This sermon was based on Psalm 51, particularly verses 10-11. It was offered at Ebenezer Ridges Care Center on March 22, 2015, the 5th Sunday in Lent.
Create
in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within
me.
I don’t usually consider writing a sermon on a Psalm, but
today’s includes this verse, a verse embedded in my mind, and, though I thought
I understood what it meant, I found I did not know much about it at all.
Create
in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
I thought it was a way for me to meditate on God, you
know, as a sort of a mantra, to help me focus my mind and spirit, especially
when I am a bit self-centered or self-indulgent and need to be reminded of
others, of their unfulfilled needs or fears, or of those complex situations,
like significant illness or broken relationships. It would simply ground me in a moment of time. In my mind, the verse itself did not carry the
burden of my sin, particularly; it was more about breathing in God and
breathing out all those things I carry, like worry,
insecurity, fear—you know, the things we cannot seem to control but want to
control? They’re are not sins, …
right?
I was not all
wrong in my assessment of this verse, but it goes much deeper and has a greater
significance than a simple mantra.
Psalm 51 is David’s response to God after he was
admonished for taking God for granted.
He was not thankful for all God had given. He took two lives that were not his to
take. The story was told in 2
Samuel. David saw Bathsheba, a married
woman, and took her into his own bed. He
then arranged to have her husband, Uriah, killed in battle. Two innocent lives, taken by a greedy man,
who was unable to see he had “enough.” That
God had given him “enough.”
God anointed David, made him a king, and provided
everything a man could need to live in:
safety, a home, wives, power; but David desired more. David set aside God’s gifts, and God, through
the prophet Nathan, told David he did evil in God’s sight. As far as God was concerned, David’s actions
showed how little he loved God—in 2 Samuel it is written, “Why have you
despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight?” David sinned against God.
David took for granted what God had
given and then he took more.
I asked some people this past week what it is they take
for granted. The first person I asked
said she took her mom for granted, and now that her mom is gone, she realizes
what she lost. Others identified “Time,”
“Friendships,” “Loved Ones,” “life,” “Clean water; clean air, electricity,”
“health,” “food” and “shelter.” Some
people take themselves for granted, forgetting that they are not invincible. My 82 year old dad put it well when he said, "The love I
receive from my God through His Son, my family and friends."
I
take a lot of things for granted, too:
healthy food, education, freedom, the five senses (even though they are
changing), the health of those I love, the ability to get to where I need to go
without relying on others, utilities, my heart beat, breathing, autonomy,
independence and being God’s child.
I suspect that if I asked you what you take for granted
most of you would tell me what you TOOK for granted before coming here to live:
independence, driving, health, eye sight, hearing, hobbies, walking without
assistance, jobs, loved ones, home cooking, memory…would that be a pretty
accurate list?
We don’t know what we’ve got until
it’s gone, do we?
David had all these things, too. In his lust for more, in taking Bathsheba and
killing Uriah, he went too far against God and God could not let him get away
with this sin. David’s punishment was
the death of the baby Bathsheba conceived in the adultery. His household would become unruly. God would hit David where it hurt the most to
remind David that God should never be taken for granted.
Psalm 51 is David’s acknowledgement of his sin. He begins by begging for mercy, he admits
that what he did was evil and that through his lust—for power, for Bathsheba—he
sinned against God. He knows that he
needs God, he needs to be in right relationship with God, but it will take more
than asking for forgiveness to restore it.
David uses the language of cleansing, but even more stunning, David asks
to be re-created. Not re-born, but re-created.
Create
in me a clean heart, O God…
He does not say, make me a clean heart; or help me clean
up my heart; he asks God to CREATE a clean heart. When we create something we start from the beginning, but we cobble
together from things already in existence.
When God creates God starts at the beginning—something comes from
nothing. David wanted God to start over,
to empty David of all those things that had built up in his heart, hardening it
against God—power, lust, desire, those earthly things that seduce each of us
into an unrealistic belief that we are in control…that we can stop at any
time…but these are things that we become addicted to and then we forget to whom
we belong. We forget who created
us. David desired a heart transplanted
by God—something so fresh and so new and completely un-used that it would be
pure enough to intimately know its Creator again.
David knows that he is incapable of restoring his
relationship with God without help. The
sin against God was heinous. Denying
God’s law, taking for granted all that God had done and had given, these things
were nearly unforgivable. The only way David could restore the relationship
would be to trust God to create a new mental state within him.
This is not only about creation—the creation of a new
vessel, ready to receive new contents; it is about cleaning out the garbage,
the temptations, that distracted David from God.
It reminds me of being a kid. Every single week my mom would have my two
brothers and I do chores on Fridays. I
had to dust and clean a bathroom. We did
this so our home was always prepared for guests over the weekend, and it would
keep the house somewhat clean all the time, making Spring and Fall cleaning a
little more manageable. A messy house
distracted my mom; she worried about what people would think if there was dust
on a shelf or a dirty toilet—would it be a poor reflection of her parenting
skills or home-making skills, and ultimately, her? It was her way of cleaning her vessel, of
being prepared to receive. It still is.
I wonder if David had been like my mom and kept his heart
clean on a regular basis if he would have needed that transplant.
…renew a right spirit within me…
David’s request of a renewed spirit, a spirit that
re-establishes his moral compass, is a request of God to help David -- not to
regain control of the contents of his vessel, but to help David understand the contents of the
vessel. To discern them in ways that
help David re-focus his attention on God.
To appreciate all those things he had been taking for granted.
I have been told the most important prayer anyone can
pray is to say “Thank you,” to acknowledge the depth of the gifts we have been
given by God. I believe that to create a
right spirit within myself it is important to begin any prayer with the words, “Thank
you God.” It helps me remember that I
belong to God and that who I am and what I have all come from God. It designs my prayers to celebrate the
relationship I have with God, which, to me, renews a right spirit.
In other translations of this verse, “right spirit” is
replaced by “make me faithful again,” “loyal spirit,” “right attitude,”
“resolute spirit,” “steadfast spirit” or “constant and firm spirit.” These are important distinctions, don’t you
think? One commentator wrote, and I
paraphrase, that for David, it is recommitting himself to God by establishing a
constant and firm devotion to God. He
wants to set aside the temptations of the world, but cannot do this without
being firmly established with God.[1]
We cannot stop there.
Having a right spirit is one thing, but David really, really messed up,
so David begged God for another chance. There is desperation in the next verse
where David writes, “Cast me not away from your presence and take not your holy
Spirit from me.” There is fear, now,
that God would leave David.
I think abandonment is probably the greatest fear most
people have. None of us wants to be
denied the companionship of another. No
one wants to be the one left behind or forgotten. Or worse, shunned and denied inclusion,
especially when they were a part of the “in” crowd, like David was with
God. But, I wonder, who abandoned whom
in this case.
I believe that God never leaves. It is we who leave God. Through his actions, David left God. This was confirmed for me when I read
this: “‘holiness’ is not only separation
FOR God, but separation FROM sin.” It
went on to say, “Holiness…proclaims that surrender to God is the very essence
of all good…”[2]
This made me ask:
How do we separate ourselves from sin to be strong in our
relationship with God?
Is our holiness only defined by the ways we live FOR God, set apart as God’s children?
Is our holiness only defined by the ways we live FOR God, set apart as God’s children?
Do I really surrender to God?
These are hard, hard questions. These are not questions I expected would come
from a well-loved and often recited verse that gave me comfort and helped me
focus more fully on God through prayer.
I did not expect to feel even a fraction of the guilt David bore when he
wrote this Psalm.
Even so, I will continue to use this verse, with a new
understanding of what I am asking of God.
I will still desire a clean heart and a renewed spirit to focus my mind
and center my spirit. It is in recognizing
my own sin and asking for my heart to become a new, unblemished vessel—a new
creation that is only ordained by God—that catches my breath.
This is the last Sunday before Palm Sunday. We are entering the end of our Lenten
season. For many of us, this has,
perhaps, been a time of reflection, a time of giving something up, of finding
ways to be closer to Jesus or a time of penitence. This Psalm reminds us of the depth of our
relationship with God, it prepares us for Jesus by helping us reconcile our
lives, ask for forgiveness and accept the basic truth that we are God’s
children, born as empty, pure vessels, who throughout our lives make mistakes,
fall short of our own expectations and take God’s gifts for granted. But because of Jesus’ death on the cross, of
His resurrection and ascension, we are forever and for always loved.
Please join with me, in re-reading today’s Collect, found
on the bottom of the first page of your bulletin.
Almighty God, you alone
can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your
people grace -- to love what you command and desire what you promise; that,
among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be
fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.