{"id":1182,"date":"2009-11-03T15:56:35","date_gmt":"2009-11-03T15:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=604"},"modified":"2009-11-03T15:56:35","modified_gmt":"2009-11-03T15:56:35","slug":"lent-v-jodie-boyer-hatlem-march-2909","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/?p=1182","title":{"rendered":"Lent V &#8211; Jodie Boyer Hatlem &#8211; March 29\/09"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 17px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\"><strong>Sermon<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>LENT V<\/h3>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 16px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\"><strong>March 29, 2009<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 16px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\"><strong>Jodie Boyer Hatlem<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal Georgia; margin: 0px\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">The 51<span style=\"font: normal normal normal 16px\/normal 'Times New Roman'\">st<\/span> Psalm has been as central part of Christian Lenten Reflection for more than 1400 years.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Traditionally the Psalm is read during the first week of Lent.\u00a0 Because of the Psalm\u2019s central place in the keeping of Lent it has been suggested that the 51<span style=\"font: normal normal normal 16px\/normal 'Times New Roman'\">st<\/span> Psalm has been recited in more Christian services than any other Psalm.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">This Psalm is familiar to many of us.\u00a0 We have heard the words.\u00a0 Sung the words. Perhaps, read the words in private.\u00a0 Because of this the word comes easily to our tongues.\u00a0 But, it is more difficult for us to understand these words as our words, especially in the context of a communal, liturgical prayer.\u00a0 As words that express our thinking and longing.\u00a0 Words that express our own sorrow and contrition.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Yet, traditionally Psalms have been the PRAYERS of God\u2019s people. We are meant to be instructed in the Psalms by praying them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">This is in part because there is a doubleness to the Psalms\u2014they are both God\u2019s words while they are also meant to be or to become our words.\u00a0 Christ when he offered up his most anguished prayers and most fevered supplications in his humanness and for our humanity echoed the Psalms.\u00a0 These prayers of God, to God, are filled with Scripture\u2019s most potent praises and pleas; laments and accusations; exaltations and abjections.\u00a0 They express the height and depth and breadth of what we might say about God and to God and with God.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">There is then danger and delight; light and darkness; hope and violence and extraordinary power in praying the Psalms.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">When we begin to pray a Psalm the experience is both one of recognition\u2014That\u2019s me! I see myself.\u00a0 I have felt that! And a process of disorientation\u2014that is NOT me! I have never felt that! I do not recognize myself here.\u00a0 Anyone who has ever tried to pray through the Psalms and gotten as far as Psalm 137\u2019s request that enemies\u2019 babies\u2019 brains be dashed on stones, understands what I mean.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">The Psalms are meant to instruct through participation.\u00a0\u00a0 So let\u2019s pray this Psalm together and see where we recognize ourselves and where we do not.\u00a0 Where we find orientation and where we find disorientation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\"><strong>\u00a0 1 <\/strong><span style=\"color: #000022\">H<\/span>ave mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">\u00a0<strong>2<\/strong> Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">\u00a0<strong>3<\/strong>For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">\u00a0<strong>4<\/strong> Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\"><strong>\u00a05<\/strong> Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\"><strong>\u00a06<\/strong> Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">\u00a0<strong>7<\/strong>Cleanse me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">\u00a0<strong>8<\/strong> Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">\u00a0<strong>9<\/strong> Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\"><strong>10<\/strong>Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\"><strong>11<\/strong> Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\"><strong>12<\/strong> Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">I can pray quite forthrightly with all my heart many words of the Psalms.\u00a0 When I say these words I can recognize the movement of God\u2019s spirit within me.\u00a0 Some especially resonant words:\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">My SIN IS ever before me. [more on that later]<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Cast me not from your presence.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Take not your Holy Spirit from me.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Restore unto me the Joy of your Salvation<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Renew a truthful Spirit within me.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Let me hear Joy and Gladness! Let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Yet, there are also things that disorient me.\u00a0 There are several places where this Psalm seems especially distance from me.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\"><strong>(1) The intensity of the language<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\"><strong>(2) The focus on Sin: For me it is not that I can\u2019t imagine that I am sinful.\u00a0 It just that I don\u2019t really know what to do with the knowledge anymore.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\"><strong>(3) Claim that our sins are ONLY against God:\u00a0 I simply know this is not true.\u00a0 I am sure we have all seen the concentric circles of destructions that our sins can unleash.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">First, The Intensity of the language.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/n\normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">The Revised Common Lectionary leaves out the Psalmist request to \u201cdeliver me from bloodshed.\u201d But, even with that part of the passage left out.\u00a0 I still am not sure that I can get myself into the fevered pitch that the author is in as he writes this Psalm.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Purge<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Wash<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Fill<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Hide<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Create<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Put<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Cast NOT<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Take not<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Restore<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Uphold<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Deliver<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">The urgency of the language interrupts the natural rhythm of the prayer and the flow of ideas.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">The writing starts off sounding measured.\u00a0 Like a Psalm<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\"><strong>\u00a01 <\/strong><span style=\"color: #000022\">H<\/span>ave mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">\u00a0<strong>2<\/strong> Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">But, it is almost as if the Psalmist cannot bear this measured tone one more second.\u00a0 The tone switches to chest beating sorrow by verse three.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">\u00a0A<em>gainst you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">He doesn\u2019t seem to get back to the original thought or metre for three more verses.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">The desperateness of the language makes sense in light of the tradition of attribution. Tradition tells us that this is not only a Song written by King David\u2014it is not just one of David\u2019s penitential Psalms\u2014it is <em>the <\/em>Pentiential psalm David composed while the Prophet Nathan\u2019s condemnatory words \u201cYOU ARE THE MAN\u201d still echoed in his head.\u00a0 As he struggled with his own mendacity for killing and adultery\u2026 for sins that the prophet Nathan showed him were not only remarkable in their severity but in the egregious selfishness of David\u2019s intent.\u00a0 In the radical injustice of a man with 99 wives and concubines murdering a man so he could add yet another to his flock.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">However, even if David didn\u2019t compose the Psalm. The tradition that attributed this cry of help to him recognized that this was no ordinary penitence. This was not someone confessing sins of omission, secret sins, or even the normal sense that God is high and mighty and we are mere mortal filled with our petty jealously and pride: forged in the fires of human passion.\u00a0 No, the author seems confident that what is being confessed here is the absolute depth of human misery.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Doug talked to me as I was preparing this sermon of a friend of his on the street who spent over a decade incarcerated for first degree murder.\u00a0 His sense of guilt is so profound that every time he is robbed or beat up by police he feels like he is getting what he deserves.\u00a0 In his mind his body can never absorb enough punishment to absolve him of his wickedness.\u00a0 The penitent in this Psalm is not making an overarching statement about original sin being passed from mother to child.\u00a0 He thinks he is worthless enough to have never been born.\u00a0 Just as Doug\u2019s friend at times suggests that that the world would have been better off without him.\u00a0\u00a0 The language of this Psalm certainly bears this kind of urgency. And it is good to know that the God who suffers with us and speaks with us in the Psalms has a prayer that can be prayed by someone like Doug\u2019s friend or like King David.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">How can we possibly relate to this kind of depth of self-hating?\u00a0 How do we deal with this intensity?<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">How do we make sense of this language for ourselves?\u00a0 I would be tempted to suggest something simple.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">We don\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Except that the tradition dictates that this verse be part of our Lenten exploration.\u00a0 And I am quite sure it has not been placed in the centre of our worship so that we can say, Oh, GOD, maker of the Universe I am glad that I am not like these other women or men!<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Yet, let us not cheapen the experience of Doug\u2019s friend by suggesting that we know exactly what he is feeling.\u00a0 Because, most of us don\u2019t.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And because of this there is some disorientation when we attempt to pray this Psalm.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">So, I have to admit that I have a hard time dealing with the degree of GUILT.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Guilt!\u00a0\u00a0 I admit to coming to this Psalm with a great deal of personal weariness.\u00a0 My soul feels exhausted from introspection upon introspection.\u00a0 The thought of confession even more than the thought of my sins is bone-crushing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\"><strong>I suspect that many join me with load of guilt that is so large, about everything from our prayer life to our recycling habits and exercise habits, that it almost seems that one more piece of guilt would make the very pew collapse under us.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">I am not resistant to the idea that I am a sinner.\u00a0 It is just that I have found very little redemption in searching my secret heart or my inner spirit. One way of reading this Psalm is to engage in an esoteric search for my own motives. Where in my heart can I find its darkest, dankest possible thought. Where can I find my most primal depravities.\u00a0 My hidden hells. The fumes of my own selfish rage.\u00a0 But, I don\u2019t think that I have ever quite found this particular process redemptive. I HAVE prayed this Psalm many times as MY OWN CONFESSION and I have FELT the depth of my sinfulness, and yet, I am not entirely convinced that those times were completely truthful.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Indeed, cannot too much self-reflection and self-examination become sinful?\u00a0 I mean can\u2019t self-reflection itself very easily become self-ce<br \/>\nnteredness?<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Also, aren\u2019t there some clear possible dangers in seeing ourselves too clearly in this text.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">When I read this Psalm I am reminded of the distinction that some feminist theologians including Barbara Brown Taylor have made.\u00a0 Barbara Brown Taylor has argued against the notion that sin always manifests itself exhibits in self-aggrandizement, pride, usurpation, taking more than your fair share of power or responsibility.\u00a0 Sin might also exhibit self in self-abnegation, self-destruction, in a refusing to take one\u2019s rightful place in the community.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Now, I am going to resist the degree to which some feminist theologians consider the sin of Pride a stereotypical male sin and the sin of self-abnegation a stereotypical female sin.\u00a0 I think that I know enough men who sin through their self-condemnation and consistently reject their leadership potential because of their self-abuse.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">There is danger in NOT being able to see yourself in this text!<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">But, there also might be a danger in too readily seeing yourself in this text.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Verbs of knowing and words of truth and knowledge are repeated again and again\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">The writer says I want to know the truth about myself.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">I am ready to speak the truth about myself.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">I am ready to engage in a process in which you lay bare the depth of my heart.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">All the Gory details and I CAN SAY with all my heart that I believe that you are a RIGHTEOUS and true JUDGE OH Lord.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">The passage affirms that:<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">God, requires Truth in our inward being.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">To speak the truth.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">But, if what I said is right.\u00a0 That our process to scour our hearts for secret motivations might be wrongly directed, then how do we learn the truth about ourselves?<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">To hear the truth?<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">To speak the truth is a difficult thing.\u00a0\u00a0 To hear it is even more difficult.\u00a0 It is difficult to hear words of correction and scourging.\u00a0 But, I contend that for many of us, it is much more difficult to hear words of love and comfort and grace.\u00a0 One of the speakers in a workshop at Street Level this last week said she sometimes prays, \u201cGod, allow me to believe the truth you tell me about myself, no matter how beautiful it is.\u201d\u00a0 What does it mean to be prepared to hear the truth about yourself?\u00a0\u00a0 Even if the truth is so beautiful that you cannot stand it?<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">The Psalmist challenges us to be open to the truths about ourselves.\u00a0 If our sin is pride, then we need to hear the truth.\u00a0 However, if our sin is self-loathing than we need to hear the truth as well.\u00a0 I firmly believe that we cannot know the truth of ourselves by ourselves.\u00a0 Lent requires an exploration of the self.\u00a0 But, this exploration should be before God and before our neighbor.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">For both the proud and the self-hating need to hear the truth about themselves from their fellow Christians.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">I think it is for this reason that scripture calls us to both admonish one another and to encourage one another.\u00a0 Both are part of the essential task of speaking the truth to one another and living the truth together.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">It is precisely in the places where the Psalm rubs a sore spot that we can find the most hope.\u00a0 So, let us move next to the part of the text that I find the most troubling and disorienting.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">\u00a0 <strong>4<\/strong> Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">I think that our church has a robust understanding of the social nature of our sins.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Because we have a robust notion of collective sin it is not surprising that we have a knee jerk reaction to the Psalmist proclamation that my sins are against God and against God only.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">We know too many people that can\u2019t even begin to theologically account for a notion of collective sin or collective guilt.\u00a0 For this reason they can\u2019t even begin to imagine how red sludge flowing into a river is sin or economic disparity between the global North and South offends God.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Yet, I don\u2019t think that this kind of individualistic, personal view of sin is what is going on in this passage.\u00a0 And even if it were we could clearly compare it to myriad of other passages \u2013that we dearly love\u2014in which the relationship flows the other way where God speaks of sins against the weak and the sins against the land as personal affronts and in so doing leaves no room for us to doubt the profound seriousness of these sin.\u00a0\u00a0 The Bible is very clear that loving God and loving my neighbor occur symbiotically, in tandem with each other, in a relationship of mutual dependence.\u00a0 The only way to show my proper love towards God is by loving my neighbor.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">There is something hopeful in this affirmation-that my sins are before God and before God alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">The Psalmist point is not that I do not hurt others when I sin. Or that sins don\u2019t effect other people.\u00a0 But that rather sin is a theological concept.\u00a0 If there wasn\u2019t a God there would not be \u201csin.\u201d\u00a0 This doesn\u2019t mean that there wouldn\u2019t be other categories to speak about transgression. I might still be a bad neighbor, and overbearing parent, a greedy business person, a real SOB or you know what\u2026 But, with out God, I wouldn\u2019t be a sinner.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">My Sins are wholly before God.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Maimodes, the great Jewish Philosopher says be willing to hear the truth from whomever speaks it.\u00a0 And I will admit that I have been hearing some Truth from \u2026.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Tupac.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Doug\u2019s sister has been trying to get me to appreciate hip-hop and she has put some songs on my IPod.\u00a0 One of the songs has a line something like \u201cOnly God can Judge me\/Everyone else<br \/>\nget the Ugh out of the way.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Confession.\u00a0 So, there is a part of me that really exults in this line.\u00a0 But, it is not the part of me that thinks I am not responsible to my community or to other people.\u00a0 It is the part of me that realizes that others can sometimes unfairly judge us.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Just a short, hardly significant or exhaustive list of things I feel judged about.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">That I had epidurals when I delivered my babies.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">That we vaccinated our kids for most childhood diseases.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">That we didn\u2019t vacinnate them for chicken pox.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">That Johanna had a cavities.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">That we are sending Johanna to French Immersion School.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">That Johanna and Simeon participate in our coop daycare.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">That I am not working enough on my disseration.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">That I do not do enough with Doug\u2019s work.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">That I, um\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">I know you might say you think about these things too much, Jodie. That some of these judgments are in your head. But, Aha!\u00a0 There we go with more judgment, again.\u00a0 Even in giving a list of these peccadilloes I worry that I have opened myself to judgment.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">That my list\u2014and\u00a0 many of your lists of things you feel judged about or feel guilty about\u2014could go into next week and on and on to well past when Jesus exits the tomb on Easter Sunday in two weeks should give us all pause.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">It is in such a context that the notion: My sin is before God. In the face of God.\u00a0 An affront to God \u2013 is quite a reality check.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">The part of me that exults in Tupac\u2019s statement is the part of me that recognizes that much of what I feel guilty about are not actually sins.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">The idea that my real SINs are before God; that they are sins against love and justice and friendship and faithfulness;\u00a0 that they are not all the personal failings and personality failings that dog us through the day IS PROFOUNDLY FREEING!<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">When I was preparing this sermon I kept reading commentators who talk about how in our contemporary culture the idea of sin is dead.\u00a0 Whatever happened to sin is a plaintive complaint.\u00a0 Everyone now takes from the world around them constant and continual affirmation.\u00a0 The world offers up comfort after comfort\u2014you are okay!\u00a0 BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF!\u00a0 Have self-esteem.\u00a0 And in so doing we have destroyed the reality of our depravity and our sin.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Let me be very clear here.\u00a0 There is absolutely no possibility that we are going to live a life that is free of some sort of notion that we are transgressors.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">I am going to name for right here and now the false the assumption that there is a choice between between Christian Guilt and some sort of therapeutic culture where we are told that we are okay all the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">That is bogus. Sure, there is a strong cultural mantra of I am okay and you are okay\u2026 But, in fact, it is a very thin elixir for the overwhelming sense that we get from almost every corner of our lives that we are in fact NOT OKAY!\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">The choice is not between law and guilt and no law and no guilt.\u00a0 The choice is about whose law and whose standards are we going to stand under. Under what law am I willing to admit: \u201cYes, I am a Transgressor.\u201d\u00a0 Because there are just as many books of Leviticus to be found in the check out aisle of the shopping market and the self-help section of Chapters.\u00a0 There we are told what to DREAD when we are expecting. What to FEAR the first year.\u00a0 Where we are initiated into practices of effectiveness\u2026 and winning influence\u2026 and\u2026\u2026thinness and having a winsome personality\u2026and in advancing in our career and expanding our intellect and, and being a better and better and better and better you.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">In this context to say with Tupac, \u201cOnly God can Judge me and everyone else can get out of the way,\u201d might be a faithful response.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">If we feel like the pew might crash beneath us because of our overwhelming guilt, I wonder if we might be able to accept that it is our idols that demand that kind of pound of flesh from us and not God.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That indeed, as this passage holds forth, God doesn\u2019t expect that we live in a perpetual state of self-hatred but that indeed God wants to restore us to the joy of his salvation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">For this reason there is Hope to be found in the message of SIN:<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Sin might be our only hope! All our talk about being free from hide bound notions sin and guilt ironically occurs in a context in which many of us to feel not one mite bit less guilty.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">We all need to hear the truth about ourselves.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">The truth might be that we have very unfairly taken up the judgments of this world.\u00a0 The sins that are ever before us might not actually be sins at all.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">The truth might be that we are prideful. We might need to admit that we firmly believe in our deepest heart that goodness and truthfulness and faithfulness will not get us what we want.\u00a0 And we have decided in favor of what we want!<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">The truth might be that we are wrongfully self-abnegating.\u00a0 The truth about our souls might actually be achingly beautiful.\u00a0 God delights in us and made us precisely for this delight, and we are actually forsaking our rightful place in God\u2019s kingdom when we lose sight of this.\u00a0 Perhaps, there are people for whom God wants to make us a blessing. And we are unable to be this blessing because we can see no health in ourselves.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Whatever, the truth is about ourselves the Psalmist writes that we should come to know it in the recognition that God is a God of Steadfast Love and abundant mercy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">I grew up in a religious context in which the ideal state for the saint was to be in a perpetual state of crisis and self-flagellation.\u00a0\u00a0 To be a saint was to have your sins<br \/>\nconstantly before you.\u00a0 To live in a constant state of bone crushing recognition of your own sinfulness.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">I was struck this time when I read this Psalm with the degree to which the Psalmist is able to recognize that God rejoices in the offering of a contrite spirit.\u00a0 But, this is not a perpetual offering.\u00a0\u00a0 Contrition is for the sake of restoration, recreation, and restitution.\u00a0 This restitution is not meant to be momentary or fleeting or in the future.\u00a0 The Psalmist prays that his bones might rejoice.\u00a0 That God might restore him to live in a new place, not a place where his sins are ever before him \u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">but, to live into the Joy of God\u2019s salvation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Similarly Lent is meant to be a season in the church. The word Lent is originally another word for Spring. It is a season of preparing the soil. It is a season of pruning.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Yes, we might need to pull ourselves towards the earth. To scratch closely to the very bedrock truth.\u00a0 To be drawn low like a seed. And like a seed to die to ourselves and to our own preoccupations and our sense that we are our own judges and our brother judges.\u00a0 But, forbid, that the seed stays dead in the ground!\u00a0 Forbid if we stay in a perpetual sense of our guilt and lowliness.\u00a0 For Easter is coming! So let the Lily\u2019s bloom.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Let the bones that are crushed rejoice.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Open our Mouth, and Let God\u2019s Praise Spring Forth<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Let us hear Joy and Gladness<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 19px\/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0px\">Restore unto US the JOY of Your Salvation and Renew a Truthful Spirit within us.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 16px\/normal Times; min-height: 19px; margin: 0px\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font: normal normal normal 16px\/normal Times; min-height: 19px; margin: 0px\">\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sermon LENT V March 29, 2009 Jodie Boyer Hatlem \u00a0 The 51st Psalm has been as central part of Christian Lenten Reflection for more than 1400 years.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Traditionally the Psalm is read during the first week of Lent.\u00a0 Because of the Psalm\u2019s central place in the keeping of Lent it has been suggested that the 51st Psalm has been recited in more Christian services than any other Psalm.\u00a0 This Psalm is familiar to many of us.\u00a0 We have heard the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-a-worship-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}