble. Soldiers who fear for their life and need some courage take heart in the line “ even thought I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” When it seems our lives are in danger, this is a go-to psalm since it conveys calm in the face of danger. It is read in hospitals at death beds. I read it to Mark Toews on his last day. It promises comfort in times of trouble. But it also contains strange references. Why would God set a table for us in front our enemies? Why would God lead Her sheep through a scary valley? We hear the calm of the psalm, and ignore much of what it is really saying. Today I would like to suggest that we misunderstand what this psalm is about, and who it is addressed to because of the way our modern mind works. 

One of the differences between how we live today and how people lived in the past is that we assume that our primary identity is our conscious mind. Rene Descartes famously said “I think, therefore I am.” Whatever we are thinking at any given moment, that’s who we really are. That definition has been expanded a bit lately to include , “ I feel, therefore I am.” Most of us would say that our identity is tied up in what we are feeling as much as what we are thinking. We are whatever is happening in our consciousness right now. When some asks “how are you?” We know that they expect us to answer with a feeling answer, “ I’m fine,” or “I’m kind of miffed today, here’s what’s bugging me.” 

But this is not the only way to understand our human identity. There are times in life when everything is going well. We have a loving family. We may have a good job, that pays well and is secure. Objectively, everything is going fine. And yet, something is not right. Something deep within us is not happy. We may find that we are getting sick more often. Or that something that used to give us joy leaves us unmoved, and cold. It’s as though there is more than one person inside us. There’s the one who has every reason to say “I’m fine.” And then there is a deeper identity within us which is not happy, which seems ready to go on strike. Our conscious mind is at a loss to understand what’s going on. 

This sort of situation is something the Bible understands well. The writers of the psalms knew about this deeper self within us. They called it the soul. Here’s a line from Psalm 42:

Why are you cast down, O my soul,

     and why are you disquieted within me?

 Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

     my help and my God.

(Psalm 42)

See how the writer makes a distinction between his conscious self and his soul? His conscious mind asks his soul why are you so disquieted within me? Why are you so upset? These writers believed there  is more to our being that our conscious minds. Below our surface minds, the ones we experience in consciousness, there is another self deeper down. Much of the time it is quiet. But sometimes, it gets unsettled. At those times, it feels like what we are doing is at odds with our deeper self.

The trouble with getting to know the soul is that is usually silent. We can and do ignore it most of the time. But it is always with us. It appears to surface most often in dreams. It speaks and understands a language of symbols. So we may have a recurring dream that doesn’t make much sense to us logically, but is clearly meaningful to us at some deeper level. The Bible has many dream episodes like this, such as when Jacob dreamt he saw angels going up and down a ladder to heaven. Everyone has these kinds of dreams, but because they make no sense to our logical, conscious minds, we usually dismiss them.

The Persian mystic poet Rumi says in one of his poems, “the soul is here for its own joy.” People from all kinds of different faiths have said that your soul is the part of you which is always connected to God. It is your soul that finds joy in the feeling of connection to everything else. It sees the sacred in all things. When you come upon a vista or a sunset that takes your breath away, when you lose your words and you just say “ah…” - that is your soul’s reaction breaking to the surface. Like a whale cresting in the water of your conscious life. We say we are at a loss for words - that’s the eloquent silence of the soul.

Our souls are always connected to God. When Jesus says “the kingdom of God is within you,” he is saying God is in your soul, which is within you at all times. The challenge of the spiritual life is to live out that connection to God through your soul. In a sense, religion should be a matchmaker, re-introducing you to your soul, so you can be with God more consciously.

Our souls sense connection in all things, in this world, and with the eternal. This is why they revel in stories where different things are connected to each other. Souls love fairy tales and poetry. Souls love hearing the same story over and over again if it is about how everything is connected. This is why we can watch romantic comedies for years, even though most of them have the same plot - boy meets girl, boy loses girl, they get back together. Same thing with Christmas specials. Our soul loves the connections, the relationships of the world, it finds joy there, so it doesn’t mind hearing the same story over and over again. The soul loves stories about people waking up to become more connected. Sleeping Beauty is about waking up to the soul; the matrix movies are about us waking up to who we really are; soap opera stories about characters with amnesia, even Jason Bourne action movies - all about remembering who we really are. People who are more than our conscious minds. We are people with souls.

Today’s psalm is addressed to the soul. It makes no sense as a prediction of how life is lived. Life isn’t all green pastures and easy living. Having a banquet in front of your enemies is a good way to get beaten up. But the psalm isn’t about that. The sheep in the psalm is our soul, in the company of God. And as the psalm proceeds, the mind wakes up and feels more connected to the soul. It stops speaking about God as “he” and starts talking about God as “You”, a deeper more intimate relationship. Let’s hear it again, but think of it as addressed to your soul, that deep eternal part of you which is not buffeted by external events as much as your conscious mind and feelings are.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

 She makes me lie down in green pastures;

 She leads me beside still waters;

    She restores my soul.

 She leads me in right paths

     for her name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

     I fear no evil;

 for you are with me;

     your rod and your staff—

     they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me

     in the presence of my enemies;

 you anoint 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

     my whole life long.

This is soul talk. To the soul, life is always enough, more than enough. Even while people do terrible things to each other, our souls can still see the beauty in the world; the soul is connected to all things. Its cup runneth over. The soul is God’s darling, God’s home in our bodies. Our minds mistake external events for eternal events. We assume that the difficult things which are happening now make goodness impossible. But the soul knows that is not true. God, the source of all good things, is always with us, even when we walk through the dark valleys of life. We may lose our house, our job, our spouse - these are all difficult, painful experiences. And when we feel disconnected from the whole, when we feel at our most isolated, the soul suffers, for it knows that its health lies in connection with all that is.

So, the soul looks to God, our shepherd, for help. To rescue us when we lose our way in life. When we wander off, or when we are pushed off the safe path. This psalm, like the Bible generally, does not promise a carefree life where there will be no heartbreak. Human life is not like that. Humans make life difficult for each other. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident. Even the greatest love affair must end in death. There is no easy path for our conscious minds to follow, there will always be difficulties from time to time, no matter how well life goes. 

But deep within us, our soul knows where comfort lies. In connection, in relationship with the sacred power that creates and recreates all things. That deeper part of you knows who its shepherd is. A shepherd who shows the way to green pastures, even in times of trouble. Through prayer, meditation, walks in the woods, we can sink into our souls to take refuge from the pain of the turbulent waters stirred up by the storms on the surface. We can find the strength to go on even when it seems everything is falling apart. We can get through this dark valley, and find a home with God all the days of our life. Amen.