Spokane Friends Meeting

Psalm 143

When you take the time to study not so much the reign of David but David himself you come to see how, when it came to family relationships he was an abject failure.  But it is no wonder given what we know of his relationship with his own parents.   Midrash mythology has offered various theories about David’s childhood.  In the text there is no mention at all of his mother and being the youngest and least important son of Jesse’s family the only evidence of any relationship with his father was his ordering David to enter a field of battle to take food to  of his older three brothers.  Most scholars agree that David penned this psalm during a rebellion against him that was fueled by his twisted relationship with his son Absalom.

David had a number of sons, four of whom became conspicuous in the history of Israel, Amnon, Absalom, Adoniah, and of course Solomon. David’s first-born and presumed heir to the throne was Amnon. We are told in 2 Samuel 13 that David also had a beautiful daughter, Tamar, by another of his wives.  Amnon became obsessed with his half sister to the point of being physically ill. Guilefully he convinced the King to have Tamar come to his bedroom ostensibly to feed him in his illness.  He raped her.  Her full brother, David’s son Absalom, was beside himself with rage. And David refused to acknowledge the crime. Absalom smouldered for two years, waiting for his father to do something.  When it came time to shear the sheep, Absalom invited all his brothers to a feast on the frontier.  On a predetermined signal from Absolom his servants slaughtered Amnon. Fearing punishment Absalom fled to his mother’s family in Geshur. For five years David, unable to forgive Absalom, would not see him. Absalom grew to hate his father.

Absalom considered himself heir to the throne given that Amnon, the first born son, was dead.  Secretly he planned an insurrection. With 200 men he launched his revolt in Hebron and the people there joined him.

When word of this reached David he was crushed.  Instead of going on the defensive, with his entire household, servants, and followers, David abandoned the strong hold of Jerusalem.  Mourning, weeping and barefoot, with his mantle drawn over his head he walked up Mount Olivet.  His whole following, hiding their weeping faces, did the same. When David learned that his chief counselor Ahitophel had joined Absalom and gave the rebellion the weight of his name and experience his sorrow and despondency found new depths.

As David continued his retreat from Jerusalem many he thought to be his allies lied to him, street people threw stones and insults at him.  Meanwhile his son Absalom and his growing army were welcomed into Jerusalem.  Of course, if you read further you will learn the rest of the story and how it all turns out — but for now, this is where we find David as he writes this 143^rd psalm.  The enemies who have prevailed against are actually led by his own flesh and blood. And those in whom he had placed his greatest trust, the people for whom he had been champion, had joined ranks against him.  David knew full well that he had been wrong in not having dealt with Amnon’s violation of his Tamar.  He knew that his five year refusal to reconcile with Absalom meant that he had no claim to be found just in God’s sight.  Knowing that he had no worthiness of his own on which to rely he turns to God’s compassion. Now listen to David as he prays.

¹Hear my prayer, O Lord; give ear to my supplications in your faithfulness; answer me in your righteousness.

²Do not enter into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you.

³For the enemy has pursued me, crushing my life to the ground, making me sit in darkness like those long dead.

⁴Therefore my spirit faints within me; my heart within me is appalled.

⁵I remember the days of old, I think about all your deeds, I meditate on the works of your hands.

⁶I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah

⁷Answer me quickly, O Lord; my spirit fails. Do not hide your face from me, or I shall be like those who go down to the Pit.

⁸Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning, for in you I put my trust. Teach me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.

⁹Save me, O Lord, from my enemies; I have fled to you for refuge.

¹⁰Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Let your good spirit lead me on a level path.

¹¹For your name’s sake, O Lord, preserve my life. In your righteousness bring me out of trouble.

¹²In your steadfast love cut off my enemies, and destroy all my adversaries, for I am your servant.

Mature spirituality requires a good memory. The prophets of the Old Testament were forever admonishing the people to “remember” the merciful deeds of the Lord. Sacred Scripture became the corporate memory of the Jewish people.  Relying on Scripture gave them the assurance that, despite their feeble day-to-day memories, they would never forget the goodness of God. For them, the story of God’s dealings with Israel, their salvation history, is less a record of what God did and more a portrait of who God is. David’s soul is parched but he remembers God’s promise, spoken through Isaiah, to make parched land flourish and deserts to become like gardens.  He recalls how God is characterized in the story of the Moses receiving the Ten Commandments that we read in Exodus 34:6 “a God of loving-kindness and mercy … extending compassion … forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin.”  It is this God that David remembers in his despondency and it is to this God that David turns.

In the eighth verse of Psalm 143 we find the simple phrase “Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning,…”  In the Hebrew the Rabbis could see that it could mean several things.  It could simply mean ‘Let me hear of your steadfast love soon’. It could mean “Let me hear of your steadfast love each morning’.  “In the morning could also be translated ‘when the troubles have run their course’.  But best, at least to my mind, was the sense that it is a period of darkness, a night time of the soul, which prepares us to hear of God’s steadfast love.   

David’s prayer is blunt and refreshingly human. “Rescue me,” he prays. Don’t let me fall into the pit of depression; “put an end to my foes,” he pleads, “for I am your servant.”   The psalm actually begins and ends with that idea “I am your servant.”  David believes that one who has the status of God’s faithful servant, one who serves God loyally and devotedly, can expect God to come to his assistance for a master is required to protect his servant.  Knowing his place in his relationship with God, knowing that as a servant he belongs to God apparently gives him the right to ask for God’s protection; to cling to God, and hide within God robes.  The challenge to David is whether he can truly claim such status.  Can we too expect the Lord, like a good big brother, to go out and dispatch the bullies who threaten us?

David acknowledges that: “My misfortune flows from my sin; so forgive me, Lord, and deliver me from this distress”.  It is a simple formula that has never been annulled: we, too, can—in fact we must—turn unashamedly to God and say, ”I am your unworthy servant, O God, but in your goodness save me; save me from my sins and from the malice of my foes.” David wants to do better and he seeks the guidance of God’s Spirit. He prays “Show me the path I should walk” and “Teach me to do your will…”.

This isn’t the first time David prays such a prayer.  You find it as well in Psalm 7 and 24, 25 and others.  Show me the path and teach me to do your will are two different things.  One is to pray for discernment the other is to pray for the willingness to consistently do what we know to do. So with David we too pray: Show me the path I should walk” and “Teach me to do your will….  William Littleboy, a early twentieth century British Friend wrote: “The fact is that … we habitually over-emphasize the place of the emotions in the spiritual life. We speak as if love (in the sense of conscious affection), rapture, overflowing peace were in themselves the essential characteristics of life in Christ rather than the attitude of the soul toward God indicated by the qualities of faith and obedience.  To be a Christian consists not in feeling, but in following; not in ecstasy, but in obedience.”

Dare we pray with David: “Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning, for in you I put my trust. Teach me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul ,… for I am your servant. ?

Psalm 51 is a much loved Psalm.  We especially revere a few specific verses. ¹⁰Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.  ⁷Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. ¹⁷The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

The traditional introduction to this Psalm makes it one of a few with an explicit reference to the context in which it was written.  The opening verse found in the Complete Jewish Bible reads: For the leader. A psalm of David, ² when Natan the prophet came to him after his affair with Bat-Sheva. Understanding this Psalm requires that we are aware of the situation out of which it grew, both David’s folly and Nathan’s obedience.

There was an article in a recent edition of the Spokesman-Review challenging the facts of the capture and release of American  hostages by Iran in 1981 as portrayed in the movie Argo.  This Spokanite had been intimately involved in the situation at the time and felt that the movie did a disservice to the Canadians.  As the movie Argo demonstrates, what claims to be historically accurate is only so from one person’s point of view. History, we come to understand, is, in fact, always someone else’s story told from someone else’s perspective.

In a similar vein historians have weighed in on the recent movie Lincoln.  The screen writers say that what is portrayed is “enormously accurate. “What we’re describing absolutely happened.” A scholarly historian Eric Foner commented on what he felt was the films inadequacy:  “The emancipation of the slaves is a long, complicated, historical process. It’s not the work of one man, no matter how great he was”.

I can’t help but wonder how history will account for the origination and ultimate outcome of across the board reductions in Federal spending now taking place.  There are already debates over where it originated and who should get the credit or blame.

A simple reading would be that David broke the sixth and seventh commandments in committing adultery with Bathsheba and then in trying to cover up that sin by ordering the murder of her husband. I think a more accurate view is that in this incident David broke every one of the ten commandments.  Nathan presents David’s own story to him in a hypothetical way, asking the king’s judgment. The ploy worked and David unwittingly declared his own crimes to be worthy of death.  David left himself nowhere to hide.  He readily admits his guilt and accepts responsibility. We live in more sterile and politically correct times than did the psalmist. Today, eyes would roll if we voiced such a prayer as this that dares tell God what to do. Notice the number of imperatives within the first six lines: “hear my prayer,” “let my cry come,” “do not hide your face,” “turn your ear to me.” But the more striking difference between then and now is not the audacity of the psalmist but his willingness to admit his sin and abandon all excuses. The psalmist begs for mercy, and that requires an admission of sin. Mercy he receives.  He begs to be spared the consequences that flow from all his sins, that would not be so.

Psalm 51

¹Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.

²Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

³For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

⁴Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. ⁵Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. ⁶You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.⁷Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.⁸Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.

⁹Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.¹⁰Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.

¹¹Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. ¹²Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.¹³Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.¹⁴Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.

¹⁵O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.

¹⁶For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.¹⁷The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. ¹⁸Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, ¹⁹then you will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

We can’t overlook the role Nathan plays.  For Nathan to be obedient to the call on his life to confront his King with a hard truth took a great deal of courage.  The call to “speak truth to power,” referring to the responsibility of challenging leaders by bringing Gospel values to the policy makers and the marketplace is not new.  Being part of the advantaged and entitled majority and having been well represented by the authorities it is painfully difficult to advocate for the those unjustly treated.  Do you see this as part of your Christian responsibility? How might you “speak truth to power” in your life or work?

David’s prayer consists of a number of noteworthy elements, most prominently, perhaps, the emphasis on the theme of “cleansing.”  He begs not merely for forgiveness, that he escape punishment, but also that he be “laundered” and “purified” from his sin. He asks for purification with “hyssop” which refers to the purification process required of a leper before they could enter the Temple.  David recognizes that his misdeed not only renders him worthy of punishment, but also leaves an indelible impression upon his soul; it hampers his ability to reach greater spiritual heights, just as the leper’s condition bars him from entering the Temple.  He calls on God for not only forgiveness, but for purification, for the complete eradication of the sin’s effects from his being so that he can continue his life of sanctity and Godliness.  He prays “Create for me a pure heart, O God, and renew within me a proper spirit.  Do not cast me away from You, and do not take from me Your sacred spirit.”

For me, one of the most disturbing verses of this Psalm reads: ⁴Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.  My problem is that David didn’t just sin against God – he sinned against Bathsheba and her family; against the child of their union, he sinned against Uriah, both in the loss of his life but in taking from him his wife and denying him his rightful progeny.  He sinned against his people, not unlike some of our present day elected officials and representatives of faith communities when they conduct themselves in shameful ways. Sometimes I think David got off easy. It reminds me of how Dietrich Bonhoeffer characterized cheap grace. “Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance….

What saves that for me is that toward the end of this Psalm, David proclaims that God is interested less in sacrificial offerings than in sincere, wholehearted repentance: “The offerings of God are a broken spirit, a broken and sorrowful heart – God will not reject”.  This was extremely important to the Jewish community once the Temple was destroyed.  Even in the absence of the Temple sinners can earn atonement and God’s favor through the process of repentance – the one “sacrifice” that the Almighty will never reject.

David understood full well the prominent place he would hold in Jewish history and that everything he did and what happened to him would be carefully studied for generations to come.  He embraces the classic expression of God’s mercy and forgiveness in Exodus 34:6: “A God of loving-kindness and mercy… extending compassion … forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin.”  So, David asks God to accept his repentance and in so doing establish a hopeful precedent for all who follow in the future.

This story reveals a contrast between King Saul and David.  Saul hadn’t succumbed to temptations of the flesh; he stopped trusting God. To guarantee his future he turned to divination and to mediums. As a result God “repented” of choosing Saul as king. Having lost God’s confidence and hearing of his son’s death, Saul despairs and falls on his own sword. David when confronted by God’s prophet Nathan falls to his knees and begs God’s mercy. David illustrates our belief that God will forgive any sin for which we’re truly sorry.

Following the humiliation of Nathan’s revelation David composed this stirring prayer begging the Almighty to forgive his wrong doing. It begins: “Have mercy, God, in accordance with your merciful love.” From the start, David, does two things at once: he admits his sinfulness and chooses to rely on God’s mercy. He doesn’t rely on previous good deeds or on any extenuating circumstances. He is guilty, and he knows only God’s mercy can save him.

Still David’s sin will have far-reaching consequences. One is the death of the child conceived in his liaison with Bathsheba. The nation will also pay for the crimes of their king just as today children often suffer for the sins of their parents, employees for the sins of their bosses, and citizens and members of worshipping communities for the sins of their leaders.
It is said that when he was dying Augustine asked that the Psalms be hung from the wall facing his bed. Famous for his years of flagrant sinning, Augustine sought the comfort of the Psalms as he prepared to meet God face to face. The Psalms ought to give us courage and confidence as we reflect on our own lives and on the struggles, sins, and “enemies” that afflict us. They teach us to plead without restraint, to hold nothing back in begging for God’s mercy. I’m “skin and bones,” the psalmist says or as in Psalm 102 “I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins” whose mournful cry and solitary life make it the very emblem of desolation.  Such talk is not born of arrogance or overconfidence, but from a deep conviction that God is merciful and loves us like a parent.

Wouldn’t it be grand to have such a relationship with God that we’d dare be so bold as David:  to remind God to be more gentle with us in God’s discipline; to remind God of God’s promise to not abandon us in times of distress and to even prevail on God to not take God’s own good time to come to our aid. Continue reading →

As a preface to Paul’s love poem in 1st Corinthians he concludes chapter 12 declaring “I can show you a more excellent way”.  Verse 8 of Psalm 32 says something very similar. “I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you”. While the early verses of the Psalm could be described as having the character of a testimonial the remaining verses are instructive and include a great sermon illustration.
Continue reading →

Psalm 6 A Prayer in Time of Trouble

A part of us clings to the naïve notion that God’s love for us is tied to our behavior: good behavior earns God’s love and acceptance; bad behavior means divine rejection. That’s a diabolical lie and the psalmist knows it! Finally, with eyes wide open, David readily admits his sin and begs God’s mercy anyway. Sin darkens human vision and alienates the soul from God, from self, and from others. Sin’s greatest danger is its ability to make us doubt God’s love and willingness to forgive. Continue reading →

Thinking about Ash Wednesday 

Yes, we are dust, but we are earthly dust, springing from a divine creative adventure. Dust is good.  It is the place of fecundity, of moist dark soil. We are frail, but we are also part of this holy adventure reflecting God’s love.  Like Jacob, this event offers us an opportunity to pause, notice, wake up, and discover that “God is in this place” and now we know it! It invites us to take a “beauty break,” to repent, turning around, and see this awe-filled, precarious world in which we live. And that will always embrace our relationships with others, others who should be sharing with us the good things of God’s creation.

Continue reading →

Paul’s discussion about love isn’t sentimental.  But what he says about love sounds a bit lofty, elevated, almost perfect.  And that’s odd because he’s talking to a congregation that was arguing about food, about worship, about, well, everything.  He stops in the middle of his effort to bring order into their anxiety and sense of chaos and writes a poem about love…

Continue reading →

I know. Christmas seems to have been a really long time ago.  We’ve long since returned what we didn’t like, exchanged what didn’t fit, put away most of our decorations, discarded the wrapping paper and have gotten on with life.  But as far as the traditional church calendar is concerned January 27th is the third Sunday of Epiphany.  And, not being Greek or Russian Orthodox, Roman Catholic or Episcopalian we Quakers are not all that familiar with what Epiphany means.  It means “manifestation” or “revelation”.  An epic narrative begins with a revelation to Mary in which we hear the story of a pre-natal revelation of Jesus as Messiah. Creation iparticipates with the story of the Magi’s pilgrimage. The angelic announcement to the shepherds continues the revelation.  The infancy and childhood narratives of Jesus’ visits to the Temple,  the story of Jesus’ baptism God in Christ is further revealed.  In turning the water into wine Jesus reveals even more about himself. You could say Epiphany is about Jesus’ coming out…as the long awaited Messiah.

Continue reading →

Some have come to question God’s response to human suffering and have concluded all sorts of things about God’s character or even that there is no God at all. But this quiet miracle challenges that conclusion by suggesting that sometimes God works without taking out an ad in the paper. There was no thunder clap to herald this event. Remember, the only eye witnesses to this miracle were the lowest of servants whose task it was to fill the empty casks with water.  In the New Testament Jesus often does his work in a way that is misunderstood and misrepresented. 

Jesus was, at this point, fresh from the most disturbing personal conflict of his life.  His work lay ahead, a work full of intense strife, hazard and pain; yet pre-occupied with these things it is the joy of the marriage celebration of a country couple that gets his attention.  This most uncommon gesture of grace brings true joy to the most common place event in a simple couple’s new life together.

Continue reading →