March 17, 2002 -- FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 130
With the LORD there is mercy and plenteous redemption. (Ps. 130:6-7)
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45
Color: Purple
Title: “God’s forgiveness.”
Psalm 130
This is an individual lament for sin and an expression of confidence that God’s forgiving nature will remove the sin and redeem the individual, just as God has always done in the past for the whole nation. The structure of the psalm is based on the spiritual movement within the psalmist, as he goes from crying verses one to three, to trusting in God’s forgiveness verses four to six, to feeling reinstated within the community where he sees his individual grace as an example of and in harmony with the nation’s graced standing before God verses seven and eight.
In verse one, A song of Ascents: There are fifteen psalms with this title or heading, Psalms 120-134. While no one knows for sure, the best guess is that this was a collection sung by pilgrims on their journey to Jerusalem to celebrate the great feasts. These would be the songs along the way. Since they are short they would have been easy to remember. Just about every type of psalm is represented. There are psalms of thanksgiving and praise, lament and confidence, wisdom and royal psalms. They all center on the Temple, the locus and focus of the divine presence, as the repository of life-refreshing grace that the pilgrim takes back with him or her into the world. Another conjecture, one not contradictory of what has just been said, is that these fifteen psalms we sung as the pilgrim party ascended the fifteen steps from the court of women to the court of Israel men only. If so, this psalm would most likely have been sung on the lowest step, that is, “Out of the depths.”
The depths: While the words literally refer to the depths of the sea, they figuratively represent troubles and misfortunes and even Sheol, death. The psalmist feels distant from God and submerged in chaos. This may refer to one specific individual experience or recurring situations or even a chronic condition. The image is general enough to include a “sea of troubles, “the pits,” as we would say, the felt distance from the presence of God caused by either a big sin or just daily life in the Diaspora, the mixed world of Jews and Gentiles or just the mixed up world in general. It is the cry of a pilgrim, a nobody from nowhere, dirty, grimy, tired, afar off, addressing his God. It is inspired by Exodus 2:23-25 with which the Jewish and our history of faith began, where the Israelites groaned because of their slavery. God heard that cry and was mindful of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
In verse three, mark iniquities: The idea here is of one keeping an exact ledger of all wrongdoing to be used for assigning punishment for each and every one.
Lord, who can stand: No one is without sin. “Stand,” hints at standing or living in the presence of God. When Malachi speaks of the sudden appearance in the Temple of the Lord in Malachi 3:2 he asks the same question and uses the same verb: Who can stand when he appears? Thus one can neither stand, up, in deep waters nor in the presence of God. Such requires something on God’s part of which humans are incapable.
In verse four, but with you is forgiveness: This is an indirect prayer for forgiveness, coupled with the confidence that such is part of God’s nature to grant for the sincere asking. The psalmist knows his history. He has learned from it the consistent pattern of God’s behavior. He may be reminding God of that fact or himself or both. He hopefully awaits some sign. If he is in the Temple at a liturgy, that sign would be the “word” or “oracle” from God, uttered by the priest.
That you may be revered: “Revered,” is a good translation of the niphal imperfect, of the Hebrew verb used here meaning, “fear.” The fear of God is the human response to his felt presence. This response runs the gamut from utter terror to reverential awe. God’s immense power would cause anyone to cower in fear, but God’s love would cause one to be aghast, agape, in utter admiration and awe. Looking at his love Hebrew hesed reduces the terror. Experiencing the undeserved forgiveness of God instead of his “by the book,” strict justice leaves one aghast, agape, in awe. Forgiveness is not the end but the key that opens to the real purpose: “that you may be revered.” One would expect the opposite sequence, namely, that fear would be the motivation to ask for forgiveness. Instead, trust is, trust in God’s nature. And forgiveness is the motivation for fear, reverential fear, which leads to obedience. It also produces hope, hope that in the future God will remain consistent, that is, he will “deliver,” the same goods he always has in the past and now in the present.
In verse five, I trust in the Lord: The verb root k-w-h means “to wait,” The idea of waiting carries through into verse six, as well, where no other verb appears. The imagery of a sentinel waiting for dawn, sure that it will inevitably come as it has every morning in the past, but not yet here, is about as ancient an image as Israel used to connote trust in God.
In verse six, sentinels: Certainly, roosters were sentinels, greeting the dawn. Also, the Levites had to keep watch in the Temple and at the first signs of dawn would signal to begin the daily morning sacrifice. Of course, there were always military sentries. The point is clear. Just as they wait for the morning, just so the morning certainly comes. So it is with waiting for and trusting in God. He will appear. The verse is repeated for emphasis.
In verse seven and eight, many scholars, noting the change in address from God to Israel, think that these verses were tagged on to an original, either to turn a private prayer into a public one or to reflect a liturgical exhortation by a priest “to do likewise.” Some think that the psalm is hereby re-interpreted to fit the community. Whatever the case and it is all conjecture, the notion of “corporate personality,” would not make a clear-cut distinction between the individual and the community. Once the individual Jew experienced grace- the grace of a prayer answered, an illness cured, a vindication from false accusations, forgiveness of sins, etc., once something like that happened, the next thing a Jew would do would be to fit it into the larger context of salvation history. The Jew would see his personal forgiveness as a concrete instance of God’s general forgiveness of his people. He would see his personal hope as a reflection of Israel’s hope. He would see God’s answer to his prayer as a confirmation of his love for all Israel, not just his personal self. He would see any and all benefits received from God not only as benefits to him but as beneficial to the whole community. Thus, there is no need to explain the next two verses. They are not inconsistent with the first six verses as the structure and vocabulary also reinforce. The psalmist is now speaking to Israel in the name of God as a result of God’s forgiveness and, at the same time, he is speaking for Israel, in the name of Israel, as a representative of Israel, witnessing to God’s pervasive love.
In verse seven, with the Lord is kindness…full redemption: “Kindness” translates the Hebrew hesed, God’s covenant love and loyalty. “Full” means “plenteous, “abundant,” “overflowing.” The God who does not miserly measure, mark or write down sins in detail verse three is quite oppositely generous and magnanimous.
Verse eight he will redeem Israel from all their iniquities: The idea of verse seven is repeated in terms of verse three. The God who does not “mark,” down iniquities, in fact, erases them, forgives them, cancels the debt caused by them. True, blame and guilt are due, strictly speaking. But with God these are reshaped as preliminaries to redemption instead of condemnation, for those who trust in him.
Sermon
It is just God’s nature, his inexplicable nature to forgive. Forgiving means “letting go.” God lets go of our offensive behavior toward him. He does not “mark iniquities.” He does not write down our sins in indelible ink. Ironically, in letting go of our sins, he embraces us, hugs us, “holds on,” to us, the seeming opposite of “letting go.”
It is just part of our nature to sin. In a sense, sinning means “letting go,” too. It entails letting go of God. At times, it is stronger than merely letting go; it is wresting free of God, on purpose, consciously, willfully. However, more often, in the case of those who do will to live in the awareness of God, and of God’s presence and live according to that truth, it entails slipping away more than wresting free. It as though we are walking along the edge of time and eternity, lose our attentiveness, become careless, or even reckless, take uncalled for risks and slip, fall into the abyss. It is odd, but when we think of eternity we are more likely to think of eternity as the “abyss,” a formless, shapeless atmosphere of empty, dark space. Actually, that better describes our experience of earth than heaven. Even science tells us that what we think of as most solid- matter, earth- is in a constant state of flux and is not “solid” at all. More to the point, our experience of life without God, unconscious of his presence, is like life in the abyss, in the pits or depths of chaos. Often, throughout the course of any day, we slip off the edge and fall into the abysmal depths of meaninglessness, pointlessness, routine, greed, jealousy, anger, pride, without even knowing it. It is not eternity that is free-floating and bottomless, it is time. In the depths we cannot even sense eternity, let alone see it, let alone live according to its light.
It is the gracious nature of God to have implanted within us the ability to cry and cry out. We can lament our abysmal condition, thanks to his grace. We can cry. But even more graciously, he has empowered us to cry out, cry out to him for help. We can ask him to rescue us from a condition we ourselves have caused or, at least, been an accomplice in bringing about. We do not usually consider crying and crying out to be graces but they are. But, there is even more. We cry and cry out a lot. We ask for forgiveness a lot. We either jump into the pit or fall into it a lot. We go back for more, thinking we might have missed something good or important. We keep doing the same things over and over, falsely hoping that the results will be different “this time.” That, of course, is the definition of insanity. And we are insane, unsound, in need of being saved- from ourselves. Enter God, time and time again. He forgives, knowing we will slip or jump yet again and again. He counters our repetitive sinning with repetitive forgiving. He is tirelessly, unfailingly, always there, waiting.
And that gives us hope. If we had only one chance, were allowed only one jump or fall, there would really be no hope. For some, this is the case. They fall, know that they would fall again and say, “What’s the use?” Losing trust in themselves, they lose trust in God. They mistakenly think that God is like them or us, that he might even be persuaded to forgive twice or even three times, but not seventy times seven times. If we lose our wonderful capacity to cry and to cry out, we cannot ask for forgiveness. We have truly let go of God and prevent God from letting go of our sins. We have defined God in purely human terms and missed him entirely. We cannot explain why God is the way he is, but we can better understand ourselves when we see ourselves in the light of the way he is- eternally. To do that we have to get up out of the pits and back onto the edge where time and eternity meet so that we can see. True, we cannot do even that without his help. True also, his help is always there for the asking, or more correctly, for the crying.
God has excellent hearing and can hear a cry for help, no matter how faint or far off.
God easily and immediately forgives the sincere petitioner.
God’s forgiveness evokes reverence and awe, which resists the impulse to exploit God’s love.
As God waits to be asked and for his presence to be recognized, so do his children wait for signs assuring them he is there or near or coming.
The repetitive process of waking up each morning provides a good model for our experience with God.
Waking Up: Our lives and the meaning of our lives unfolds one day at a time. Each night we fall asleep and each morning we wake up. Sleep is going down into the depths of consciousness, almost to the very bottom, the bottom being death. Each morning we come “out of the depths.” The first thing we do or should do is “cry out” to the Lord, like a rooster announcing the dawn. If our sins, our pains, our troubles did not keep us awake through the night, we remember them immediately upon awakening. This would be depressing, if we did not also remember the Lord, who has brought us to the dawn of a new day. So, first, we are confronted with reality- reality we inherited, reality of which we are victims to some extent, reality we have caused by our own sins, slippage into the depths or deliberate leaps. If we deliberately “call to mind” as Eucharistic Prayer puts it, the presence of the Lord, we recognize, that is, praise, his presence, his power, his grandeur and we are in awe, “and so you are revered”. We begin the day with praise, followed by thanksgiving, gratitude that the Lord is there, always there, for the asking, for the crying out, ready to listen and help. We recall also the day before, filled with God’s gracious love for us, for others, for all and are grateful for all that. Then, we also remember our sins, especially yesterday’s. Oh, while we were in the depths of unconsciousness, in sleep, our sub-conscious was trying to reveal to us what our sins are and were, all the unresolved issues of our lives, but our dreams could do nothing to forgive them or really resolve them, that is, let them go. But, now, in the light of day or, at least, the emerging light of dawn, the coming of day, the coming into the light of eternity, we can beg forgiveness and not merely watch a subconscious dream or play. Finally, we can ask for help, for grace, not only to avoid falling, slipping or leaping back into the pit of sin, but for help in adding to the “fullness of redemption,” by behaving in ways similar to God, by praising, thanking, forgiving and helping others. Each day, each repetition of the days of our lives, is a microcosm of our entire lives. We come out of the depths each morning, renew our resolve, and fall back into the pit nonetheless. Without God’s faithful forgiveness we would lose hope. With it we actually make progress.
Pits: There are many pits and pitfalls during a lifetime. They vary in degrees of seriousness and consequences, even in degrees of responsibility, but they all have one thing in common. They are all potential barriers to vision, to seeing the eternal light. They plunge us into darkness, if only and hopefully temporarily. They are also barriers to hearing. Submerged beneath the atmosphere where sound travels, we can be cut off, if only and hopefully, temporarily from the sounds of the word of God. Without that spiritual sight and hearing we can become completely and irretrievably lost, were it not for the divine Sentinel, always watching and alert for signs of distress. He will spot us, search us out, find us. This gives us hope, a hope, a trust, we could never have in ourselves. So, each morning as we “ascend,” into the day we cry out to the Lord to turn the barriers to his presence, the mountains of injustice, into steps, steps arising into his full and fuller presence. Each step we take moves us further from the pits and pitfalls of life. Some Jews, living far away from Mt. Zion and its Temple, only made that trip once in a lifetime. It is our privilege to make it, at least, once a day, really throughout the daytime, all the days of our lives. Amen.
