He Settles Me Down

Psalm 23:2

In a little more than a month, Morocco will celebrate the Eid Kabir, Eid Al Adha. Take your camera out in the weeks before and you will get pictures of sheep tied onto the roofs of taxis, crammed into the trunks of cars, in the back of the small Honda trucks, and even standing on its hind feet in the front of a scooter. If you have never been, visit one of the sheep markets where people are buying their ram. There is a lot of energy and excitement and people love posing for pictures with their sheep. The first time I went, after walking around in the mud and sheep deposits, I left thinking this was much closer to the experience of Jesus when he went to the Temple in Jerusalem than the sterile churches where we worship.

Every family is supposed to buy a sheep and there is honor in getting as large a ram as possible. (As an aside, because of the pressure to buy a ram, the weeks prior to the Eid experience an increase in crime so you need to be extra cautious when making your way through the city. Annie and I were mugged on our way to a Christmas Day church service a few years ago when the Eid was a week or two after Christmas. The police are the ones who told me about the increase in crime and told me to be more careful.)

The days before the Eid, you will see, and hear, sheep on rooftops, balconies, and yards. On the day of the Eid, the king will ceremonially cut the throat of a ram and then, within a couple hours, three to four million sheep will be killed in Morocco. There will be fire pits at the intersections of neighborhoods where the sheep heads will be cooked. The butcher shops will not be open for several days since everyone has plenty of meat. Stock up beforehand.

In Palestine, in the days of King David and in the days of Jesus, sheep were even more of a presence than in Morocco. Sheep were used for food but they were raised mostly for their wool. For an average family, slaughtering a sheep was an act of generous hospitality. Taking a sheep to the temple to be sacrificed on the altar was an expensive sacrifice.

A sheep’s wool was used for articles of clothing. Sheep’s horns were used as containers for oil and even as musical instruments. Sheep’s bones were used to make needles, scrapers, lances, and arrowheads. The skin was used for clothing, curtains, and leather which was sometimes used to write on. A sheep’s gentleness and loyalty made it a common household pet.

The point of this is that when David wrote his Psalm 23 and when people heard Jesus talk about himself as the Good Shepherd, people understood what was said in a way that we do not. We buy lamb in the store and when we drive around Morocco we may see sheep and sheep herders, but we are removed from the culture of caring for sheep. This is why I have appreciated Kenneth Bailey’s book, The Good Shepherd: A Thousand-Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament.

I began this series of sermons from the Good Shepherd passages last week with verse 1.
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

This week we continue with verse 2.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,

“He makes me lie down.” Bailey points out that you cannot make a sheep lay down. A shepherd cannot force a sheep to lay down. When you see a picture of sheep laying down, the sheep are laying down because they want to.

The Greek word used means “to settle down” or “rest”. So Bailey translates this verse as:
He settles me down in green pastures,
he leads me beside still waters,

This fits the behavior of sheep much better than “makes me lay down.” Sheep will lay down only when all their needs have been met. When they have had plenty to eat, have quenched their thirst, are not being bothered by biting insects, or threatened by any wild animal – then they will lay down. Sheep are skittish. One bark of a stray dog can cause the flock of sheep to jump up and run off if the shepherd is not alert and stops them.

Sheep need to be at rest before they can lay down and a good shepherd makes sure they are well fed, well watered, and protected from wild animals. The difference between a flock with a good shepherd and a flock with a lazy shepherd is that the sheep with a good shepherd are plumper with more meat because they do not expend nervous energy. So a good shepherd searches out green grass and still waters, a place where the sheep will be protected, where they will not be anxious. Then the sheep will settle down and rest.

We are very often skittish sheep. We are easily dissatisfied with what we have and can become obsessed with the desire to buy a certain thing. It can seem that life will be meaningless if we do not buy the thing we want. The thing we want has power over us. Our happiness depends on it. And after we buy it, there will still be more. No matter how much we have, we want more and more. We are skittish sheep.

We are too much affected by little things. When my computer acts up it seems like the whole world has fallen apart. I am obsessed with making it work again. Buying a new computer is a nightmare because I have to learn the new operating system Microsoft has decided to inflict on me. The possessions I own, in reality, own me. They control my mood. We are skittish sheep.

We are worried and anxious about how we will perform in school, who likes us and who does not like us, whether or not we will find a job after school, whether or not we will get married, whether or not we will get the promotions we know we deserve, whether we will accumulate the possessions we crave and build up the bank account that will make us feel secure. Even if everything seems to be going well for us, we are worried and anxious about our family members and friends who are having difficulties. We worry about the dangers in the world, being mugged and attacked. We worry about the changes in the values of the world. We worry about who will be elected as leaders of our country. We worry about the increase in terrorism. We are skittish sheep and have great difficulty settling down and resting.

There are some who are much better at resting than others. I am a particularly skittish sheep. I have a difficult time being at rest and my mind is always thinking of something or someone and wishing I could make things better.

Psalm 131, the twelfth of the Psalms of Ascent, seems to have been written for me.
1 My heart is not proud, Lord,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
2 But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.

I struggle because I want to put things right. I want to set the world in order. And when relationships are broken, when people are not making decisions that are good for them, when nations are working against peace, when people are seeking to harm others, this is deeply upsetting to me. I am frustrated because I am so limited and can do almost nothing to make things right.

So when I read:
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
I see the way out of the stressful anxiety that wraps around my life.

I need to realize I am not God. I cannot fix the problems of the world; I am only a sheep. But I am a sheep with a good shepherd. And when I see my life from this perspective, I am at rest.
2 But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.

There are a few times in my life that stand out for me, times when I have been able to settle down and be at peace. One was when I was in seminary. I had multiple exams and papers coming up. As I recall, I had recently broken up with a girlfriend. I was feeling highly stressed and what I most wanted to do was to put a couple pairs of jeans in a backpack, leave a note saying I was leaving, and head out the door to explore the US. Stick out my thumb, hitchhike, and avoid all the things that were causing me to be stressed.

I wanted to run away, but this is what I did. I sat in a comfortable chair, curled up in a fetal position, wrapped a blanket my grandmother had made for me over my body, and prayed. It was like I had crawled back into the womb. I talked to God about all that was making me feel stressed and then I surrendered to him. I acknowledged that he was sovereign, that he was in control, and because I knew he loved me, I felt a great peace. I felt a physical sensation of peace that moved through my body. I relaxed and was at rest.

There have been a few more of those experiences over the years. I have to calm and quiet myself, realize I am just a sheep, look to my shepherd who keeps me safe, and then I am at peace.

This is what Paul encourages us to do in Philippians 4:6–7
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

1 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
2 He settles me down

David continues:
1 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
2 He settles me down in green pastures,

Bailey points out that in Palestine, green pastures are to be found for just three months of the year. For nine months of the year, the ground is brown and it is difficult to find good grass for sheep to eat. At times it seems the sheep are eating the dust of the ground. A shepherd with one hundred sheep has to work hard to find a bit of grass for his sheep to eat in the seasons when the fields are not green.

There are times for us when the pastures are green and we flourish. We have enough to eat and drink, we are surrounded by good friends, we are thriving with a wonderful community of followers of Jesus to encourage and support us. All is well.

But there are also times when our health or the health of those we care about is attacked by some disease or injury. Someone we love unexpectedly dies. Finances become tight and dry up. Our school or work becomes a burden. The pastures are not always green and when they are not green, can we still be at rest?

When I prayed in the chair with my grandmother’s blanket over my head, my circumstances did not change. I still had to write the papers and take the exams, but I was no longer so anxious.

This is what Paul experienced. He wrote in Philippians 4:11–13
I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

We don’t have to be in green pastures to experience the peace of God which transcends all understanding. We can be grazing on dry, brown, dusty bits of grass and still be at rest. This is true even in the most barren piece of ground.

Festo Kivengere, “the Billy Graham of Africa,” was a Ugandan Christian leader who faced the wrath of the brutal dictator Idi Amin. Kivengere had met with Idi Amin to voice his opposition to the killing in 1973 of three men from his diocese by a government firing squad on a trumped-up charge. Here is his story of that day:

February 10 began as a sad day for us in Kabale. People were commanded to come to the stadium and witness the execution. Death permeated the atmosphere. A silent crowd of about three thousand was there ready to watch. I had permission from the authorities to speak to the men before they died, and two of my fellow ministers were with me. They brought the men in a truck and unloaded them. They were handcuffed and their feet were chained. The firing squad stood at attention. As we walked into the center of the stadium, I was wondering what to say. How do you give the Gospel to doomed men who are probably seething with rage?

We approached them from behind, and as they turned to look at us, what a sight! Their faces were all alight with an unmistakable glow and radiance. Before we could say anything, one of them burst out: “Bishop, thank you for coming! I wanted to tell you. The day I was arrested, in my prison cell, I asked the Lord Jesus to come into my heart. He came in and forgave me all my sins! Heaven is now open, and there is nothing between me and my God! Please tell my wife and children that I am going to be with Jesus. Ask them to accept him into their lives as I did.” The other two men told similar stories, excitedly raising their hands, which rattled their handcuffs.

I felt that what I needed to do was to talk to the soldiers, not to the condemned. So I translated what the men had said into a language the soldiers understood. The military men were standing there with guns cocked and bewilderment on their faces. They were so dumbfounded that they forgot to put the hoods over the men’s faces! The three faced the firing squad standing close together. They looked toward the people and began to wave, handcuffs and all. The people waved back. Then shots were fired, and the three were with Jesus.

We don’t have to wait for our circumstances to change to be at rest. What we have to do is know that our good shepherd will lead us to green pastures. This may not be the season for green pastures, but that time will come. Green pastures may not come in this life, but they will come. Our shepherd will lead us there. We follow our good shepherd and because we know he loves us and will provide for us, because we know he will keep us safe, we are able to lay down and rest.

1 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
2 He settles me down in green pastures,
he leads me

When we see sheep in Morocco, we often see the shepherd driving the sheep forward with a stick. But Bailey points out that is not what happens in the hills of Palestine. In the open wilderness of Palestine the shepherd walks slowly ahead of his sheep and either plays his own ten-second tune on a pipe or (more often) sings his own unique call. The sheep appear to be attracted primarily by the voice of the shepherd, which they know and are eager to follow.

When the shepherds gather at a spring or well, the sheep intermingle. When it is time to leave, a shepherd will sing his call and his sheep will separate from the mixed flock and follow him.

Bailey quotes this account of an author who witnessed this phenomenon.
During the riots in Palestine in the middle thirties (1930s) a village near Haifa was condemned to collective punishment by having its sheep and cattle sequestered by the Government. The inhabitants were permitted to redeem their possessions at a fixed price. Among them was an orphan shepherd boy, whose six or eight sheep and goats were all he had in the world for life and work. Somehow he obtained the money for their redemption. He went to the big enclosure where the animals were penned, offering his money to the British sergeant in charge. The N.C.O. told him he was welcome to the requisite number of animals, but ridiculed the idea that he could possibly pick out his “little flock” from among the confiscated hundreds. The little shepherd had his nai (shepherd’s pipe) with him, “his own” separated from the rest of the animals and trotted out after him.

John 10:27
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

Jesus, our good shepherd, laid down his life for us and before he ascended, he promised the Holy Spirit who would lead us. The Holy Spirit speaks to us, calls to us, constantly. Do we know his voice?

We easily recognize the voice of the devil who leads us to do what we know is not right. It is more difficult for us to recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit leading us to green pastures and still waters.

I mentioned last week that one of our problems is that we are so distracted that the noise of the world drowns out the call of our good shepherd. I put this cartoon in the bulletin again this week. The shepherd calls in the distance but the sheep is relaxing on a lounge chair, watching TV, has on headphones listening to music, the radio is blaring, he is reading a book, and the Bible sits on the ground. We need to take time to turn off the tv, turn off the radio, turn off whatever electronic device we are using to listen to music, turn off the cell phone, put down the book – and be quiet. When we don’t spend time in silence, how do we expect to hear the call of our good shepherd?

1 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
2 He settles me down in green pastures,
he leads me beside still waters,

Sheep will not drink from swift moving water. If a stream is available, Middle Eastern shepherds will dig a short, dead-end channel that leads away from the stream. The sheep quickly line up along such a channel of “still water” and quench their thirst. David wrote this because he knew that this is how sheep are best cared for. But what is the deeper meaning?

In John 4:10 Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well:
“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

Jesus is the living water, but what about still water? Could it be a reference to the difficulty of settling down in the midst of turbulence and chaos? We are designed by God to need quiet times of reflection. Jesus got away from the crowds, early in the morning, to have time to reflect and pray. We need to put away the electronic gadgets that have taken the place of the crowds that surrounded Jesus. We need to be someplace where we can breathe, pull away from the chaos of the world, open our Bible, read, journal, reflect, and pray. If we cannot do this every day and the best we can manage is a quick prayer for the day, we need to find some time during the week when we can take more time and soak up the living water of Jesus.

1 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
2 He settles me down in green pastures,
he leads me beside still waters,

Given a choice, we would probably choose to be an animal other than a sheep. When David lamented the death of Saul and Jonathan, this is how he described them: (2 Samuel 1:23)
Saul and Jonathan—
in life they were loved and admired,
and in death they were not parted.
They were swifter than eagles,
they were stronger than lions.

The Gadites who came to fight with David in his stronghold in the wilderness are described as (1 Chronicles 12:8)
brave warriors, ready for battle and able to handle the shield and spear. Their faces were the faces of lions, and they were as swift as gazelles in the mountains.

Isaiah 40:31 tells us
but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Jeremiah said (Jeremiah 12:5)
5 “If you have raced with men on foot
and they have worn you out,
how can you compete with horses?

We would like to be eagles soaring in the sky, lions who rule the grasslands, swift gazelles, speedy horses. But Jesus talked about us as sheep. He views us as baby chicks. When he prayed for the people in Jerusalem he said: (Luke 13:34)
how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings

Why did Jesus choose sheep and chicks to describe us? I think it is because even eagles, lions, and horses need to be loved and comforted. As intelligent and strong as we are, regardless of how capable we are, we need to know that we are loved for who we are, not for who we project ourselves to be. At the heart of every man and every woman is a little girl or boy who wants and needs to be loved.

This is why we are sheep who follow our good shepherd. He leads us with his voice, calling us to green pastures and still waters. He encourages us to surrender to him so we can lie down and rest.

We are God’s beloved daughters and beloved sons. We are so deeply loved. We need to surrender to our good shepherd and allow the peace of God to overcome us so we can be at rest. In the midst of the chaos, disorder, and uncertainty of the world, with Jesus as our shepherd, we can be at rest.