A Table in the Presence of Enemies: Psalm 23 Reimagined

Not that long ago, I was walking along the French Broad River with my friend

Jessica, reciting Psalm 23

aloud because we wanted to hear how it sounded in the King James Version.

In the King James Version, there are enemies, not just those who trouble me,

as the translation we read, but enemies.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.

Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over.

I told Jessica that for most of my life, I've imagined this scene one way.

The psalmist at the banquet table with God and the enemies in a corner may be

bound with ropes, hungry and

forced to watch as the psalmist enjoys this feast of rich food and wine.

I told Jessica this, and Jessica said, that you imagined it that way tells me

everything I need to know about you as a child.

And we laughed. But is it so wrong to imagine it that way?

After all, enemies are a constant refrain in the Psalms. There are questions.

Why do my enemies prosper? There are requests for deliverance from enemies and

sometimes requests for harsh and violent punishments to befall enemies.

Strike all my enemies on the cheek.

Break the teeth of the wicked.

There are proclamations of God's

victory over enemies. The enemies have vanished in everlasting ruins.

Their cities you have rooted out, the very memory of them has perished.

All I'm saying is that there are good reasons for me to think the psalmist might

want his enemies bound in the corner and tortured by the smells of slow-roasted

meat and freshly baked baguettes and an ice cabernet.

But maybe I haven't always imagined the scene quite that vindictively.

Maybe I've also imagined it as David trying to escape King Saul's wrath,

running through dark woods, exhausted, hungry, sure he's about to die, and God stopping him.

And weaving some invisible wall of protection around him and magicking up a

heavily laid banquet table in the forest and feeding him.

While King Saul's soldiers lurk in the shadows and watch from behind trees,

unable to touch David as long as he's protected, but also unable to join in the feast.

This gets a little closer to Jewish tradition about the psalm's origin.

Rashi teaches that the psalm was composed by David while he was on the run from King Saul.

Rashi says, While hiding in the dry Judean forest of Hereth and on the brink

of death without food or drink, he was miraculously saved by God,

who nourished him with a taste of the world to come.

If you look at this psalm structurally, it's bracketed by God.

It begins and ends with the words, The Lord.

The Lord is my shepherd at the beginning, and at the end, I will dwell in the house of the Lord.

And then if you count up all the words, at the very middle of the psalm,

the middle words are, For you are with me.

The Lord is my shepherd. You are with me. I will dwell in the house of the Lord.

This is a psalm about being safe when you're bracketed by God.

Even if your enemies are there in the brackets and the bracken with you.

So I suppose there's warrant for imagining it both of these ways,

enemies bound in the corner or enemies simply kept from the feast.

But lately, I've been imagining it a third way.

I've been imagining the enemies seated at the table too.

And I've been imagining it this way because of Isaiah.

Not long ago at a funeral, we read Psalm 23 right after Isaiah 25.

And both of these passages involve feasts and enemies.

Listen to a bit of Isaiah's eschatological vision of hope.

On this mountain, the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all

peoples, a banquet of aged wine, the best of meats and the finest of wines.

On this mountain, he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples,

the sheet that covers all nations.

He will swallow up death forever.

With these two texts, Psalm and

Isaiah, in close proximity, those feasts merged in my mind for a moment.

What if thou preparest for me a table in the presence of mine enemies means

my enemies are invited to the banquet too.

Isaiah and Psalm 23 share this vision of a feast. They also share language about sheep.

Isaiah sees the future that God has prepared for us as a future in which the

lion and the lamb, the predator and the prey, you and your enemy,

live peaceably together.

So when I put Isaiah's vision of a peaceful kingdom and a feast for all peoples

next to the psalmist's feast set by God in the presence of enemies,

it becomes hard to imagine that the enemies aren't also invited to the table.

Maybe the enemies aren't bound in the corner, but picking up their forks and passing the potatoes.

What does it mean if part of God's tender care for us, part of the way God provides

for us in personal and lavish and loving ways is that in these intimate moments of provision,

God invites our enemies in.

I wonder who you picture when you imagine yourself sitting down to eat with an enemy.

A politician? A colleague who's always opposing you when it's decision time?

A kid who bullies your kid?

A family member who mistreats you?

Take a moment and choose one, and imagine drawing near to the table with that person.

How does it feel to draw near to the table with them?

How does it feel to draw near to the table with God in the room too?

With assurance from God of safety and unceasing presence and refining love.

And then what if we reverse the image? Who considers you an enemy?

How would it feel to be the enemy invited to the table?

Maybe with someone you were just spreading some ugly lies about,

with someone you cheated once in a business deal.

How would it feel to be invited to the table by a woman whose child was just

killed by an American bomb?

I might prefer to stay bound and gagged in the corner.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies isn't,

after all, an entirely comfortable picture.

But it's also not a command. Psalm 23 is a poem.

Isaiah 25 is a poetic vision of a peaceful future.

They're descriptive, not prescriptive. That is, they're not telling us what

to do. they're showing us a picture of what will be.

This is, to be clear, not a call for a victim of abuse to invite her abuser

over for dinner or for a Black family to prepare a meal for a man in a white hood.

It's not a call to do that. But it is a vision that we can learn to hope for.

We can learn to hope that God not only adores us, but adores our enemies.

Knowing that to be adored by God and to know it is to be cleansed by a fire

that burns away all those things in us which should not endure.

And it's a vision we can learn to trust, to believe that if God sets the table

and God brings you and enemies there together, you need not fear, for God is with you.

After all, every week we come to a table, this table, that has been set by Jesus.

And Jesus set this table in the presence of his enemies.

But the shepherd who invites the lion to the table with the lambs is also a

shepherd who gives his own body to be the feast.

Let me suggest one final way to think about this table in psalm 23,

perhaps there is only one person there and it is you,

and the table is an invitation to be

honest about the reality that sometimes our worst

enemy might dwell within god sets the table in the presence of my pride my judgmentalness

my desire for god to strike my enemies and give them a painful death my closed

mind my fear my greed my illicit desires or white lies.

God invites me to stop trying to hide the things I'm ashamed of and instead to set them on the table.

And there, in that moment of honesty, God sets the table.

God anoints our heads with oil, our cups overflow.

The homily was offered by the Rev. Amy Peterson. Musical contributions were

performed by Dr. Kevin Seal.

Introduction and closing reflections were shared by the Rev. Amy Peterson.

Sermon audio was prepared by Nanette Popa. Production was guided by Karen Marie Frederiksen.