23 Psalm and Shepherds

“The Lord is my shepherd.” —Psalm 23.

Malinda Elizabeth Berry reminds us in a recent article, “Who Is My Shepherd?” in ChristianCentury.org (7/19/2018) of a frequent misconception about the gender of shepherds. In biblical times, shepherding was often performed by young girls as well as boys and men. Berry reminds us that beautiful Rachel was tending her father Laban’s sheep when Jacob first saw her and fell in love with her (Genesis 29:9-10). Zipporah and her sisters were trying to water their father’s sheep when Moses drove away some other shepherds who were bothering them (Exodus 2:16-17).

We may also infer from this that these young and fair maidens were just as masterful with a slingshot as young David!

Berry asks us if we have ever seen any Bible story pictures or paintings with girls as shepherds. Indeed, I could only find a few, including one by Hungarian painter Marko Andrea (1887) called Shepherd Girl. Berry then challenges us to consider having girls as well as boys dress up as shepherds in this year’s Christmas pageant! (At our staff meeting, Luke, our Family Ministries Coordinator at St. Mark’s, reminded me that, unknown to me, St. Mark’s has been including girl shepherds for years!)

For myself, this is one more example of a tradition that doesn’t ring true with the historical facts: that shepherds should be only boys or men. It makes me wonder why I didn’t think of girls as shepherds even after having read the stories of Rachel and Zipporah more times than I can remember. Now it is so obvious.

I hope you can share my excitement with Berry’s new information about stories we thought we knew so well. It reminds us not to gloss over old Bible stories, but rather to hope to see new insights each time we read them. This also encourages us to keep researching what others are discovering in their study of the Bible. It is a reminder that the Holy Spirit is alive and well and continually teaching us new insights from old stories.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

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Ezekiel: Shower Chant

“I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you.” —Ezekiel 36:25-27a.

I am up early watching light come to day as a gentle rain sounds outside my window and on our roof. I can imagine this rain cleansing our planet as well as my heart. Maybe later I will have the courage to go outside and stand or sit and feel the rain on my face, hair, and clothes and pray for a heart of flesh instead of stone, for just this day.

One of the first priests I worked with when I was a deacon in training shared with me that he chanted these few verses from Ezekiel in his shower each morning. I think of and pray for him each time I recite these words, which are now one of the alternative Canticles in Morning Prayer in Enriching our Worship I (Church Publishing, 1998).

As I talk with spiritual friends who confide concerns about the heart of stone they carry, I also let them know that I suffer from the same dis-ease. My experience is that our responsibility is to recover an awareness of when we cannot feel the Spirit within us and our hearts turn to stone. Awareness is a major gift that God calls us to develop and discern. Only God can change our heart. We keep that prayer to be open to change in our hearts every day. We try to put ourselves in relationship to others who also desire a heart of flesh and not of stone, and we pray for each other.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

Thurman: Love from the Heart

“I want to be more loving in my heart! It is often easy to see it with my mind, and give assent to the thought of being loving. But I want to be more loving in my heart! So I must ease the tension in my heart that ejects the sharp barb, the stinging word. I want to be more loving in my heart so that, through both unconscious awareness and deliberate intent, I shall be a kind, gracious human being. I want to be more loving in my heart!” —Howard Thurman.

Howard Thurman was an African American theologian and educator who greatly influenced Martin Luther King, Jr., in the theology of racial nonviolence in our last century. I read into this quote that Dr. Thurman is actually praying to connect to love, to the Christ, the divine, within himself. I also hear the difficulty he may be having “ejecting the sharp barb.” We can be comforted in knowing that this great proponent of nonviolence knows it is not an easy task. He is praying that when we connect to this love, the divine within, that we will love others and “be a kind and gracious human being” consciously as well as an unconsciously.

Dr. Thurman is reminding us that when we are living in connection with the Holy Spirit, the divine within us, we will know the fruit of the Spirit, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). But how do we get there? This is the calling of every spiritual practice: meditation, prayer, reading, corporate worship, fasting, and so many others, to put ourselves in position to connect to God within.

Perhaps if Paul were writing today he might have told his scribe to use the word “nonviolence” as one of the fruit of the Spirit even though it is already so loudly speaking out in all the other fruit of the Spirit.

I am praying that Dr. Thurman is still praying for us today to learn to “love from our hearts” in these times when the message of nonviolence is so needed.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com