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Psalm 23 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. This year, Monday Matters will focus on wisdom conveyed in the treasures of the book of Psalms. We’ll look at the psalms read in church before Monday Matters comes to your screen. |
Enough already
Years ago, I read a story in the New Yorker, a poem actually, about an exchange between Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller. I may not get all the details right but here’s the gist of their conversation. They were attending a cocktail party at the home of a rich, young investment banker on the end of Long Island. At the party, Mr. Vonnegut leaned over to Mr. Heller and asked something like this: “How does it make you feel to know that this young man made more money last week than you made from your novel, Catch-22?” Mr. Heller responded: “I have something this young man will never have.” “What’s that?” Mr. Vonnegut responded. Mr. Heller: “The knowledge that I have enough.”
We read Psalm 23 in church yesterday, on what has come to be known as Good Shepherd Sunday. It’s included above. The version from the Book of Common Prayer may vary slightly from the version most people know. That’s a good thing, as it allows us to hear this well-known psalm anew.
There’s much we can focus on in this psalm. What caught my eye anew this week was the first verse, which reads: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. In other words, the Lord is my shepherd and what I have is enough. It echoes the line in the Lord’s Prayer which asks for our daily bread. Not an overabundance, but bread that is sufficient for this day, the knowledge that it will be enough. The pastoral power of this psalm may come from the fact that in much of life, we battle a sense that whatever we have is simply not enough.
How do we come to a place in our lives where we sense that we have had a sufficiency, a gracious plenty?
It begins with an attitude of gratitude focusing on all good gifts around us, instead of focusing on what we might be missing. That grateful heart opens the doorway to contentment, which brings to mind the counsel of St. Paul as he wrote the beloved Philippian church. He spoke about his own sense of contentment, which I could imagine was a challenge for him: “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:11-13) In another letter to his protégé, Timothy, he writes: “There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment.” (I Timothy 6:6).
A call for contentment can be complicated in a world marked by deprivation and gross income inequality. The persistent biblical call to work for justice and peace trumps any message of stay in your place. It’s not a message of passivity or helplessness.
But in a culture stricken with affluenza, symptoms being the nagging sense that whatever we have is never enough, an attitude of gratitude leads to contentment which leads us to notice that we have what we need. As the hymn reminds us: All I have needed thy hand has provided. Great is thy faithfulness.
Where do you need to work on contentment in your life? Where does covetousness threaten contentment? And where do you need to embrace holy restlessness, an unwillingness to settle? As you embrace that restlessness, at the same time, remember all that you have been given, with a grateful heart. Remember that the world will tell you it’s never enough. Remember that you have a good shepherd.
-Jay Sidebotham
