Scholar of the Psalms J. Clinton McCann suggests that the 23rd Psalm “be read and heard as a psalm about living,” placing the wisdom of the psalm squarely in the day-to-day world that we inhabit rather than the promises of a world yet to come.
As he prepared to be installed in his first pastorate, Martin Luther King said to his faithful flock, “Remember Christian friends we are now in the colony of time, but our ultimate allegiance is to the empire of eternity.”
The gospel plays out in a world well acquainted with the jailhouse blues, yet the Resurrection beckons with a different song, soaring above our longings and our loathing, above our angst in life and our cries in the night.
In Isaiah 55, Isaiah offers a vision of hope to the returnees of Israel. They see the devastation, and have a hard time believing that Jerusalem has any good left in it.
While proclaiming hope for the people and their homeland, Isaiah offers a vision for all who thirst, who hunger, and who seek the better path.
What do we believe about ministry? What do we believe about our own capacities to be one human being without being taken down by the multiple demands (and persons) vying for our time? Is self-care something that comes when we have time for it, or should it be at the forefront of our daily schedule without fail?