“Repentance”
Psalm 25:1-10
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
2/18/18
Psalm
25:1-10
1 To you, O Lord, I lift up
my soul.
2 O my God, in you I trust;
do not let me be put to shame;
do not let my enemies exult over me.
3 Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame;
let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.
2 O my God, in you I trust;
do not let me be put to shame;
do not let my enemies exult over me.
3 Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame;
let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.
4 Make me to
know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
5 Lead me in your truth, and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all day long.
teach me your paths.
5 Lead me in your truth, and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all day long.
6 Be mindful of
your mercy, O Lord,
and of your steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.
7 Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for your goodness’ sake, O Lord!
for they have been from of old.
7 Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for your goodness’ sake, O Lord!
8 Good and
upright is the Lord;
therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
9 He leads the humble in what is right,
and teaches the humble his way.
10 All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his decrees.
therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
9 He leads the humble in what is right,
and teaches the humble his way.
10 All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his decrees.
Like many psalms, Psalm 25 is a
song of lament, a cry for help. Enemies and afflictions seem to be gathering around
the psalmist like a cloud of locusts. This cloud threatens his peace, his
health, his future. His very life is being swallowed up by some kind of
swarming, all-consuming appetite. In a long-standing and all-too-human
tradition, the psalmist connects goodness with prosperity and sin with bad
luck. And the duplicity of the psalm is undeniable:
Don’t
let me be ashamed, he says. “Let them be ashamed who are wantonly
treacherous.”
Then he says, God, please, don’t get hung up on all the stupid things I did when
I was young. “Be mindful of your
mercy…and of your steadfast love.”
Sitting with
this psalm during the first week of Lent has made me think about the distinctions
between confession and repentance. While related, they’re not the same thing. In
confession we acknowledge our sins. We admit the words we have used and the
actions we have taken or not taken that have hurt others and ourselves. We name
the selfishness of humankind that has damaged soil, water, air, and fellow
creatures. And we can confess our sin the same way we confess particular
beliefs – without demonstrating any real conviction.
In repentance, however, we move
toward new and more gracious ways of thinking, speaking, and acting. That makes
repentance more like faith. It’s the outward expression of an inward transformation.
And it doesn’t happen all at once. Repentance is a process, a path.
“All the paths
of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,” says the psalmist. When
embodied in a human life, God’s path becomes our intentional pursuit and exercise
of justice and righteousness. Such a path must be taught and learned. It must
be practiced. That makes repentance a basic element of the classwork and homework
in the curriculum of justice and righteousness.
In a collection
of meditations entitled Bread and Wine:
Readings for Lent and Easter, the first reading is a short piece entitled “Repentance.”
In it, Kathleen Norris, shares the story of an experience she had while serving
as artist-in-residence at a parochial school. In a creative writing class, she shared
with the kids some of the angry psalms that they didn’t normally hear on Sundays.
(For examples of angry scripture, read Psalms 44 and 88.) Then, wanting the
kids to explore constructive ways to work through anger and vengeance, she
asked them to write their own angry psalms.
“One little
boy,” says Kathleen Norris, “wrote a story called ‘The Monster Who Was Sorry.’
He began by admitting that he hates it when his father yells at him: his
response in the poem is to throw his sister down the stairs, and then to wreck
his room, and finally to wreck the whole town. The poem concludes: ‘Then I sit
in my messy house and say to myself, “I shouldn’t have done all that.”’
“‘My messy
house’ says it all,” says Norris. “With more honesty than most adults could
have mustered, the boy made a metaphor for himself that admitted the depth of
his rage and also gave him a way out. If that boy had been a novice in the
fourth-century monastic desert, his elders might have told him that he was well
on the way toward repentance, not such a monster after all, but only human.”
Norris concludes her story by saying,
“If the house is messy, [the elders] might have said [to the boy], why not
clean it up, why not make it into a place where God might wish to dwell?”1
There is the
point of repentance. Repentance is not a response of guilt or fear, but an
active posture of renewal and commitment. In repentance, we surrender our
hearts, minds, and bodies to God’s indwelling purposes for all of creation. That
says to me that repentance is about choosing to participate in God’s boundless
capacity for steadfast love and mercy.
In one of his
books, Shane Claiborne re-tells the old story of two guys talking about God.
One tells the other that he’d like to ask God, Why do you allow all this war, illness, famine, and evil in the world?
“So, why don’t
you go ahead and ask?” says the other
guy.
The first guy
shakes his head and says, “Because I’m afraid God will ask me the same
question.”2
We’ve had
another horrific week, haven’t we? The lives of seventeen high school kids and
teachers were cut short by the actions of what many are calling a “monster.” Instead
of hearing God ask us why we’re allowing such tragedy to continue, we’re
playing the blame game. Depending on various factors, we blame others. Usually
the first to get blamed are low-hanging fruit like the ready availability of
the kind of weapons for which only soldiers and police have any use.
Gun advocacy groups and lawmakers
are next.*
But what about the inaction by
authorities who, months ago, had tagged the shooter as a potential threat? And
the family of a young orphan bouncing between homes – a family who missed the
signs of trauma and trouble?
What about an internet culture that
welcomed him, gave him an identity, and nurtured his rage and despair?
Lack of access to mental health and
the negative stigma associated with seeking help?
And what about an entertainment
industry that reflects our values by
continually giving us the desensitizing brutality that we demand? The industry follows the money, and they’re just feeding
our appetite for violent heroes who are
themselves exempt from death and the repercussions of killing. And it’s we who choose to leave our children in
the company of video games in which body counts and ever more life-like carnage
are simply the means to winning scores.
The blame game is nothing but an
exercise in self-absolution. And as long as responsibility always lies beyond
us or our group, nothing changes.
As the Church,
we can’t fix all that’s wrong with the world. But God calls us to do more than
believe doctrines. God calls us to accept the responsibility to live as ones through
whom God reveals God’s desire for health, well-being, cooperation, and
reconciliation. That means we leave the lip service of “thoughts and prayers”
to those who have given up, or who don’t really care, and we take up our cross
and follow Jesus in his paths of justice and righteousness. It means we affirm
the image of God in all human beings and celebrate the inherent goodness of
creation. We hold one another accountable for faithfulness, and, like Jesus, we
work toward a better world for all people by tending to and loving one person
at a time.
None of us are
monsters. We’re human beings – broken, fallible, anxious human beings in need
of mercy. During Lent, we do confess and repent of our sinfulness, but this
season prepares us for more than being forgiven. It prepares us for not giving
up when the locusts swarm. Lent and Easter prepare us for living lives of
justice and righteousness even in the face of despair.
Repentance strengthens us for recognizing,
loving, and following the resurrected Jesus whose grace restores us to Shalom, and makes of us holy temples in
which God dwells.
1Kathleen Norris, “Repentance,” in Bread and Wine:
Readings for Lent and Easter. Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY, 2006. p. 5.
2Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution:
Living as an Ordinary Radical. Zondervan, 2006, 2016. Pp. 58-59.
*
When I wrote this sermon, my
initial wording at this point was: “The NRA and politicians who are beholden to
them.” Just before preaching the sermon, I changed to the current wording. In
what may have been a kind of reverse political correctness, I chose not to push
away a sizeable group of listeners with that one phrase.
More importantly, I confess that,
in my own heart, that phrase had some angry teeth in it. We were only four days
out from another school shooting. (17 students and teachers killed in Parkland,
FL.) I was making it personal. And while preachers are indeed called to embody
a prophetic role, and to pour their deepest passion into their preaching, it
felt inappropriate to use that line, that day from that pulpit.
Because the Reformed tradition has
always held that political and social engagement is crucial to Christian
discipleship, it would have strengthened the sermon to have encouraged the congregation,
regardless of political affiliation, to write their state and national
representatives.
I don’t expect many people to read
this, but to those who do: If you don’t already know who your representatives
are, go online and find out. Call them and/or write them. Encourage them. Thank
them. Challenge them. Let them know your opinions. It does matter. AH
No comments:
Post a Comment