Last week Michelle and I watched a documentary which dealt with the downfall of
former New York governor Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer was the former state attorney
general who became world famous for rooting out corruption on Wall St.
He was ruthless and aggressive in his investigations. He was merciless with the
companies that he found to be committing fraud. Had he not made some of the
mistakes in his personal life, he may have kept a lot of the securities fraud
which brought our nation’s financial system to its knees from taking place. Some
people thought he would go on to run for president.
He looked like someone whose concern for law knew no bounds. But when you try to
hold the wealthy and the powerful accountable for their actions, you inevitably
make enemies, ones with lots of resources and lots of reasons to make you stop.
Unfortunately for Spitzer, he made their job a lot easier than he needed to. One
of the CEO’s who he rubbed the wrong way decided to hire a private investigator
to trail Spitzer and see if there were any chinks in his armor.
Sure enough, Spitzer was a fallible human being. Like many people of power and
authority, Spitzer came to the point where he thought he should enjoy the
privileges of power. Those privileges, which were enjoyed by many of the people
he prosecuted, included having sex with beautiful women, despite being married
to his wife Silva.
Unlike some public figures like Bill Clinton or John Edwards who had affairs
with people who worked with them, Spitzer solicited prostitutes from an agency
which catered to the wealthy elite on the eastern seaboard. He travelled around
the country, enjoying the lifestyle that so many people idolize.
But something inside of him was saying, “This is going to come back to haunt
me.” If anyone ever found out, he knew he would be utterly disgraced. I’m sure
he had a hard time sleeping at night. Unfortunately, the way he dealt with those
concerns was by continuing to do the very thing which eventually caught up with
him.
At one point Spitzer transferred some money into an account that caught the eye
of his bank. The US attorney’s office was, unbeknownst to Spitzer, investigating
the prostitution ring he was using. It didn’t take long to connect the dots. His
governorship ended quickly.
The documentary director interviews Spitzer extensively, and Spitzer makes no
excuses for his actions. He says that what he did was wrong, and that he must
endure the consequences. But what struck me is the peace which seems to have
come over him now that he’s no longer concealing this truth from the public.
He came off as apologetic, genuine, and, at long last, honest. His demeanor was
entirely different from what it was while he was governor. He no longer had that
strained look on his face which concealed the guilt he really felt. It looked to
me as though getting caught was the best thing to happen to him.
The psalm that we read for this morning deals with that issue – how do we deal
with unresolved guilt over our past misdeeds? How do they affect us? What is
God’s attitude toward them? How is our own healing process related to our sense
of shame?
Let me preface my discussion of this passage by saying that this Psalm reflects
some ancient ways of associating guilt, divine punishment and illness. Those
associations cannot and should not be taken in the kind of literal sense which
forces us to say that if a person is sick, God must be punishing him or her for
doing something wrong.
As we talk about this Psalm, keep in mind that the author is writing from the
perspective that everything in life is controlled by God, or that the events of
our lives reflect events which are playing out in heaven.
Whereas you and I would look at an infection and say, “A virus has invaded my
body and is multiplying. I need to rest and take fluids so that my body can
resist it”, in the ancient world they would be more likely to say, “God has
caused me to be sick because God is angry at me, or angry at my parents, for
doing something bad.”
The first statement can be verified by scientific means. The doctor can test
your blood and take your temperature and be reasonably sure that you have an
infection. The second statement cannot be measured by any scientific means.
On the other hand, the second statement attempts to assign meaning to illness,
whereas the first statement cannot say whether or not the infection is good or
bad. It just is. It’s the way the world works. God is really not a factor in the
discussion.
People have always sought to find meaning in the events of their lives. And no
event in life causes people to consider meaning more than sickness and death.
The Psalmist writes about the experience of sickness and attempts to assign
meaning to it.
We may not agree with him that his illness is the result of disobeying God, but
from a faith perspective we can agree with him that those who live with
unresolved guilt almost always tend to suffer as a result.
Whether your own conscience is killing you or whether you believe that God has
struck you ill, your guilt can be toxic. Even deadly in some cases. We can also
agree with the psalmist that honesty and the resolution of guilt have a healing
effect on people, regardless of whether or not one even believes in God.
The psalmist believes in the healing power of confession. He readily
acknowledges that he has done something horrible. He tells us that he suffered
greatly until he admitted what he did. And he says that his healing took place
once he was honest with himself and others about his guilt.
He talks about the moment of catharsis when he owned up to his misdeed. He
mentions being surrounded by supporters who shouted for joy at his recovery. And
he voices a sense of God’s protection from harm for those who take
responsibility for their errors.
At this point in the psalm the speaker changes: God chimes in for the final
verse. God offers guidance and wisdom for living a godly life. God compares
those who don’t confess their sin to an untrained animal who has to be guided
with a bridle or a muzzle.
I’m personally not partial to comparisons between humans and animals. My reading
of the Bible leads me to believe that God thinks a little more of us than that.
But his point, however crudely stated, is that God offers us guidance if we’re
open to receiving it.
It’s kind of like God is saying, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.
You choose.” The psalmist is comparing himself to an animal that strays from its
owner because it’s stubborn and resists training. His illness is like the bridle
that an owner puts in the mouth of a stubborn mule.
It doesn’t have to be that way, he says. Just follow God and God won’t need to
play “bad cop” with you. In fact, God will prosper you, protect you and bless
you even as you watch the people around you suffer for not following God.
As I said before, I’m not comfortable with images of God as a bully or a bouncer
or a law enforcement official banging heads together or striking people ill
because they are disobedient. I think God sometimes gets blamed for a lot of
things that God doesn’t really do.
But the value of this passage is in equating the resolving of guilt with
wellness, both spiritual and physical. Many of the illnesses people suffer are
the result of unresolved, unconfessed guilt in their lives.
If you don’t deal with your guilt, it will harm you one way or another. It’s
just a fact of life. I recently spoke with a man about my age who had suffered a
painful divorce over a decade ago.
Whether he was conscious of it or not, the guilt he felt over some of the things
he did to his ex-wife during their marriage continued to haunt him. Like many
people, he tried to medicate his guilt. But the medication he used was alcohol.
For many years he regularly drank himself into oblivion to try and deal with the
pain and the guilt and the anger.
But at some point he realized that he was slowly killing himself, and that what
he needed wasn’t to be found in a bottle. He came to the conclusion that God had
not abandoned him, but that God was just waiting for him to be honest with
himself about what he had done.
As you might expect, so was his ex. Surprisingly, she was willing to meet with
him and discuss this decade old pain that he had inflicted on her. The resulting
cleansing of his soul was dramatic. He stopped drinking, began taking better
care of his body, started losing weight, and exercising.
His whole outlook on life changed. His relationship with God was transformed. He
realized what an articulate, intelligent person he really was. And he was
surprised by the fact that he had the ability to empathize with others who were
dealing with similar kinds of pain in their lives.
I wish I could tell you that I’d never seen anything like it. But the truth is
that I have seen it over and over in my time of ministry. The Bible tells us
that if we confess our sin that God is willing to forgive us and cleanse us of
all unrighteousness.
But that’s only the beginning of the story. God seeks to heal us, to restore
wholeness, to bring us back to being the kinds of people we can be, to take
those misdeeds of ours and change them from being a source of pain to being a
source of learning and power and empathy.
In his book, Whatever Became of Sin?, author Karl Menninger offers a proposal
"for the revival or reassertion of personal responsibility in all human acts,
good and bad. Not total responsibility, but not zero either. I believe that all
the evil-doing in which we become involved to any degree tends to evoke guilt
feelings and depression.
These may or may not be clearly perceived, but they affect us. They may be
reacted to or covered up by all kinds of escapism, rationalization, and reaction
or symptom formation.
To revive the half-submerged idea of personal responsibility and to seek
appropriate measures of reparation might turn the tide of our aggressions and of
the moral struggle in which most of the world population is engaged."
I don’t think he’s overstating the importance of taking responsibility for our
actions and making amends. That process, when taken seriously can and will
transform the world. Much of the pain and struggle and conflict in the world
that seems so bewildering to us can be attributed to peoples’ unwillingness to
acknowledge their own responsibility and fault.
This past week we lost one of the finest preachers and biblical scholars in the
United States, the Rev. Peter J. Gomes. In his well-known work, The Good Book:
Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart, he offered these words of caution and
challenge about the book we often look to for rules and comfort: "The Bible
alone is the most dangerous thing I can think of. You need an ongoing context
and a community of interpretation to keep the Bible current and to keep yourself
honest. Forget the thought that the Bible is an absolute pronouncement."
From silence to truth-telling, our journeys are opportunities to rediscover
one's true self, even after encountering evil or making poor choices along the
way. From we to I, from I to me, to you and to all others, we create circles
amongst us.
Circles drawn of self-centered individuals to the communal and
community-centered folk, from those who think locally and act globally, as well
as people at the other end of the spectrum.
It will be hard at times to live up to all the ideals we are called upon to
fulfill in Psalm 32, and at times God's presence will seem far removed from us.
Sometimes we will feel that our only companion is our own pain, isolation, and
struggle.
Many times life will come toward us in full force, with its circumstances—its
messiness and stabs in the back—bringing us to our knees, knocking us off our
feet, or lifting us up as high as the heavens in mind, spirit, and body.
Then we gather around, and share our innermost experiences of pain, success,
joys, and challenges, and open up a well of opportunity to truth-telling. It is
only until then that one can start moving forward to let healing, compassion,
and true self-love come in.
Take a look at the purple cloth on the table this morning. Today is the first
Sunday of Lent, a season during which we consider our lives and come to terms
with our own contribution to the sin and pain of the world.
It is also a time when we consider just how it was that Jesus transcended our
sin and saved the world from sin. I know, it doesn’t sound very uplifting.
Sounds kind of depressing.
Joy is not an emotion often associated with Lent, when we silence our Alleluias
until Easter. But this psalm, which at its heart is about the uncomfortable
topics of sin and confession, begins and ends with references to happiness, not
misery.
To acknowledge and repent of sin is to receive God's forgiveness. There is no
response but joy, even in the somber season of Lent! During Lent, we await
Jesus' death, but we also await his resurrection. Even now, sin gives way to
forgiveness. Death gives way to life. God's steadfast love continues to surround
us.
The psalmist's testimony continues to instruct us today: silence is
death-dealing, but confession gives life. God forgives. In response to the grace
we have received, we submit ourselves willingly to the disciplined study of how
best to follow God, rejoicing continually in gratitude for the love poured out
upon us.
So here is the task ahead of us, to be and to let be. Be open to God working
through you, for the journey welcomes us ahead, calling us from our present and
inspiring for the days ahead. For Abundant Grace for ALL, we give thanks.