Even in the Presence of my Enemies

Psalm 23

Photo by Pawan Sharma on Unsplash

My father grew up on westerns, so in turn, I did too. 

John Wayne classics like Rio Bravo and McClintock. 

Being immersed in the mythology of the American Cowboy was a great experience for me. 

It made me part of a long line of children who were entrusted with this mythology, from generation to generation. 

A mythology of the wild west and cowboys that was passed along through the lens of dime novels in the late 19th century, 

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show of the early 20th century, 

and the films that carried that mythology on through the remainder of the 20th century. 

It made me part of a long line of children that rode broomstick horses through the prairies of our backyards, armed with plastic cap guns which could be purchased at corner stores for around a dollar. 

So, later in life, when my family and I moved into farm country I was thrilled when one of the parishioners from the congregation where my father was serving, offered me a few chances to work on a real cattle farm. 

It wasn’t the wild west, but it was close enough for my imagination. 

When I stepped onto that farm, I learned a valuable lesson; 

The mythology of certain roles and the reality is rarely the same. 

Not a single western I had watched smelled like a real farm.

It was never as hot watching those films, as it was riding on the back of a trailer while snatching up square bails of hay being spewed out of a hay bailer. 

It was never as dusty and dirty in those films, as it was stacking bails of hay in a loft. 

The idea of being a cowboy was far more romantic and far less offensive to my senses than the reality. 

The same is true of shepherds. In fact, the two jobs are remarkably similar. 

We as a culture have become far more familiar with shepherds from the Christmas story than shepherds anywhere else in scripture. 

The shepherds we envision in scripture are thought of as lowly, dirty, and frowned on by the rest of society. 

What we forget is that a long line of shepherds served as the leaders of God’s people. 

Abraham, Moses, and the biggest hero shepherd of them all; David. 

All these figures served as shepherds. 

David’s role as a shepherd was a big part of what made the image of a shepherd king the John Wayne or Roy Rogers of Jesus’ day. 

Just as many of us grew up “playing cowboy” many Judean children probably grew up aspiring to be “shepherd warriors” or even “shepherd kings,” the way David was portrayed. 

Shepherd kings were not only seen as the hero’s of Jesus’ day, but it predated parts of the Bible, going all the way back to ancient Sumerian cultures. 

Kings from ancient Mesopotamia to Egypt were portrayed in stone engravings with shepherd staffs and shepherd crowns. 

It may have been an idealized image, perhaps even a mythological one, but this is how the people of that time and place pictured a ruler and a king; a shepherd. 

But the reality of shepherding and the myth were two very different things. 

It was most certainly a difficult job. 

It was a job with challenges that Psalm 23 doesn’t even try to hide. 

In fact, this is what makes Psalm 23 such a beautiful psalm of trust. 

Psalm 23 portrays a shepherd who relentlessly pushes and pulls a flock at each and every step of the way. 

A shepherd who struggles against a flock that can be easily frightened or confused. 

Flocks of sheep that, to this very day, can be driven off cliffs by the most simple disturbance. 

So it was the shepherd’s job to know what was best for the sheep and to keep track of each and every sheep individually, because one sheep could endanger the entire flock. 

A shepherd’s job was to be constantly aware of each and every sheep, and to encourage them and guide them toward what was best for the flock rather than the lone sheep. 

Sounds like a difficult job with sheep, of course, but I would say it is far worse with people. 

There are many kinds of animals that follow what is known as “herd instincts,” fish, cattle, birds, packs of canine. 

But there isn’t a herd that is more destructive than a people. 

Riots, mob rule, mob law, stock market bubbles, branding and product marketing, social marketing, political and social tribalism, 

Photo by Harri Kuokkanen on Unsplash

Human beings may be the most dangerous herd there is,  yet when we are pushed and pulled together to serve the Shepherd's purpose, God’s purpose, rather than our own, we can also serve as the truest reflection of God in this creation. 

When that happens we become a reflection best known as THE Body of Christ. 

But that is a reality that we rarely see for very long periods of time. 

It is the reality of our very best that we usually only see when everything around us is at its very worst.

~

One of my favorite films is the movie Glory. 

It is a film portraying the Massachusetts 54th Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. 

The Massachusetts 54th was the first black regiment raised by the Union during that conflict. 

It was made up entirely of black enlisted soldiers and led by white officers. 

Soldiers with different roles who came from very different places in society and life. 

It is a wonder that this regiment functioned the way that they did, because the black soldiers were treated far differently than their white counterparts, for more reasons than just their ranks. 

The most powerful scenes in the entire movie came at the end of the film, beginning with the 54th’s commander, Colonel Shaw, asking one of his soldiers, Trip, to carry the regimental colors into battle. 

Shaw is taken aback when Trip responds hesitantly to the honor of carrying his regiment’s flag into battle. 

Shaw is shocked and explains the tremendous honor of carrying those colors to Trip, yet he still refuses. 

Finally Shaw outright asks Trip, a runaway slave, and now a Union soldier to explain why he refuses such an honor. 

Trip responds hesitantly but honestly when he simply exclaims; 

“Well, I uhh, I ain’t fightin’ this war for you, sir. I mean, what’s the point? Ain’t nobody gonna win its just gonna go on and on.”

Shaw responds confidently assuring Trip, “It can’t go on forever. Somebody’s gonna win.”

But Trip asks, “Who? I mean, you, you get to go back to Boston. Big house and all that. What about us? What do we get?”

At the end of the scene, the two agree that the whole situation stinks. 

In Trip’s words, “The whole thing stinks and it stinks bad, and we all covered in it too, ain’t nobody clean. It’d be nice to get clean though.”

“How do we do that?”, inquires Shaw.

Trip declares, “We ante up and kick in, sir. But I still don’t want to carry your flag.” 

The problem that Trip sees, the reason he doesn’t want to carry those colors, isn’t because he doesn’t see himself as a member of the body of this regiment. 

It’s because he doesn’t believe that Colonel Shaw is part of this body. 

He doesn’t believe that flag is the regiment’s flag, he believes it's Colonel Shaw’s flag. 

During the battle scene, as the 54th Regiment is attacking Fort Wagner, Colonel Shaw and his men are pinned down in a hole. 

Knowing they have no choice but to push forward, Colonel Shaw grabs his flag bearer, his pistol and his sword, leaps from the hole and begins to charge up the hill alone after his flag bearer almost instantly falls. 

As he watches another one of his soldiers fall, he continues his charge and shouts with his final breath, “C’mon 54.”

Watching Shaw’s lifeless body fall to the ground, the first soldier to leap from that pit and grab the colors is Trip, who leads the entire regiment to begin their charge on Fort Wagner. 

That flag didn’t change colors in that final battle scene, neither did the color of Trip or Shaw’s skin. 

What changed is that Trip realized in that moment that Shaw was part of the body of their regiment. 

An officer, yes. 

A white man, yes. 

But above and beyond all that, Trip finally sees Colonel Shaw as a member of his flock, his herd, his regiment, who has obviously put the 54th before his own well being. 

Storming Fort Wagner, Kurz & Allison 1890 PD

~

The parts of Psalm 23 that are the most striking is that the Shepherd doesn’t go around the deep dark valleys, the Shepherd doesn’t even eliminate the enemies. 

The Shepherd walks with the flock into those valleys and prepares tables in and amongst our enemies. 

In spite of the abundance of blessings that are attributed to the Shepherd, the most hopeful part I find in this poetry of trust and confidence are the words of assurance that God will follow us into any valley and hardship we may wander into. 

It is the assurance that God is not only the Shepherd but that the flock will never be without that Shepherd. 

It is a reminder that the flock of God’s people is taken up as God’s own, in our baptisms, in God’s guidance, in God’s promise, in God’s feast that is offered to us in the Body and the Blood, even in the presence of our own enemies. 

And even when we are in such despair and want that we cannot even find the still waters to splash upon our brows to remember that we are redeemed and beloved members of God’s flock, 

We can collect the tears from our own eyes and mark the cross of Christ on our brow with them, knowing that God is pursuing us with each every blessing just over that bend. 

Amen

Photo by Jaka Škrlep on Unsplash

Sources

“Sumerian Shepherd Kings.” Accessed April 19, 2018. http://sumerianshakespeare.com/70701/502901.html.

Broderick, Matthew, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, Morgan Freeman, Edward Zwick, Kevin Jarre, James Horner, Tri-Star Pictures, and Columbia TriStar Home Video (Firm). Glory. Culver City, CA: Columbia TriStar Home Video, 2000.