a shepherd looks at Psalm 23
When I was about 13 and with my parents on the mission field in Holland, a youth-led service was organized for the American Air Force chapel service we attended Sunday evenings, which my father assisted and later chaplained. I volunteered to give the 'sermon,' which though it was from the heart, essentially ended up being a book review of W. Philip Keller's A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 (Zondervan, org. published in '70).
But I could hardly have picked a better book to sermonize from, and was reminded of this fact when I read through the book again in recent months. Not only is the book based on one of the most meaningful and beloved passages in Scripture, but Keller's insight into the unique and nuanced dynamics of tending sheep as a longtime shepherd himself, unfamiliar to most of us today but certainly not lost on David, is unfathomably deep. I can't emphasize enough how much more meaning the psalm takes on through reading it alongside Keller's personal experience and faithful commentary.
For encouragement and devotional purposes alone, I hope you have a chance to read the book. But it also depicts a model of animal husbandry, both in the psalm itself and Keller's own example, which is so thoroughly attentive to the sheep's wellbeing, not to mention compassionate and biblically grounded, that I couldn't resist passing it along. It seemed a perfect bookend to our series on looking for more humanely raised animal products in that sense.
I'll follow up with a few more passages in a second post, along with a reservation or two which you might share about the inevitable fate of the sheep themselves. But here's a good summary in the meantime of the husbandry which both David and Keller intuitively modelled toward their sheep, and understood to be an intimate illustration of God's relationship to us:
(God) is the rancher who is outstanding because of His fondness for sheep - Who loves them for their own sake as well as His personal pleasure in them. He will, if necessary, be on the job twenty-four hours a day to see that they are properly provided for in every detail. Above all, He is very jealous of His name and high reputation as "The Good Shepherd."
He is the owner who delights in His flock. For Him there is no greater reward, no deeper satisfaction, than that of seeing His sheep contented, well fed, safe, and flourishing under His care. This is indeed His very "life." He gives all He has to it. He literally lays Himself out for those who are His.
He will go to no end of trouble and labor to supply them with the finest grazing, the richest pasturage, ample winter feed, and clean water. He will spare Himself no pains to provide shelter from storms, protection from ruthless enemies and the diseases and parasites to which sheep are so susceptible.
No wonder Jesus said, "I am the Good Shephered - the Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." (pg. 31)
Contrast Keller's words with Matthew Scully's description of a modern industrial pig farm, which we've shared before (and is only a variation of the norm for just about all animal factory farming):
The smallest scraps of human charity - a bit of maternal care, room to roam outdoors, straw to lie on-have long since been taken away as costly luxuries, and so the pigs know the feel only of concrete and metal. They lie covered in their own urine and excrement, with broken legs from trying to escape or just to turn, covered with festering sores, tumors, ulcers, lesions, or what my guide shrugged off as the routine "pus pockets." ("A Religious Case for Compassion for Animals", pg. 13)
By the way, Zondervan's bio of W. Phillip Keller says he was "born in East Africa, (and) always loved wildlife and the outdoors. Having spent many years in agriculture research, land management, and ranch development in British Columbia, he later pursued careers in conservation, wildlife photography, and journalism."
(beautiful photo of sheep in Holland by my father Daryl DeVries)
March 8, 2010
