March 2, 2009
A Letter of Clarification to Dr. Jeff Kaplan, in response to 2/28/09 article in the Daily Press.
May I once again point out that the scriptures do not unearth the Lord’s goodness in the way your article describes. The first sentence of the seventh paragraph states, “This Psalm is not for everyone”. This statement is guilty of being a spiritually racist remark that is out of sync with the Bible as a whole. Every book of the Bible is for everyone to digest if they so chose.
Personally, every possible perspective has value, we want to hear and evaluate all voices. Collectively we all are then able to explore for meaning and understanding in this risky business of life. Despite all of our progressive mandates, life just remains full of risk. The challenges change but the risks remain. ( my coinage ) As a culture we no longer have to be afraid of the Black Plague but we kill millions of innocents by medically correct abortive procedures. Sorry kid but your not needed here on earth. What is the difference?
David’s life was full of risk, you know the unfolding history. Psalm 23 is David’s declaration of faith, of trust in the Lord to be his guide through the risky circumstances of life. It was an every day decision to trust that vertical relationship more than any other way of dealing with the stress of life. We all have utilized on occasion those other human stress reducers to no or temporary avail.
Please let me mention just one. There is the progressive mandate to build a nest with other fearful personages. We adopt boundaries of safety within which life is less risky. We compromise our own identityby an overriding identification with a particular group. However, the chicken wire is both a barrier to keep risk out and a prison for the hens or the sheep or the church. The Shepherd then is more of a prison guard and God a protector from risk. Nest building is not God’s way.
Possibly that is why Jesus directed His disciples ( the shepherd ) to leave the protection of the sheep fold to search after the one lone, lost, and at risk personage. How do we get our head and our heart around that kind of shepherd? Surely,Jesus was declaring that the sheepfold understanding of God’s protection was and still is faulty.
The sheep fold of that time was the self protective and exclusionary Jewish religion circa OO. For the protection of the faithful community,the at risk Jew with low performance credentials, the sinner, is expendable for the greater good. Jesus by His teaching, by His focus, by His actions and by His declared mission, blew this understanding of God’s goodness out of the water.
The door to God’s goodness is open to everyone because the church is the ongoing visable representative of God on earth. In the church, we should more resemble the shepard. Personally that directive is unpleasant and mostly impossible. It is, however, scripturally unavoidable. Let’s go back to David as a case in point.
David was chosen by God to be King of Israel and after that declaration by the prophet Samuel, the risk factors in his life multiplied. In this time of risk, we must not trust in the fold, the Church, trust first in the Vertical Guide who will guide each of us through the risk to his expanded will. Trust only in the God who will walk beside us. Let us rejoice as we confront risk.
G. Goslaw
Victorville, Ca.
(This slighty revised letter has been ignored.)
