Sermon: “The Hound of Heaven," May 11, 2025

Scripture: Psalm 23

Preacher: Rev. Ryan Slifka

Title: “The Hound of Heaven”

Here we are: my last sermon before I go on sabbatical. And, by chance (or by providence) the Revised Common Lectionary–the three year cycle of Bible readings–has handed us what is one of the most familiar passages in scripture: the 23rd Psalm. Which, depending on your age, is likely the most familiar of all the Psalms. It was chosen for both a funeral and a graveside committal in the last couple weeks. If there’s one scripture you ever memorize, make it this one. Take it home. Commit it to heart. Say it as a prayer every day, even.

Why is it such a favourite?

One reason it’s a favourite is that it’s peppered with these images of natural peace and serenity.

God is pictured as a shepherd. We’re pictured as sheep. We’re to imagine ourselves being led along rolling hills, covered in emerald grass. Relaxing and imbibing clean water from blue placid ponds. It gives you that sabbath feel. An image of true rest. Which is an image of God’s grace. One early church father, Athanasius connects still waters with the promises of baptism.[i] In a world that seems so out of control, a world that demands we act, demands we do, demands we achieve, to justify ourselves and our existence, it suggests we have this stable, still identity. It’s rather refreshing. Even that little line “he restoreth my soul.” It also might mean something like being revived from death, like going blue by suffocation but being granted breath again.[ii]

It’s a beloved Psalm because it says that whatever’s choking you. Starving you, worrying you. With God you need not worry or fret.  But you can cease your striving. Because, like sheep in a pasture, you and I—we’re in good hands.

It’s also a beloved Psalm, because in addition to drawing us into rest, it guides us towards righteousness. Righteousness, has a few meanings in the Bible. To be righteous is to be vindicated, to be declared innocent, not-guilty. It’s also to do what is right, to live an upstanding life in relation to ourselves and our neighbours.[iii] Holiness, goodness.

Notice how we have that pastoral imagery again: “he leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake.” Now, the Hebrew word this most often translates is like the ruts left by wagon wheels. A path that’s taken over and over and over again. Like, sometimes we’re given the impression that the guidance given to us in the scriptures is there to kill our buzz. That the Christian life is all austere, joyless forbearance. But here we have the assertion that the path we are led on by Jesus it reliable and it’s trustworthy. It’s for our good.

For example, you might be led to believe that selfishness and self-centredness lead to satisfaction. But according to Jesus it’s cross-shaped self-giving love and sacrifice where you’ll find true fulfillment and lasting joy. The lures and lies of this world are mighty tempting, this is true, but they are ultimately fleeting. Greatness is found in service.

This is a beloved Psalm because it says that the good life is the beautiful life is the righteous life.

Of course, life is not always green pastures or still waters. Not even by a long-shot.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” That might be the best line right there. Our translation takes some poetic license, but it does give a good idea of what we’re talking about. This is literally a scary dark ravine, one where you’re likely to get robbed on your way through. Doesn’t say that faith will get you around life’s trials and tribulations. It was the great preacher Will Willimon who pointed out that the fact that Jesus Christ was crucified should put to death for us the idea that bad things only happen to bad people, or good things happen to good people. In fact, righteousness will often be met with evil. The shadow could be literal death, could be a situation brought about by our own sin. The shadow could be evil, could be simple human frailty and circumstance. But every one of our lives runs unavoidably through the valley of the shadow of death.

The beauty of course, is the part where the Psalmist breaks into prayer and praise: Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death “thou art with me/thy rod and staff, they comfort me.” Even though every one of our lives leads through the valley of the shadow of death, it means we’re never alone. You can see the rod and staff on the screen. The staff is used to guide, the rod is used to beat off predators. The staff is divine authority, the rod is divine power.

We all go through the valley of the shadow of death, but the good news is that when we do, we’re not alone. But a power above all other powers goes with us. The power of God.

Which, according to the Psalmist, is not only a source of comfort, but it can also be a source of joy.

“You prepare a table before me,” it continues. “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.” Like, this is siege imagery. Surrounded on all sides by a hostile army. No way out, draw bridge is up. Shouts and insults can be heard from outside the castle walls. And yet… there’s a table spread, piled with fine meats and cheeses and artisanal bread. There’s an endless supply of anointing oil. Wine is on tap and will never run out.

Because God is with us, we can find joy even in sorrow, suffering and pain. Like, the image of life with the Lord here isn’t gritting our teeth and bearing our suffering until we die. But it suggests that the light of the Lord penetrates even the darkest places of our lives and our world.

Because God is with us there’s always a table of gladness set for us. Of course, the church Father Athanasius—who said still water is an allusion to baptism, said that the banquet image here is an allusion to what he calls the “mystic table.”[iv] Communion, the Lord’s supper. Always even the tiniest morsel of goodness to sustain us through the worst life throws at us. No matter how bleak the valley may be, no matter how dark and grim the shadows may be. The Lord is there with his rod and his staff, the might of his cross, swatting away our despair with hope, shielding us from judgment with forgiveness, battling our grief with the promise of everlasting life. In the same way God the Father was faithful to Jesus the Son on the cross, by the Holy Spirit, even in the place of complete dereliction God is faithful to us. To you.

This is such a beloved Psalm because it says that when you and I are at our most powerless, there is a power above all powers who is with us through life’s shadows and evil. Even unto the great darkness that is death itself.

Which brings us to our very final verse. Which may be a case of the best for last:

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life/and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

What’s go appealing about this final line is about the direction of the action, and the actor. I mean, we tend to think that goodness and mercy, blessing, GOD, are things we search for. God is something we have to find, or discover, uncover. Maybe through prayer, piety, or personal enlightenment. But the Bible says God is different. It says that goodness and mercy, GOD, come looking after us. Really, “follow” isn’t strong enough. It’s more like, chase. Pursue. Goodness and mercy shall track you down. The hound of heaven comes looking for us.[v] Not the other way around.

The writer Anne Lammott in her book Traveling Mercies tells the story of a particularly difficult time in her life, which I think weaves all of the themes of this Psalm together.

She was addicted to cocaine and was an alcoholic. And she’d just had an abortion resulting from an affair with a married man. In the week after the abortion, she took to bed with alcohol and pain medication. “After a while,” she writes.

“After a while as I lay there, I became aware of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner, and I just assumed it was my father, whose presence I had felt over the years when I was frightened and alone. The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there–of course, there wasn’t. But after a while, in the dark again, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus. I felt him as surely as I feel my dog lying nearby as I write this.

I felt him just sitting there on his haunches in the corner of my sleeping loft, watching me with patience and love, and I squinched my eyes shut, but that didn’t help because that’s not what I was seeing him with.

Finally I fell asleep, and in the morning, he was gone.

This experience spooked me badly, but I thought it was just an apparition, born of fear and self-loathing and booze and loss of blood. But then everywhere I went, I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever. So I tried to keep one step ahead of it, slamming my houseboat door when I entered or left.

And one week later, when I went back to church, I was so hungover that I couldn’t stand up for the songs, and this time I stayed for the sermon, which I just thought was so ridiculous, like someone trying to convince me of the existence of extraterrestrials, but the last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling–and it washed over me.

...I began to cry and left before the benediction, and I raced home and felt the little cat running at my heels, and I walked down the dock past dozens of potted flowers, under a sky as blue as one of God’s own dreams, and I opened the door to my houseboat, and I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and said ‘F— it: I quit.’ I took a long deep breath and said out loud, ‘All right. You can come in.’

So this was my beautiful moment of conversion.”[vi]

At her absolute worst, the valley of the shadow of death, that’s when came Jesus, the good shepherd. Surrounded by the enemies of her addiction, her sin, and her self-loathing, it was there he set a table. The goodness and mercy of God like a stray feline who just won’t get the hint, constantly, persistently at her heels, batting away her demons with his paws. Waiting for his chance to sneak into her life. And to lead her home. I don’t think it’s too much to say that here Anne Lamott heard the voice of the Good Shepherd. As far as this sheep wandered, as hard as she tried to hide, goodness and mercy tracked her down. And in giving in, in letting him in to her life, she was somehow being welcomed home in to the house of the Lord. I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to say she experienced the Lord of the 23rd Psalm first hand. In the flesh.

In the end, this Psalm is so beloved because it describes the beauty of the God at the heart of the Christian life.

That the same cat Anne Lamott tried to shake from he heels is on yours, too. The Lord you and I have spent our lives running from has come for us in Jesus Christ, and will stop at nothing until we let him in. The Good Shepherd who we’ve wandered away from has come to drag you and I out of the shadows and into the kingdom of everlasting light. That the righteous pathway he has made through the valley of death by his cross and resurrection, and he has come to bring us home to him. To lead us to the green pastures and still waters of God’s grace, where the table is set, the oil poured out, the cup runneth over. If only, like our dear sister sheep Anne Lamott, you’d just give up and let him in.

And I pray you do. Whether it’s the first time. Or the thousandth time. Because with the Lord as your shepherd you shall not want. You won’t need anything else.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the

[i] Athanasius, quoted in Bruce K Waltke and James M. Houston, The Psalms as Christian Worship: a Historical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 417.

[ii] Robert Alter, The Book of Psalms: a Translation with Commentary (New York: W.W. Norton, 2007), 78.

[iii] Waltke & Houston, The Psalms, 439.

[iv] Athanasius, quoted in Ibid., 417.

[v] Francis Thompson, “The Hound of Heaven,” http://www.houndofheaven.com/poem

[vi] Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (New York: Anchor Books, 2000), 49-50.