Light Joined to Light

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
March 26, 2006
The Fourth Sunday in Lent

Light Joined To Light
Numbers 21:4-9
John 3:14-21

Which is it?
You want it both ways.
but you cannot have it both ways.
You want it your way,
convinced of your own sense of righteousness,
convinced of your own sense of faithfulness.
But when was the last time you looked in the mirror?
Really looked in the mirror?
You cannot answer because you have been too busy
looking at others,
talking about them,
complaining about them,
their faults, their faithlessness.
If you were to look in the mirror
you would not like what you see looking back at you,
for you would see someone who was dead:
Dead in the flesh,
because that person in the mirror is focused on the flesh,
lives in the flesh.

You think yourself alive,
but you are not.
In order to be alive, you must live in the Spirit,
live through the Spirit,
be guided by the Spirit,… be filled with Spirit.
But you -
you are filled with your own desires, your own whims,
your own feelings.

You hear the words, but denial washes over you:
“he’s not talking about me;
he’s talking about someone else.
I am filled the Spirit,
I am righteous;
I walk in the ways of the Lord.”
But you deceive yourself.
Your eyes are open but you do not see;
your ears are open, but you do not hear.

Your heart is not open,
nor is your mind.
You have walled them up,
closed them off.
You have been the master mason,
laying every brick in place,
binding them with the mortar of
arrogance and self-righteousness,
building the wall higher, stronger, more impenetrable.

Have you not heard?
Have you not seen?
No you have not, for you have been too busy talking,
too busy justifying your own actions;
too busy complaining about the actions and words of others.
Don’t look away,
Don’t turn away,
for God will speak to you
here and now.

Deny it at your peril.
Deny it all you like,
but the fiery fangs have already pierced your flesh
and the venom is coursing through you.
And only the power of God’s love can save you.

A scene in the desert three thousand years ago?
Or a scene here and now?
The answer of course is both.
We think we are different from our ancestors in faith,
that we are better, that we have improved ourselves,
over the past 3,000 years.
But don’t we continue to follow the same path
as the children in the desert?
Are we really any different from the men and women
who followed Moses out of Egypt and into the wilderness?

Here it is the middle of Lent
and we still deny we need healing,
that we need to repent.
We say we are all right;
if there is a problem, it is the other person.
Three thousand years have passed and are we any different?
We carp, we criticize, we condemn, we complain.
Family members, neighbors, one another here in church -
our focus is always on the other person,
he or she is the one with the problem, never yourself.
Even now, as I say these words,
who are you thinking about?
Whose image has taken front stage in your mind?
A spouse? A parent? A friend?
Someone here in this church?
Why isn’t the image of yourself?
How many more times do you want to be bitten?
How much more venom do you want to flow through your veins?
Why won’t you surrender to God?
Why won’t you seek healing?

We think ourselves different from the complaining crowd
following Moses through the desert,
and we are: we don’t feel the bite.
We are not even aware of the bite,
but we have been bitten
just as surely as our ancestors in faith
had been 3,000 years ago.
They complained, complained about God,
complained about the man God called to lead them,
and with every complaint, venom filled them.
Complaints begetting complaints;
Complaining voices, angry voices
through the centuries,
until they culminated in a chorus
intoxicated with power
shouting “Crucify! Crucify!”

And the voices succeeded; they got their way:
and the world fell into darkness,
the light of the world gone,
God’s light extinguished.
And all men and women dead;
dead in the flesh,
dead still;
dead because we deny we need healing;
“I don’t need healing
but I know at least at least three people who certainly do.”
Admit it: that’s what you think;
that’s what you say.
And in thinking that, saying that,
you acknowledge you are dead.
Acknowledge that you prefer the darkness.

In his book entitled “To Heal a Fractured World”,
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain,
tells of an old story that speaks of God’s light
being so bright after creation
that it was too much for humanity,
and so the light was fractured and broken
by disobedience and sin,
light beams scattered everywhere.
Our calling as children of God is to find those light beams
and gather them up and bring them together.
Your job as a child of God is simple:
Find just one beam of God’s light
and carry it with you into your home, your work,
this church, everywhere.
Join your beam with that of another
and the world will become that much brighter:
Light joined to light
love joined to love.

The other option you have is overlook the light beam
and spend your time like the children in the wilderness
complaining, complaining,
Carping, criticizing, condemning,
living in darkness, living in denial,
living without healing.
If you are not busy gathering light,
joining beam to beam, you are dead,
dead, dead in the flesh
But if you focus on gathering God’s light beams,
you are alive to the Spirit, alive to Christ.
healed, purged of the venom that fills you in the flesh.

Your healing in the light cannot begin
until you acknowledge your need for healing.
And healing is yours not through a bronze serpent on a pole
but through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Healing love just waiting for you in Jesus Christ.
Healing love even though you walk in darkness;
healing love even though you are filled with venom;
Healing love to help you find the light.

“God did not send the Son into the world
to condemn the world….” (John 3:17)
God sent his Son to save the world,
save the world,
to save you, to save you from death by your own hand,
your own words, your own acts.
God sent his Son to heal, to lead, to teach,
for us to follow,
follow in how he lived his life.
Follow so that we might be gatherers, gatherers of light
bringing light and love.

Anthropomorphism is a big word,
and one we don’t use very often.
It means attributing human features
to something that is not human.
We do that with God to help ourselves understand God.
So, in the wonderful Old Testament blessing
we say, “The Lord make his face to shine upon you…
The Lord lift up his countenance and give you peace.”
(Numbers 6:25)
We want to think of God’s face smiling, shining on us.
We speak of God as merciful, loving, kind and forgiving.
using human characteristics to describe God.
What Rabbi Sacks reminds us, though is that when we ascribe
these behaviors to God,
we are doing more than just describing God;
we are setting the standard for ourselves and our own lives.
If God is merciful, loving, kind, and forgiving,
then we are called to be merciful, loving, kind, and forgiving.

We are called to work at becoming more godly,
more Christ-like in how we live, how we treat one another,
how we go through every hour of every day.
We cannot do that if we are filled with venom,
dying in the flesh, walking on the same path
as the children in the desert.
Thomas a Kempis, the 15th century theologian,
wrote in his masterful work “The Imitation of Christ”
“If only we were completely dead to self…
we could savor spiritual things.”
But we are not dead to self, he tells his reader:
for we prefer to stay focused on our lives in the flesh:
the things you want, the world your way,
and still denying that you are that way.

God watches us live our lives in ways that kill us,
hear us speak words to one another that are venomous
killing two spirits simultaneously, the speaker and the hearer.
God watches us continually choose paths
that lead to darkness and death,
away from his light, his love, and his life.

But God never loses his hope in us.
for through Christ, we are offered new life,
here and now.
All we need to do,
all you need to do is acknowledge your own darkness,
your own venomous ways,
your own selfishness,
your own self righteousness.
And God will wash you clean;
life will begin anew.

But that isn’t the hardest part;
the hardest part is working at the new life,
not to slide back to old ways, old habits.
The hardest part is looking to God to help you through the Spirit
to navigate through each day,
to help you focus more and more on living in the Spirit,
and less and less on yourself
as you seek the light.

You need no bronze serpent to be healed,
you only need the love of God that is ours, yours,
in Jesus Christ.
And what does Jesus teach us:
it is by our love for one another
that we are known as his disciples.
Love for one another:
by your efforts in gathering light
and helping others as they seek to gather light,
so we can join light to light, beam to beam
that God’s light might shine that much brighter.
As Sacks writes,
“And when light is joined to light, mine to yours …,
the dance of flames, each so small,
yet together so intricately beautiful,
begins to show that hope is not an illusion.” 271
That we can truly create a community
that is the Body of Christ
here in this church,
and then from this church take that light out into the world.

Sacks concludes his book by writing,
“We are here because God brought us into being in love
and gave us work to do, saying in his still small voice,
‘Bring a fragment of my presence into the lives of others.” 253
Are you doing that?
Are you?
Or do you need healing first, so you can do that?
Do you need healing in Jesus Christ?
Are you dead in the flesh?
Or are you alive in the Spirit?
Stop denying and come before God
to acknowledge your dark ways.
Be washed clean and start afresh and anew
here and new,
purged of the venom that fills your veins.

Walk in light that you might find the light,
and then join light to light
with family, with friends,
with those you even consider to be an enemy.
Join light to light
to the glory of God.
Then, and only then, will you feel God’s face
shining upon you;
Then and only then will you know that the
Lord has lifted up his countenance,
that you might know his peace.
AMEN

Ten to Two

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
March 19, 2006
Third Sunday in Lent

Ten to Two
Exodus 20:1-17
John 2:13-22

Laws, rules, clearly drawn lines;
Go this far, but then go no farther;
You can do this, but you may not do that;
Stop. Go;
Do. Don’t.
Life is filled with rules, laws, regulations:
The speed limit is 30;
If you walk your dog, clean up after him;
Don’t talk on your cell phone while you are driving;
You must be this tall to ride the roller-coaster.

We sometimes chafe at all the rules,
all the regulations we live under.
Those we don’t like we ignore;
we pretend they don’t apply to us.
Stand on the corner of the intersection of 208 and 94
in the center of town and count the number of cars
that go by with drivers chattering away on their cellphones.

We have rules and laws to protect us;
they are written for our own good,
and the greater good of our society.
When you are navigating a 4,000 pound machine
through the center of town
we would all like to know that you are paying more attention
to your driving than to the person
on the other end of your telephone call.

God gave Moses and the children of Israel the Ten Commandments
for their own good - to guide them, to help them,
as they became a community, a people.
God didn’t give Moses the Ten Commandments
to restrict his children, to bind them,
to fence them in.
No God gave our ancestors in faith -- and us –
the Commandments to help us live better lives
both individually and as part of a larger community.

But we tend to think of the Ten Commandments as
a finger wagging at us,
a voice scolding us: “don’t you even think about it.”
And so we tend not to pay much attention to them;
we put more energy into arguing that we should have them
on the walls of buildings or carved into great hulking sculptures
than we do in living our lives by them.

In this season of reflection and repentance,
I invite you to ask yourself: do you live your lives
guided by the Ten Commandments?
Really?
Start with an even simpler question:
before you heard me read them a few minutes ago,
could you have listed all ten of them?
Would you have known where to find them in the Bible?
Do you know in what other book they appear?

Let’s take a walk through the Commandments
to refresh our memories as to what they say
and what they don’t say,
keeping in mind that as with everything in the Bible
there is always more than what is just on the surface.

Listen to the First Commandment:
“Then God spoke all these words:
I am the Lord your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of slavery;
you shall have no other gods before me.”
This sounds rather possessive: “you shall have no other gods”.
But this first commandment is a profoundly liberating statement:
God has led us to freedom,
led us to a place where we can live our lives as we choose.
We no longer have to worship multiple gods,
nor do we have to fear the wrath of angry gods.
We have one God and only God: the Lord God,
A God who says, “Forget the doves, the sheep, the oxen,
the money changers,
the foul smoke of the sacrifice.
Just bring me your heart;
Nothing more; nothing less.”

In the Second Commandment God tells us,
“You shall not make for yourself an idol,
whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above,
or that is on the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them;
for I the Lord your God am a jealous God,
punishing children for the iniquity of parents,
to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,
but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation
of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
This is the “no golden idols” commandment.
don’t worship your new car, your house, your job,
your sports team.
Don’t make an idol out of plaques and statues that have
the Ten Commandments on them.
Don’t wave the Bible around as though it was a weapon
telling others “The Bible says…”
for that makes the Bible an idol.

And what are we to do about that last line:
that God will punish us
to the third and fourth generation for our sins?
Visiting the sins of the father upon the son.
This is a perfect example of the danger that comes when
we try to read the words of the Bible literally;
God himself repudiates this part of the commandment
in two different places in the Bible.
The first time is through the prophet Jeremiah:
(Jeremiah 31:27)
Can you guess where the second instance occurs?
Old Testament or New?
The New, of course, in the life of Jesus Christ,
when God assures us that forgiveness is ours
through his beloved Son.
No sacrifices, no money to change;
just a penitent heart,
true repentance.

The Third Commandment is so simple:
“You shall not make wrongful use
of the name of the Lord your God,
for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.”
It is not only when we use profanity
that we break this commandment;
it is when we use the name God lightly.
The hymn “How Clear is our Vocation, Lord,”
speaks of “the casual way we wear your name….”
We take possession of God’s name as though we own it,
have rights to it.
The person who sneers, “go ahead,
worship God in your own way,
while I worship God in His…”
There is no one in this church who is holier than anyone else here;
This Commandment takes direct aim at self-righteousness
that infects all God’s children.

Who doesn’t struggle with the Fourth Commandment:
“Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.
Six days you shall labor and do all your work.
But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God;
you shall not do any work – you, your son or your daughter,
your male or female slave,
your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
but rested the seventh day;
therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day
and consecrated it.”
The better translation of that last phrase is,
God made the day “holy”.
Holy – the whole day, not just an hour on Sunday morning,
but the whole day,
the whole day – to rest, to allow others to rest,
and to remember our maker, our Creator.
The one who created this world we live in
this world that has been entrusted to our care and stewardship.
“Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.”

The Fifth Commandment is one that we follow
a few days each year: birthdays, Christmas,
anniversaries, and of course Mothers and Fathers Day:
But God is firmer than that:
“Honor your father and your mother,
so that your days may be long
in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”
“Honor your father and mother.”
God doesn’t say honor your mother on the second Sunday in May,
and your father on the third Sunday in June;
No, honor your parents, respect your Elders
all the time, for with age comes wisdom
and there is much we can learn from our elders.
So we should care for all our elderly,
for they are all our parents.

We struggle with the Sixth Commandment
especially when our Armed Forces are in combat.
The operative word in the Hebrew is best translated “murder”,
rather than “kill”.
But does that mean you can kill if you are part of an army?
What if you are an executive of a mining company
and you make a decision to cut costs
on safety equipment and a month later
a miner dies – a miner who might have lived
if the safety equipment had been there
– is that murder?
If the cost of a prescription drug rises so high
that insurance companies stop covering the cost,
and the government insurance plan doesn’t include it,
and a person dies because she could not afford
the medication, is someone responsible for murder?
We might know what federal and state laws say,
but what does God intend?
What does Jesus teach us?
What does the Spirit call us to do?

The Seventh Commandment seems so straightforward:
“You shall not commit adultery.”
If you are married, no fooling around.
But the commandment is far broader than that;
this commandment seeks to protect relationships,
to condemn faithlessness across the board.
If you make a promise,
if you agree to take on a responsibility to any one,
then keep it.
Our newly ordained officers made promises to God,
to one another, and to all of us last week;
everyone who serves on a committee makes promises
that others depend upon.
Community depends upon our keeping our obligations
to one another; being faithful,
rather than making excuses for why we didn’t do
what we promised we’d do.

We have no kleptomaniacs in this congregation,
no one who steals money or things that don’t belong to them,
but here again the Eighth Commandment
goes well beyond what a quick reading would suggest.
You might never consider stealing another person’s wallet
but what about stealing another person’s time?
stealing another person’s joy?
stealing another person’s hope?
What about stealing another’s reputation?
I am not talking about identity theft;
rather something simpler, but more insidious,
something that goes on in churches all too often:
gossiping and maligning another person:
those notorious kitchen and parking lot conversations,
those conversations that fly directly in the face
of Paul’s teaching that everything we do should build
and not tear down;

The Eighth and the Ninth go together:
You should not take anything from your neighbor,
and you should not lie about him or her,
telling things that are not true,
spreading rumors, innuendo.
If you are saying something that is not based in fact,
then you are tearing the fabric of community
that God is trying to build.

And that brings us to the Tenth Commandment:
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house;
you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife,
or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey,
or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
This is about much more than an act;
about much more than “don’t do this or that”
This commandment is about a state of mind.
If you are covetous, envious, jealous
about anything, about anyone,
you have put a barrier between yourself and God.
God wants you to be happy with what you have:
with what God has given you.
happy; content,
acknowledging that all you have
has come from God.
If you are envious, covetous,
then you are blind to what God has given you,
ungrateful for what you have
as you reach for more.

Jesus understood that we have trouble
remembering all Ten Commandments;
so he simplified them for us.
He took the Ten and made them Two --
the two great commandments:
Love God with all your heart and soul and strength and might;
and love your neighbor as yourself.

How simple is that: be filled with love,
love for yourself, love for your neighbor
all your neighbors, including strangers.
Joy Davidman, the wife of C.S. Lewis
observed that the means to loving God
is loving one another, loving men and women,
love without judgment, or anger, or rancor.
(Smoke on the Mountain, 136)
You do that and you will keep the commandments,
keep them in both the letter of the law,
and more important, in the Spirit.
Love frees us, liberates us,
allows us to focus on being God’s faithful children.
God knows that we find it hard,
sometimes even impossible to love one another.
But that is what we are called to do;
and God will help us;
all we have to do is ask for his help
to sweep away those sins that keep us from loving one another.
Ten to two;
It all starts with commitment, conviction,
breathing deeply, letting the Spirit in
and the old thoughts and prejudices
and petty feelings – letting them all out.
Ten to two,
for a new life in Christ,
a new life through Christ.
AMEN

What Does He Want?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
March 12, 2006
Second Sunday in Lent

What Does He Want?
Gen 17:1-7, 15-16
Mark 8:31-38

You are standing there in the hot sunshine;
You want to find some shade
and a long, cool drink of water.
You have been following the carpenter for some days now,
watching him, listening to him,
taking in his every word, his every movement.
He can’t seem to sit still.
A few days earlier he healed a blind man
in the city of Bethsaida,
along the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee.
But no sooner had he healed the man,
when he headed north,
to the city of Caesara Phillipi,
near the base of Mount Hermon.
It was a Gentile city,
not within the borders of Judea.

The wind that blew through valley was hot and dry.
Fatigue overwhelmed you,
but Jesus seemed to show no sign of slowing down.
He was like a man consumed, filled with passion for his mission.

You listened to the buzz among the crowd around him.
Everyone seemed to have a different opinion
as to just who this man was.
Some said he was Elijah, back from the whirlwind;
others said he was yet another great prophet
in a line that went back more than a thousand years to Moses.
You still had not come a conclusion;
you were still trying to listen, to learn,
to figure it out.

You were at the back of the crowd
and you could see that Jesus was talking,
but the chatter of the people all around you
drowned out his words.
You saw Peter the fisherman try to pull Jesus aside,
but Jesus would have none of it.
Even from a distance, you could tell that
Jesus was angry with Peter.
Their sudden quarrel caught everyone’s attention
and the crowd grew quiet.
Jesus turned from Peter and spoke to the crowd;
this time you could hear every word:
“If any want to become my followers,
let them deny themselves
and take up their cross and follow me.
For those who want to save their life will lose it,
and those who lose their life for my sake,
and for the sake of the gospel will save it.
For what will it profit them to gain the whole world
and forfeit their life?”
(Mark 8:34-36)

The words fell heavily on everyone standing around you.
You could tell his words made the crowd uncomfortable;
they made you uncomfortable.
“Deny yourself;…
Take up your cross and follow me…
Lose your life for my sake”
This was strong stuff;
Well beyond John the Baptizer’s rantings:
“repent you brood of vipers!”
This seemed so extreme,
so far beyond what you thought he was going to say.
On other occasions you had heard him speak with such compassion
for the poor, the sick,
the elderly, the widows, the orphans.
You had heard him say, “blessed are the merciful,
blessed are the pure in heart;
blessed are the meek…”
But now, “deny yourself;
take up your cross;
lose your life for my sake.”

What did he mean?
A person who takes up a cross
does so for one reason only: to die, to die by crucifixion.
Was he asking people to show their support for his words
by dying, by allowing themselves to be killed?
Did he expect everyone to take his words literally?
What was the lesson this rabbi, this teacher,
wanted his listeners to learn?
What did he want?
What did this man want from those who followed him?
What did this man want from you?

Ah, but it is late in the day
and it is hot and you are tired.
If you leave now,
you can get into town before the rest of the crowd
and find a place to eat and sleep.
And so you walk away, wondering,
what does this Jesus of Nazareth want from us?
What does he want from me?
As you walk away you can’t help but think
that what he wants is far more than you are willing to give.

What does Jesus want from us?
We have been struggling with that question
ever since Jesus first came up
out of the waters of the Jordan.
What does Jesus want from us?
The answer is painfully clear:
he wants a lot more from us
than any of us is prepared to give.
For what Jesus wants from us is simple:
he wants our lives,
he wants all of us, every part of us.
He wants us to die to things of this world,
and to be reborn through him.
And those who have called themselves followers of Christ
have struggled with that ever since.

Jesus wants our lives,
wants us to open ourselves to
transformation through the Holy Spirit,
wants us to turn from lives of the flesh to lives of the Spirit.
But how do we respond?
We adapt Christ to our lives.
We fit Jesus in here and there
in our lives and call ourselves faithful adherents.

Back in the late 1800s, Soren Kierkegard wrote,
“Christ never asks for admirers, worshippers, or adherents.
No - he calls for disciples;
It is not adherents of a teaching,
but followers of a life
Christ is looking for.” (55)
And the life Christ wants us to follow is his life,
the life that led to death,
death on the cross.
Death to sin so that we can truly be reborn.
Reborn in Christ so that we will follow him
working for peace and reconciliation
here and every place in this world;
putting the poor and the hungry first;
Breaking down barriers,
especially those barriers that we ourselves build.
Being reborn in Christ means trying to have the faith of Abraham,
even as we acknowledge
that we do not have the faith of Abraham.

This morning we ordained and installed new officers for our church.
We expect them to know the confessions, the creeds,
this history of our church.
But we expect more from them.
God did not call them to fix budget problems,
or be good committee chairs,
although we hope they will do all those things.
No, God called them to be spiritual leaders,
to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ,
to model Christ-like behavior and help
everyone else to become more Christ-like.

We should have high expectations of them.
We should hold them accountable
for how they govern and lead,
for how they exercise stewardship
over this entire faith community;
for how they exercise stewardship over the staff;
for how they exercise stewardship
over our buildings and grounds,.
Everything they do, everything they say
should strengthen the foundation of this church
both literally and metaphorically.
We should expect our leaders to be willing
to take up the cross of Christ.
But we will have such leaders only if each of us
is willing to take up the cross of Christ.

The great 20th century theologian Karl Barth
once wrote that most followers of Christ
are Christians by convention,
and not by conviction.
And when we live by convention rather than by conviction
it is easy to deny that our Lord calls us to deny ourselves.

Lent is the time for you to die to the old ways
and to be born to new life in Christ,
born as Christ defines it,
not as you might define it.
The first step is to acknowledge
that you do not have the faith of Abraham,
that you find the very idea of taking up your cross
and following Jesus to death
unnerving, even frightening.
When you take that step
you are being honest with yourself
and you are being honest with God.
And when you are honest with yourself,
and honest with God
you have taken the first step toward repentance,
toward new life.

Barbara Brown Taylor has written,
“To measure the full distance between where we are
and where God created us to be –
to suffer that distance, to name it,
to decide not to live quietly with it any longer –
that is the moment when we know we are dead
and begin to decide who we will be tomorrow…”
a convicted, committed follower of our Lord Jesus Christ,
born to new life, a new life in Christ,
a new life through Christ.
(Speaking of Sin, 62)

What does Jesus want from you?
What does Jesus want from each of us?
He couldn’t be clearer:
“Deny yourself;…
Take up your cross and follow me…
Lose your life for my sake.”

Our Lord stands before us now,
before you, before me,
awaiting our response.
AMEN

Teach Me Your Paths

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
March 5, 2006
First Sunday in Lent

Teach Me Your Paths
Gen 9:8-17
Mark 1:9-15

The text for both our Psalm of Confession and our second hymn
came from Psalm 25.
I think it is one of the most powerful of the 150 Psalms
that are to be found in the Bible.
It is a wonderful text for any time of year,
but it seems particularly appropriate as we begin Lent.

We are not sure who wrote this Psalm.
Throughout history we have attributed the Psalms
to King David and his son, King Solomon,
but there were probably many authors.
The Psalmist wrote this text as a plaintive cry to God
for two things: forgiveness and instruction:
forgiveness and instruction;
mercy and guidance.

The Psalm begins
“To you O Lord, I lift up my soul.
O my God, in you I put my trust.”
Right there we have a perfect prayer for each day in Lent.
The words are so simple.
What an ideal way to begin each morning
with those words:
“To you O Lord, I lift up my soul.
O my God, in you I put my trust.”

The season of repentance that takes us to Easter
reminds us that when we lift up our hearts to God
we should always begin by acknowledging our guilt,
our sins, all those ways we have turned from God,
so that we can repent, and turn back to God.

The more completely you can look at yourself
and acknowledge what you have done wrong,
the more completely you will feel yourself washed clean
and renewed in the Holy Spirit.
If you open your heart and pour out your sins,
if you open your heart, and look deep within yourself
as you are doing your Lenten spiritual housecleaning,
you will be ready then to look to God for guidance,
for instruction, for teaching.
You will be ready to say to God,
“Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me…”

Looking deep within ourselves does not come easily to us, though.
We humans are proud, often arrogant;
Doing an open, honest assessment can be a struggle.
We rationalize our behavior,
our mistakes, our errors:
“Oh, it’s not that big a deal;
or, “Well at least I am not as bad as so-and-so.”
We don’t come before God in humility,
with penitent hearts.

The Psalmist reminds us of the importance of humility:
“Good and upright is the Lord;
therefore he instruct sinners in the way
He leads the humble in what is right
and teaches the humble his way.
All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness
for those who keep his covenant and his decrees”
The Psalmist goes back to the covenant
that God made with his children
and all living creatures through the rainbow.
An everlasting covenant of goodness, mercy, and love.

The Psalmist in his humility does not deny his sins,
his transgressions.
He knows he has sinned and humbly seeks forgiveness.
Unhappily, in our society, we find it difficult to confess our faults.
We are quick to cover up our own faults,
even as we busily point out the faults in others.
We seem to be a more and more irresponsible society;
where we don’t want to take
responsibility for our actions.

The prayer I included in the March newsletter
was written by William Barclay, and in it he asks,
“why do we evade responsibility for our sinfulness?”
Why are we so ready to point out the faults of others,
yet so resistant to acknowledge our own faults?

Two years ago I was asked by Christian Century magazine
to review a half dozen books
that had been written on the corporate fraud
we were reading about in the newspaper – the Enrons, the Tycos.
In the article I expressed amazement
at how many men and women in the business world
were so unwilling to acknowledge their errors;
so quick to say it was someone else’s fault,
even when their guilt was clear.

I wrote a new prayer of Confession for these people
to reflect the changing times:
“Almighty God, I may or may not need your mercy,
for I am neither admitting nor denying that I have transgressed.
For I would come to you with a penitent and contrite heart,
if I were guilty of sin, which I am not saying I am,
and I am not saying that I am not.
I may have turned from your love and your path,
but I am confident that any such allegations made against me
will in time be proven unfounded.
For all these sins which I may or may not have committed,
forgive me, even as I deny any specific need for forgiveness.
Wash me clean and restore in me a right spirit,
notwithstanding the fact that my present spirit
may require neither washing nor restoration. Amen”

We waffle!
We seem so unwilling to admit our sins.
But don’t you see: we cannot do that
if we hope to grow in faith and obedience,
if we truly hope to learn from God.
We cannot say to God, “Teach me your paths.”
without first saying, “I keeping selecting the wrong paths”.
We cannot say to God, “Teach me your paths.”
without first saying, “without you, O God,
and your guidance and instruction,
I will always choose the wrong paths.”

In a wonderful essay on Lent, Edna Hong writes,
“There is no motivation for works of love
without a sense of gratitude;
[There can be] no sense of gratitude without forgiveness;
[There can be] no forgiveness without contrition;
[There can be] no contrition without a sense of guilt;
[and there can be] no sense of guilt without a sense of sin.”
(Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent, 24)

We begin to grow in understanding
when we first acknowledge our sinfulness,
acknowledge to God and ourselves,
remembering that God already knows our sins
and is waiting to say, “You are forgiven.”

Only when we acknowledge the wrong paths we have taken
will we be able to say “Teach me your paths”
with any meaning.
We cannot get to instruction and learning,
much less transformation,
without acknowledging that our Lord and Savior
went to the cross and died for our sins:
yours and mine.

Hong concludes her essay with these words:
“the purpose of Lent is to arouse:
arouse a sense of sin,
a sense of guilt for that sin,
so that we move to contrition
as we seek forgiveness,
And then through forgiveness,
open ourselves to new life.”

Come to this table in real humility;
Come to this table with penitent hearts;
Come to this table in genuine humbleness.
As you wait to be served,
acknowledge your sins, acknowledge them to God,
who already knows them
and who is waiting to forgive you.
Then you will be ready to learn;
then you will be ready to grow.

In this Lenten season, seek forgiveness
that you might really know
the promise of the covenant of grace
God gives us so faithfully in Jesus Christ:
the one who died
that we might have life.
Amen