Sermon 091398,

The relationship between religion and politics is subtle and complicated. The national crisis precipitated by the publishing of the Starr report has us all reeling, I think, and trying to make sense of what is happening. Is it sad and tragic, or pornographic and bawdy, or silly and irrelevant, or somber and serious? There are issues of personal morality and public accountability; the political implications of private repentance publicly proclaimed, presidential prayer breakfasts as national events. Is Mr. Clinton genuinely repentant, we ask, or politically calculating or both? I don’t know. Everyone from columnists to check-out clerks has an opinion on just about every aspect of the scandal. One of my clergy colleagues, a few weeks back, published in his church newsletter, a letter written to the President sternly calling on him to resign (Mr. Clinton’s pastor doesn’t think so - although the assistant pastor does - at least as quoted in the Post). As I read my friend’s letter I was very impressed with his logic and his intense moral passion. And I thought, I should do that, too. But then I thought, do I know that? Do I believe that? I just don’t know. I don’t know what is going on in the President’s soul and I don’t know what is best for the country. I trust it will become clear.

How appropriate then that in our communion liturgy we often use the phrase "We come, not to express our opinions, but to seek God’s presence." We come to this communion table not to figure out our problems, personal or national, not to calculate our enlightened self-interest, not even to find our ways out of the messes we have made or inherited. All those are understandable goals, but that is not the reason for coming to this table. We come to this table to seek a presence. The issue for the writer of this psalm is not really how to get God to help him get out of the fix he is in. The issue is the saving of his soul. The President has quoted Psalm 51. And, as it happens, this is the assigned lectionary psalm for today.

Tradition says that Psalm 51 was written by David amid the Bathsheba scandal, when he is confronted by Nathan the Prophet. But the Psalm has a universal quality that speaks to each of us. It begins with a cry for mercy and a plea to blot out sin.

The Psalmist is now in no doubt about his responsibility for his problems. He says to God:

This is the state of the soul in which we discover the writer. We have no idea what ignorance, what rationalizing, what temporizing, what honest struggle, or what self-delusion preceded this coming to himself. But there is something breathtaking and bracing in his honesty at this point.

It is really here that the Psalm begins. It is at this point that the person realizes his need for God. And he throws himself on God’s mercy without qualification. It is here that his relationship with God actually becomes real to him.

People come to church for many reasons, conscious and unconscious, I believe. We come to make friends, we come to get involved in worthwhile activities, we come to provide for our children, we come to praise God. But I believe that we also come, because somewhere in our hearts, we are ready for the kind of relationship with God that the psalmist speaks of. We are ready, we long to get real. And this reason is deeply and profoundly personal. He says to God:

Truth in the inward being and wisdom in the secret heart, healing in that place where no one goes but you and God. That is what we long for, isn’t it? Truth is inward and that is where we experience the inwardness of the presence of God.

In this inward relationship with God, all excuses, lies, and rationalizations have been wiped away. We look at ourselves with an honesty that is searing because there is nothing that can be hid from God. What is called for in such a situation is not just a little tidying up of our inner lives, a little prayer and reflection. What is called for is a total reclamation project. What is called for is a thorough washing away of sin, a blotting out of iniquities. A personal transformation. And it has to be so complete and unrelenting that a new heart and a new spirit must be put into place.

Until this happens, worship and all that goes with the religious life will be hollow and superficial, whether it be a deadly sobriety or an empty manic joy. God has no interest in this. The worship acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a contrite heart, people of sorrow, ones who are, like he, acquainted with grief.

I had lunch with a cheery and chipper parishioner a while back with whom I was just getting acquainted. It was happy and upbeat and thoroughly enjoyable. We must do this again, we both agreed. I learned later, from a third party, on that this person’s life was a mess, in total pain, misery and chaos. He was struggling with some very serious problems. He had not said a word about it, even though I gave him many opportunities to open up. Why did he feel he had to clean up his act in my presence? To impress me? With what? Is that why we get together? As a mutual admiration ritual? What God wants is a broken and contrite heart, something that God can heal. Jesus tells the wonderful story of the lost sheep, so simple, so beautiful. What the angels in heaven celebrate is over the one lost sheep that is found, not the ninety and nine who have it all together.

I got a call last weekend from the wife of one of my oldest boyhood friends, Bruce, whom I have known since sixth grade. He and his wife Ann are biochemistry professors at a Southern University. It’s been mainly an annual Christmas card friendship in recent years. She called to say that last April Bruce had been diagnosed with a rare form of kidney cancer. Incurable. Since months left at most. And, on top of that, he had had Parkinson’s Disease for the last seven years. Ann’s tone was controlled and business-like in her tone. When she stopped, I said, "Ann, this is breaking my heart," and started crying. Then she started crying. And she kept saying "I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m really very strong." "Of course, you are strong, but it is just too hard, too hard. Nobody is strong enough." I called back later and talked to Bruce. The cancer had spread to his diaphragm so his voice seemed delicate and fragile. This from a guy who had been a booming and robust six foot five. And he said, "Yep, I am hoping to make it to Thanksgiving, but maybe not." And he described in matter of fact tones all the plans he had undertaken to wind down his life. He had gradually and carefully placed into Ann’s hands those matters that he had handled. His affairs were in order. He was graduating his last graduate student. Not giving up hope, but living in complete acceptance, surrounded by his loving family. Bruce had been one of the scientists in our little high school gang, while I was the musician. Always pretty matter of fact, he related all these things very objectively. Then he said, "Please call me again. Jim, I love you." There it was. The moment was real. And pretty soon it would be the good-bye. But it felt very sweet to me.

I have found myself strangely attracted recently to the writings of our old Puritan forebear of the eighteenth century, Jonathan Edwards. Known, somewhat unfairly, as a fire and brimstone preacher, Edwards was the most subtle theologian and philosopher America has ever produced. I thought of Edwards again when I read that verse from Psalm 51. "Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me." As a Calvinist, Edwards took his Doctrine of Original Sin seriously. He really believed that the sin of Adam was passed along to each of us. But what he did with that idea was amazing. He said that our sin is something we discover ourselves in the midst of. It is what wakes us up to ourselves. We find ourselves in this world and we are all mixed up, not knowing exactly how we got into such messes. It is not so much what we have done, as a given of our existence. It is not so much a heredity propensity, as a reality of our being. But, he says, this also means that God must be sustaining us every minute. Then he writes this:

God not only created all things, and gave them being at first, but continually preserves them, and upholds them in being...It will certainly follow from these things, that God’s preserving created things in being is perfectly equivalent to a continued creation, or to his creating those things out of nothing at each moment of their existence.

He is saying that you and I are created out of nothing from minute to minute. Like in Psalm 51, facing into the nothingness, our sin is wiped away and new hearts are replaced within us, each moment. If we allow those old hearts to be broken in contrition and in sorrow. To put it differently, this is the truth of our inward being. We are being re-created inwardly each moment of our lives, if we but let go of our lives in fear and trembling and welcome in God. That is amazing to me. Then, and only then, are we equipped to face whatever problems or challenges we find, because we are new people. God has sent in a fresh team. A new team. A new person.

We present to God our broken hearts, our humble and contrite spirits. And God really does promise us new life. The Psalmist says "Restore me to the joy of your salvation." Where is that fine point of the soul where you truly need to let go and start over entirely? Where is that life in you that is simply so lost and confused that it must be let go of in order to be found? But remember that what God promises is true life - not the old recycled, but the new creation. This new life is a life that flows in and out of God.

Well, how I got from President Clinton to Jonathan Edwards this morning may be a little unclear. Let us hope that every politician, will fear an angry God at least as much as an angry electorate. But lest you think Edwards spoke only of the fires of hell, let me close now with some words of his that are almost a divine hymn of joy and thanksgiving for the new life I am describing.

(Quotation from "Dissertation Concerning the End for which God Created the World")

The great and last end of God's works . . . is indeed but one: and this one end is most properly and comprehensively called, THE GLORY OF GOD . . . and is fitly compared to an effulgence or emanation of light from a luminary.... Light is the external expression, exhibition and manifestation of the excellency of the luminary, of the sun for instance: it is the abundant, extensive emanation and communication of the fullness of the sun to innumerable beings that partake of it.... It is by this that all nature is quickened and receives life, comfort and joy.... The emanation or communication of the divine fullness, consisting in the knowledge of God, love to God.

and joy in God, has relation indeed both to God, and the creature; but it has relation to God as its fountain; and as the communication itself, or thing communicated is something divine.... as the water in the stream is something of the fountain, and as the beams of the sun are something of the sun.... In the creature's knowing, esteeming, loving,rejoicing in, and praising God, the glory of God is both exhibited and acknowledged; his fullness is received and returned. Here is both an emanation and remanation. The refulgence shines upon and into the creature, and is reflected back to the luminary. The beams of glory come from God, and are something of God, and are refunded back again to their original. So that the whole is of God, and in God, and to God, and God is the beginning, middle and end in this affair. Amen.