Psalm 23

Year A - Fourth Sunday in Lent or Conviction ^[4]

March 30, 2014

Psalm 23

The New Community Bible notes this Psalm “glides easily from the metaphor of the shepherd to the metaphor of the host”. 

We, too, find ourselves in the everyday world with all its ups and downs. Since we are patterning people we are able to see a thread of life running through everything, even death. We sense a shepherd, some cosmic assurance that all manner of states of being shall be well and weller again. We are hosted.

Sometimes we consider the end of this Psalm to be some heaven we achieve. Here, though, our sense of being hosted shifts and we find ourselves hosting. To dwell in some metaphoric house of G*D is not a resting place for us but is to bring us to a place of responsibility for said house and to be a good host. Note that hosting does not begin at the door, but with an engagement of people before that so they can see our care for them and all. This is a generic invitation that turns specific over time. “Come, let us reason together, let us live in peace together.”

What is usually seen as a Psalm of comfort in a time of distress is also a call to being a H*st. Imagine living in a world where we host one another.

It will help if you look up the word “host” and follow its derivation. It seems the root is “enemy” and later becomes “host of guests/visitors/strangers/foreigner/enemies” and a root for “hospital”. If “host” can move from a horde of enemies to caring for them, imagine this Psalm recording a journey of your life from estranged to caring.

Isn’t that a Lenten journey worth the travel. Let us be a host to creation and one another (friend or enemy) and we will find we have also hosted G*D.