Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, March 18, 2018
Psalm 51:1-12
If you ever sit and wonder what pastors do in their free time, well, I have a confession to make. I like to watch reality TV shows – not really shows like these (Jersey Shore). I like reality fixer-upper shows on the Food Network, PBS or HGTV like Flip or Flop, This Old House, and Restaurant Impossible. I’m actually not a very handy person myself – while in theory it sounds fun to restore an old piece of furniture or remodel a bathroom, I know from personal experience it’s better for me to “supervise” while others do the work or it’ll never turn out like I want it to. I think I like these shows because there’s something very satisfying in turning something that isn’t very good – a failing restaurant with not so good food and outdated décor – into something desirable: a house that can double or triple its value on the market, an updated living space, a family restaurant that might be able to succeed for another generation.
I may not be the handiest when it comes to physically remodeling a space, but when it comes to the work that I do as a pastor both here at Bethel and with the synod, I’m often working with congregations that are a bit like that outdated family-owned restaurant or house that needs an updated kitchen. In fact, Pastor Rich and I have joked that we could create our own reality TV show called “Church Impossible.” When we visit congregations across the synod, we encounter the same issues over and over: buildings that are difficult to navigate even for a pastor (which door takes me to the sanctuary?) and mostly sit empty, people that kind of just sit and look at you rather than welcome you and ask how they can help, churches that obviously haven’t had young people with kids visit in a LONG time. The root issue that often all of these congregational visits boil down to is not about the church building needing updating or the space needing to be more welcoming: it’s a people issue. Until we open ourselves to God changing our hearts, nothing else will change.
People are people, whether we’re trying to run a successful restaurant or a church. And unless people are open to trying something new and willing to take a hard look at their own unhelpful patterns of behavior, nothing changes for good. On Ash Wednesday, at the beginning of Lent, we read Psalm 51 together, and today as we look toward the end of Lent and entering Holy Week, we read Psalm 51 again. A lot of us recognize this psalm because we often sing it as a part of our liturgy during the offering: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with your free spirit. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. The great thing about singing something over and over is you memorize it. What can also happen, though, is we sing it or say it without thinking about what we’re actually saying.
What the psalmist is saying to God is first that he knows he needs to change. There is something not right about his behavior. Specifically, he says earlier that his “sin is ever before me.” Lent is a season when we focus on confession of our sins and repentance of those sins. It’s not fun or easy to admit that we sin, but we cannot change in a way that GOD wants unless we first start with admitting something is wrong. We are not perfect. We mess up. We need God’s help to move forward, and that starts with giving up our control to let God lead. Easier said than done!
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. This is the psalmist’s plea, and this is our cry this Lent. The good news is with God, restoration is possible! Just like that old house or failing restaurant or struggling church, God is able to make all things new, to restore joy and renew a right spirit within us! We need God’s help. We can’t make anything right on our own. But with God, all things are possible. In our study on The First Paul by Marcus Borg and John Crosson, we were learning more about Paul’s description of what it means for a Christian to say he or she is “in Christ.” The way the authors put it, we need a spirit transplant. We need God’s spirit to take over ours, to live by God’s heart rather than our own will and desires. I know I’m a pastor, but I have personally been going through a time of spiritual growth with a depth I haven’t experienced for a long time. As a synod staff, we’ve begun an intentional spiritual growth process called Companions in Christ where we share how we’ve seen God at work through our life journey and then learn new prayer practices. For a busy mom, it can be hard for me to find time to pray, to really open myself up to what God is trying to say to me so that I can live by God’s heart, not my own. I’ve learned some new ways of praying that doesn’t feel like one more thing to do – it’s prayer time I look forward to. I really can’t say enough about how awesome this experience has been for me so far to intentionally grow in my prayer life with a group. I’m excited that we’re working on a plan to invite as many of you as possible here at Bethel to join us in a similar journey with our Bethel Relaunch.
God wants to create in us clean hearts so we know God’s desires in a deeper way personally. And God’s spirit desires not just for individuals to be whole and well, but for societies to live whole and well in Christ’s way, not by the world’s way. Restoration is possible – a new way of being, a new way of doing, a new way of living in Christ with a spirit transplant. That is Psalm 51’s hope for us, that is God’s hope for us.
A colleague of mine recommended a book that I was able to read recently called, Tattoos on the Heart by Father Gregory Boyle. Father Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention ministry started out of his Catholic parish in Los Angeles about thirty years ago. Talk about a community in need of some healthy change! One of their first ministries was a free tattoo removal service so ex-gang members could get jobs and stop identifying with their gangs. One of the more powerful stories in the book is when Father Boyle told of a middle-aged business man pulling up to the church in a luxury vehicle who had grown up in the neighborhood. Here’s what Father Boyle writes, “He takes in the scene all around him. Gang members gathered by the bell tower, homeless men and women being fed in great numbers in the parking lot. Folks arriving for the AA and NA meetings and the ESL classes. It’s a Who’s Who of Everybody Who Was Nobody…This man sees all this and shakes his head, determined and disgusted, as if to say, ’tsk tsk.’ ‘You know,’ he says, ‘This used to be a church.’ I mount my high horse and say, ‘You know, most people around here think it’s finally a church’” (p.73). The church had a spirit-transplant. God opened them up to what was going on in the community, and they responded with job training and resources, tattoo removal services, a homeless drop-in center, and more. The community responded by wanting tattoos on their hearts from God more than the false community of a gang that offered conditional love. “Create in me, a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” we sing, we pray, we plead this Lent. It’s time for us to start finally being a church. Now, I realize we don’t have a lot of gangs or homeless people in our neighborhood, but while we can easily get distracted by stuff going on with us here at church, outside these walls are spiritually if not literally starving. We so easily forget what the church is really about. I can’t say it any clearer than that people. We need a change of heart. It’s time for us to allow God to renew a RIGHT spirit within us and to live by God’s spirit instead of by our own will and desires. Think of what could be possible! Because restoration of our lives, of our churches, of our community is possible, but only with God, only with God’s spirit transplant. Amen.