The Psalm this week is Psalm 23. The last time we heard this psalm was Easter 4, Good Shepherd Sunday. It, like Isaiah 25, is often read at funerals because it offers comfort and reassurance to a people who are hurting and filled with anxiety and uncertainty.
Often though when a text is
familiar to the bone, I find that the message I hear in the text can change
according to the situation in which I find myself. Psalm 23 read on Good Shepherd Sunday might
call up images of Jesus carrying a lamb on his shoulders. I have one of those images on a small icon
with the admonition from my bishop to “Feed my sheep”. Psalm 23 read at a funeral might bring
comfort as “the valley of the shadow of death” leaps to center stage. And perhaps this coming Sunday, in the
context of Jesus’ parable of the wedding banquet, I might look for reassurance
in the table prepared in the presence of my enemies.
This week in your prayer time think
back to that Sunday in May as we fasted from Eucharist and wondered when life
would return to “normal”. Perhaps you
might go to the website and listen to Pastor Barb’s sermon to jog your
memory. Then take some time in prayer to
see how Psalm 23 speaks to you today.
There is a collect in the Order for
Compline that invites us who are “wearied by the changes and chances of this
life” to find rest in “God’s “eternal changelessness”. Hurricanes, Covid, elections…. grief, exhaustion, fear, all of these are
passing moments. God’s love and
compassion endures. See you in church on
Sunday.
Buen Camino,
Mother Jane
