Praying Psalm 51 Ash Wednesday, Feb. 21 5, 2007
Psalm 51, 2
Corinthians
The man who wrote Psalm 51 was a better man of God than anyone here. Paradoxically, he was also a sinner with more guilt on his hands than any of us, for the Bible says that this psalm was written by King David after his adulterous affair with Bathsheba. We are not surprised, unfortunately, in this day and age by news stories about leaders and their sexual immorality; it happens all too often, whether we are talking about preachers, school teachers, or even the President of the United States - but King David’s sin was worse than most of these tawdry episodes that we read about. He had a sexual liaison with Bathsheba but that was only the beginning of a terrible episode that culminated in David’s ordering the murder of her husband, Uriah – a sin David tried to cover up until he was confronted by the prophet Nathan.
Read Psalm 51: 1-5 (from “The
Message)
1-2 Generous in
love—God, give grace! Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record.
Scrub away my guilt, soak out my
sins in your laundry.
3-5 I know how bad I've been;
my sins are staring me down. You're the One
I've violated, and you've seen
it all, seen the full extent of my evil.
You have all the facts before you;
whatever you decide about me is fair. I've
been out of step with you for a long time, in the
wrong since before I was born.
“I know how bad I’ve been; my sins are staring me down……” or as the more traditional wording puts it, “I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sins are ever before me…….”
Self-knowledge is the first step of healing. “Know thyself,” said the Greek sage. “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Many of us are familiar with support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, etc. God has used such groups to help many people find their way to a life of sobriety and health, following a series of 12 steps – but a key beginning for someone in has to make is AA or NA or any such group is this self-knowledge, and an honest recognition of their situation..
The tradition at such meetings is for a person to get up and introduce themselves by saying “Hi. My name is _________, and I’m an alcoholic – or a drug addict, or an overeater, or compulsive gambler………….” On Ash Wednesday we have the opportunity to look at our lives, and say to God “My name is _________ and I’m a sinner,” or to say as King David said, “I know my transgression and my sin is ever before me…
We
would all be qualified to be charter members if anyone ever formed a group
called Sinners Anonymous, for to be human is to be a sinner. Oh, it’s not that we are incapable of doing good. By right
intention and making an effort we can often do things that are loving and
generous and moral, and I’m sure that all of us have managed to avoid the most
hurtful of sins – murder, abuse, etc. We
can do good – but within every human being there is also fatal imperfection – a
space in which pride and greed and jealousy and lust have room to operate. Within us there is a selfish preference for
our will and our pleasure and our survival, at the expense of others. Within us is a sin as old as Adam and Eve –
the “original sin” of trying to be like God, instead of being obedient to
God.
On Ash Wednesday we are challenged to acknowledge the truth about our lives, and to admit that the old fashioned term “sinner” refers not only to murderers and rapists and crooks, but to people like us. With King David we can pray on Ash Wednesday, “Have mercy…. Wash me…. Cleanse me…. Scrub away my guilt….. I know my transgression and my sin is every before me…..”
David goes on to say “Against you, you only have I sinned.” (Or, in The Message’s version,“You’re the one I’ve violated……”) Obviously David had also sinned against people – Bathsheba, a pawn he manipulated and used; Uriah, who was murdered; members of his family who may have expected greater fidelity – but sin is spiritual condition that goes beyond human hurt. When we fall short, or go off course, or otherwise sin we have to be accountable to the people we have harmed, but sin is also an affront to God. Our sins – large and small – are a rebellion against God’s ways, a denial of what we know to be right, and a break in relationship with the one who gives us life. So on Ash Wednesday with King David we pray “Have mercy on me O God…. Against thee have I sinned…… You’re the one I’ve violated.”
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So that’s a start – self-knowledge and confession, but simply admitting that we are sinners would be pointless except for one thing: the Psalm-writer believes that God can is more than a law book, more than an automatic dispenser of punishment. He believes – or at least hopes, that God is capable of mercy.
Read verses 6-9 (next two blocks of text in bulletin)
What you're after is truth from the inside out.
Enter
me, then; conceive a new, true life.
Soak
me in your laundry and I'll come out clean,
scrub me and
I'll have a snow-white life.
8-9 Tune me in to
foot-tapping songs,
set
these once-broken bones to dancing;
Don't look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of
health……
If this were in a courtroom David wouldn’t have been making a claim of innocence. He was saying “I know I’m guilty, but please spare me anyway….. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities…….” This is like the prodigal son in Jesus’ story who comes home from a life of foolish rebellion saying, “I know that I don’t deserve to be called a son, but let me come home to live as a hired hand…..” This is like the thief on the cross admitting “We are receiving the due reward for our deeds, but Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom…..”
If you know these scriptural stories you know that something amazing occurs, through a generosity that is either foolish or deeply profound. The prodigal just wants to come home and work as a servant, but his father throws his arms around him and says “You’ve done wrong, and I can’t call it right, but you’re still my son. Welcome home!” The thief just says “Remember me,” but Jesus promises him a lot more: He can’t say, “All those crimes you committed don’t really matter,” because they do matter, but in spite of it all he says, “Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
The grace of God, in which the psalm-writer trusted, and which we know in Jesus, can bring us forgiveness. It’s not a declaration of innocence. It’s not a whitewashing that will necessarily undo the harm we’ve caused – some hurt and some consequences just can’t be erased - but the verdict of grace says “Guilty…..but accepted anyway!”….. “Guilty – but forgiven!” John Wesley used a technical term for this, the word justification. We are justified, made right in God’s eyes, not because of anything we have done but because we are willing to receive what God, through Christ, has done for us. Christ offers us grace – a welcome home, a pardon, a new beginning.
So
as we pray on Ash Wednesday we are admitting the truth about ourselves – that
we are sinners. We ask for mercy, that
God will accept us in spite of our sins.
Those are good beginnings, but there is at least one more step in the
process. Will you look at verses 10
through 17 with me?
10-12 God,
make a fresh start in me,
shape
a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.
Don't throw me out with
the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me.
Bring
me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails!
13-15
Give me a job teaching rebels your ways so the lost can find their
way home.
Commute my
death sentence, God, my salvation God,
and
I'll sing anthems to your life-giving ways.
Unbutton my
lips, dear God; I'll let loose with your praise.
16-17
Going through the motions doesn't please you,
a
flawless performance is nothing to you.
I learned
God-worship when my pride was shattered.
Heart-shattered
lives ready for love don't for a moment escape God's
Notice.
“Create
in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me,” say the
traditional words. “God, make a fresh start in me; shape a Genesis week from the chaos of
my life.” King David didn’t want to be a forgiven sinner
who kept right on with the same hurtful ways.
He didn’t want to be a hypocrite, living on what theologian Dietrich
Bonhoeffer called “Cheap Grace.” “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church,” he wrote. “Cheap
grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjack's wares. (Today he might
have said “like a phony Rolex sold at the curbside……) Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness
without requiring repentance, without church discipline, communion without
confession, absolution without personal confession………” The grace of God may be free gift to us, but
it’s not cheap. It cost God dearly,
ultimately paid out in Jesus’ suffering on the cross.
King David understands that grace shouldn’t be taken
lightly, shouldn’t be used and abused with thoughtlessness, and expected with
casual ease. David doesn’t want to keep
on as he’s been. He wants to be made
new, and he knows that he will need the help of God in the next times of
temptation.
So he prays that God will do what
humans can’t do on their own, that God will put a new
and right spirit within him. He prays
that God will be powerfully present in his life; that he will know the joy of
salvation and that God will help him to have a willing spirit.
Many of us know that familiar
evangelistic hymn, “Just as I am,” which rightly declares that we can come to
God with all of our faults and sins and shortcomings. “Just as I am, O Lamb of God, I come,” we
sing. But there isn’t any verse saying
“Just as I am I intend to stay……..” If our faith has any integrity we should be
striving for a better way of life, striving with God’s help to amend our ways.
John Wesley had a word for this too
– sanctification. He said we can
be justified – i.e. pardoned or forgiven – in an instant, but in that moment we
begin a process that will take the rest of our lives. Sanctification is the process of being made
into a saint – being re-formed, re-made, into what God intends. It’s a process that will never be completed
on earth – human nature being what it is – but by the grace of God we sinners
can learn and grow and change. We can
open up new spaces in our minds and hearts, and ask that God fill these spaces
with the divine Spirit, putting that transforming power into the earthen
vessels of our humanity. We will always
be sinners, but by God’s help we can be sinners under construction.
“Create in me a clean heart, and put
a new and right spirit within me.........”
“God, make a fresh start in me……”
Some people find Ash Wednesday to be
a negative day, a depressing day. It
certainly is a serious occasion. If we
take this day to heart and meditate on our lives we will surely see some things
that are shameful. We all have had times
of failure – we have let down people who trusted us, we have worshipped
foolishness, we
have tarnished ideals, we have squandered opportunities, we have been haphazard
in our loyalty for God…… We may feel
deep pain in our hearts when we remember these things ,
and the ashes we place on our heads (or our hands) are a sign of our sorrow and
our repentance.
But Ash Wednesday is ultimately a day
of wonderful joy. Today I can stand here
with Ashes on my head, and say “My name is Jim, and I’m sinner,” but that’s not
the end of it. I can say “I’m a sinner,
but I trust that God in Christ has forgiven me,” but even that isn’t the whole
story. “I am a sinner; I am a forgiven sinner,
and by God’s grace I trust that I am being led into a better life.”
You can say those things too…..
It’s my prayer that this Ash
Wednesday will be the first step on a powerful Lenten journey, a homecoming
journey. It is a journey that can take
us inward to the deep places of our souls; a journey that calls us into the
Bible to walk with Christ on the road to