BIBLE READING FOR THE DAY:
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
-- Psalm 51:1-2, 10-12
THOUGHT: Sin may mean a lot of different things to many of you. Some of you may have had the word 'sin' hung over your head and beat down upon you in hurtful ways in the past. It certainly has many connotations of condemnation associated with it in popular culture. Some of you may associate the word with doing things wrong, or being a 'bad person.' Some of you may only hear the word in the context of overtly-enthusiastic religious folk who seem too eager to condemn us all, and now you want nothing to do with it.
But I think that if we are going to understand grace and love, we need to have a concept of sin that works for us.
Sin, at its heart, is that thing that takes us further from God--God as life, God as love, God as justice, God as truth, God as a person to interact with. It may be some sort of action that is wrong (the writer of this psalm, for example, had committed adultery), but sin is not just a crime-- rather, it directly relates to something that moves our heart in relation to God. Is our heart turning toward God, or away from him? Sin may also be found in the systems in which we live: for example, there are many ways that American culture uses more than its fair share of money, resources, etc, lending its members to participating inadvertently in a system of inequality and oppression. Sin may also be those omissions that we have not grown brave or faithful enough for-- when we choose to turn away from a person who needs a friend because our courage fails us, or when we decide to take the comfortable and secure road instead of making a choice based on faith.
We all make mistakes, and we are all still growing, and we all have been born into a world entrenched with systems of sin. And I think sin-- whatever the evil force is that allows lies, injustice, and brokenness to be a part of our world-- is something to grieve. We are all, sadly, surrounded by brokenness.
Some of you may easily see God as a force of grace and love in a world of brokenness. Some of you may not believe God is personable at all. Some of you may only have ever experienced God as those voices of condemnation for your 'sins' that have hurt you through religion in the past. But if we can try to imagine the God spoken to in this Psalm, there is good news. The good news is that when we grieve sin, and when we feel sad for our own participation in these forces of brokenness, this God is with us, and as this Psalm says, he is all too ready to forgive any and all of us when our hearts want to return to him, to cover us with a grace that allows us to be a part of his purity, and his goodness. We can be made anew after our mistakes and failings, and given infinitely more chances.
CHALLENGE: Today, let's all try the practice of confession-- going to God and grieving with him over these forces of sin in our lives. Maybe write in your journal or go for a walk.
First, think of the things that make you sad in the world-- the forces of brokenness that you see. Reflect on your own inadvertent participation in some of these systems, and allow yourself a measure of grieving.
From there, spend some time reflecting on your own mistakes and failures that are brought to mind. As you do so, give each to God, and release them. Allow yourself to imagine God making you new and pure and giving you a clean slate from which to start again. The Bible says God is a God of grace -- giving us those good things we do not deserve-- and a God of mercy-- withholding from us the consequences we otherwise would have to pay. There is no shame or guilt in God's love, so where you find yourself beating yourself up, ask for God's help in stopping, and instead, look for a freedom and joy (as in the psalm) in God's grace. Do not fish for things to hang over your head-- when your heart has come to a stopping point, rest in the freedom of being made new from those things you reflected on today.
Finally, look around in your life for the good things-- look for where love is, where you've seen forgiveness happen, where you can count on truth, etc. Thank God for those good forces that he is fighting for in our world, and the way his grace is working in our interactions with each other and with our world.
You may find, during your time of prayer, that you feel a tug on your heart to deal with something with another person-- to reconcile or make things right between you all. I encourage you to seek that person's forgiveness, as an act of courage and faith on your part. See what happens when you do.
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