Twenty-three and One-thirty-nine

When I was teaching my psalm class last week I learned something new. If you Google the psalms, the two psalms that come up as the clear favorites are twenty-three and one-thirty-nine.

The two psalms have a similar dynamic. In both God's protection and constant, reassuring presence is contrasted with threat. The first psalm famously begins, in the King James Version:

The Lord is my shepherd;

I shall not want.

but then later says:

Yea, through I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;

for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Psalm one-thirty-nine may be slightly less well known but has its fierce advocates. In our Book of Common Prayer translation it begins:

LORD, you have searched me out and known me;

you know my sitting down and my rising up;

you discern my thoughts from afar.

You trace my journeys and my resting places

and are acquainted with all my ways.

Indeed there is not a word on my lips,

but you, O LORD, know it altogether.

As with twenty-three, the psalm later shifts to acknowledge serious threats to the assurance God's constant presence can provide:

If I say, 'Surely the darkness will cover me,

and the light around me turn to night,'

Darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day;

darkness and light to you are both alike.

I wonder why these psalms are so popular. One interesting fact is that psalm twenty-three was not always so highly regarded. It was only in the time of the American Civil War and the industrial revolution in England that twenty-three became the most memorized bit of scripture after the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments.

I wonder if both psalms are so popular because they speak to a deep and modern anxiety that we all seem to share. Perhaps we worry, like never before, that we are alone and without purpose. These psalms utter a deep assuring word that God is with us to love us and guide us.

The psalms make no demands of us. Instead, if we make their voices our own, we may be inspired to 'dwell in the house of the LORD (23:6)' or 'thank you because I am marvelously made (139:13).'

In any journey there are stages. The spiritual journey for us must start with the reassuring word that we are loved, known and, in God's eyes, have a marvelous purpose that only we can fulfill.

St. Paul's is a sacred space for your busy life. Come and rest here. Sit in our sacred space and open up the Book of Common Prayer before you in the pew. First open the book to page 476 and read psalm twenty-three in the King James version. Then turn to page 794 and read one-thrirty-nine.

You are loved and known and have purpose. Come dwell in the house of the LORD and give thanks.