Psalm 25:1-10 (The Living Bible)
To you, O Lord, I pray. Don’t fail me for I am trusting you. Don’t let those who put me down succeed. None of those who trust in you will ever be disgraced for trusting. But all who harm the innocent shall be defeated.
Show me the path where I should go, Lord; point out the right road for me to walk. Lead me; teach me; for you are the God who gives me salvation. I have no hope except in you. Overlook my youthful sins, O Lord! Look at me instead through eyes of mercy and forgiveness, through eyes of everlasting love and kindness.
You are good and glad to teach the proper path to all who go astray; you will teach the ways that are right and best to those who humbly turn to you. And when we obey you, every path you guide us on is aglow with your loving-kindness and your truth.
Today is the First Sunday in Lent for this year. We’ll still be going in and out of Mark’s gospel for many of our readings, but today I chose the Psalm for this first Sunday instead. There’s a reason for that which I will get to shortly.
We like to think that the New Testament is radically different from the Hebrew Scriptures with their heavy handed insistence on punishment for any infringement of God’s will – think of the book of Job, or the story of Noah’s Ark, or even early in Genesis where Adam and Eve are tossed out of Eden for the “crime” of possessing curiosity – a trait presumably given to them by the very Creator who later punishes them for possessing it.
The God depicted in the Old Testament, sadly, is too often thin-skinned, petty, and childish – a perfect match for the gods found in the mythologies of their Greek, Roman, or Assyrian neighbors, but not much like the loving Father shown to us later by Jesus.
Our traditional Lenten practices were developed over the centuries more from the Old Testament than the New; shaped to focus more on rules and laws and our sinfulness than on caring for one another and playing our part in God’s reign of love. More focused on punishment than teaching.
During Jesus’ life his teachings called on us to love and care for each other and these teachings carried over into the earliest years of the new “church” of Jesus followers, but as early as 100 years after his crucifixion we were already drifting back toward a harsher focus on sin and punishment. Don’t step out of line or there will be repercussions. We’ve been trying to balance our unworthiness with God’s love ever since.
This year’s Grammy awards took place shortly before Lent began and the whole time I was going through various readings I had Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” running through my head because, let’s face it, it was ubiquitous for the first few days. So this song of failure that still manages to hope was providing the theme for this entry into Lent – in my mind anyway:
The singer recognizes their sense of failure, it’s everywhere in their life but they are still willing to try one more shot to get to something better. It occurred to me while I was hearing it everywhere that first week that this might well be a theme song for so many young and not so young people today who see their lives this way – screwed up, but not their fault – not really -- and they’re losing hope that it could ever get better again.
This doesn’t feel much different from accepting guilt for things we weren’t even aware we were doing. The last couple of decades, particularly, have been pretty depressing – outright punishing for many folks – COVID, rising costs for everything pricing even the formerly ordinary things, like jobs that pay a decent salary and clean, comfortable housing, out of the reach of many people; political upheaval separating us into rapid camps advocating violence and hatred of each other; never-ending wars.
However we got here it certainly feels like we need to repent of something – something we’re doing all wrong. UCC pastor, Kenneth L. Samuel, in this year’s daily meditation booklet* for Lent, reminds us, “On this Ash Wednesday we are called to remember the dust of our humanity,” and, because this year Ash Wednesday was also Valentine’s Day, ”we are also obliged to express our love to all.”
Most of us are not as mired in sin as previous teaching would have us believe, but that certainly doesn’t mean that we don’t have some messy, broken places inside to deal with. Lent is indeed a time to look deeply into the thoughts we don’t say out loud, into the hopes we have given up on because we truly don’t believe in them anymore, those things we’ve shunted to the back of the line like the ones we’ve labeled as “oh, that’s really not that bad.”
Lent is a time to look deeply into our own hearts and if we find things we should be doing and we’re not, or things we are doing – sorta – but we know we should be doing a whole lot better, then repent – yes, repent! Spend some time with God finding out how to be better. As the Psalm with which we began today says:
So, I quoted a bit ago from Kenneth Samuels: “remember the dust of our humanity,” that common dirt from which we all arise -- because no one here is dust free. We’ve all failed at some things even as we’re doing pretty well at others.
But if we’re going to remember the dirt, which we must, we equally must remember that we are loved. Loved beyond our human understanding. Created in love and watched over tenderly by one who is most certainly not crouched somewhere nearby, waiting to pounce and punish us for any time we fail, but instead, always ready to surround us with healing and hope. We are not God’s failures; we are God’s beloveds. Don’t ever forget it.
* Kenneth L. Samuels, in Bend: Lenten Devotional, 2024, Pilgrim Press, UCC, Cleveland, Ohio
We like to think that the New Testament is radically different from the Hebrew Scriptures with their heavy handed insistence on punishment for any infringement of God’s will – think of the book of Job, or the story of Noah’s Ark, or even early in Genesis where Adam and Eve are tossed out of Eden for the “crime” of possessing curiosity – a trait presumably given to them by the very Creator who later punishes them for possessing it.
The God depicted in the Old Testament, sadly, is too often thin-skinned, petty, and childish – a perfect match for the gods found in the mythologies of their Greek, Roman, or Assyrian neighbors, but not much like the loving Father shown to us later by Jesus.
Our traditional Lenten practices were developed over the centuries more from the Old Testament than the New; shaped to focus more on rules and laws and our sinfulness than on caring for one another and playing our part in God’s reign of love. More focused on punishment than teaching.
During Jesus’ life his teachings called on us to love and care for each other and these teachings carried over into the earliest years of the new “church” of Jesus followers, but as early as 100 years after his crucifixion we were already drifting back toward a harsher focus on sin and punishment. Don’t step out of line or there will be repercussions. We’ve been trying to balance our unworthiness with God’s love ever since.
This year’s Grammy awards took place shortly before Lent began and the whole time I was going through various readings I had Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” running through my head because, let’s face it, it was ubiquitous for the first few days. So this song of failure that still manages to hope was providing the theme for this entry into Lent – in my mind anyway:
- You got a fast car, I want a ticket to anywhere.
- Maybe we can make a deal, Maybe together we can get somewhere.
- Any place is better, Starting from zero, got nothing to lose.
- Maybe make something together, Me, myself, I got nothing to prove.
The singer recognizes their sense of failure, it’s everywhere in their life but they are still willing to try one more shot to get to something better. It occurred to me while I was hearing it everywhere that first week that this might well be a theme song for so many young and not so young people today who see their lives this way – screwed up, but not their fault – not really -- and they’re losing hope that it could ever get better again.
This doesn’t feel much different from accepting guilt for things we weren’t even aware we were doing. The last couple of decades, particularly, have been pretty depressing – outright punishing for many folks – COVID, rising costs for everything pricing even the formerly ordinary things, like jobs that pay a decent salary and clean, comfortable housing, out of the reach of many people; political upheaval separating us into rapid camps advocating violence and hatred of each other; never-ending wars.
However we got here it certainly feels like we need to repent of something – something we’re doing all wrong. UCC pastor, Kenneth L. Samuel, in this year’s daily meditation booklet* for Lent, reminds us, “On this Ash Wednesday we are called to remember the dust of our humanity,” and, because this year Ash Wednesday was also Valentine’s Day, ”we are also obliged to express our love to all.”
Most of us are not as mired in sin as previous teaching would have us believe, but that certainly doesn’t mean that we don’t have some messy, broken places inside to deal with. Lent is indeed a time to look deeply into the thoughts we don’t say out loud, into the hopes we have given up on because we truly don’t believe in them anymore, those things we’ve shunted to the back of the line like the ones we’ve labeled as “oh, that’s really not that bad.”
Lent is a time to look deeply into our own hearts and if we find things we should be doing and we’re not, or things we are doing – sorta – but we know we should be doing a whole lot better, then repent – yes, repent! Spend some time with God finding out how to be better. As the Psalm with which we began today says:
- You are good and glad to teach the proper path to all who go astray; you will teach the ways that are right and best to those who humbly turn to you. And when we obey you, every path you guide us on is aglow with your loving-kindness and your truth.
So, I quoted a bit ago from Kenneth Samuels: “remember the dust of our humanity,” that common dirt from which we all arise -- because no one here is dust free. We’ve all failed at some things even as we’re doing pretty well at others.
But if we’re going to remember the dirt, which we must, we equally must remember that we are loved. Loved beyond our human understanding. Created in love and watched over tenderly by one who is most certainly not crouched somewhere nearby, waiting to pounce and punish us for any time we fail, but instead, always ready to surround us with healing and hope. We are not God’s failures; we are God’s beloveds. Don’t ever forget it.
* Kenneth L. Samuels, in Bend: Lenten Devotional, 2024, Pilgrim Press, UCC, Cleveland, Ohio
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