A Sermon Delivered byThe Rev. John D. Painter
at Centenary United Methodist Church
Metuchen, New Jersey
February 25, 2009
(Ash Wednesday)

Text: Psalm 51:1-17

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
Against 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.
Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.
You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.
Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation
and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.
O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.
For you have no delight in sacrifice;
if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.
The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

One of the things I love most about the Bible is that the writers of Scripture didn’t mince their words in telling the truth about our spiritual forebears. The tragic story of David and Bath-sheba in Second Samuel poignantly demonstrates that notion.

The moral, spiritual, and political leader of Israel, King David breaks many of the Ten Commandments in one horrific caving in to lust, taking into his bed his friend’s wife. Then, hav-ing impregnated Bathsheba and failing to cover his affair, he conspires to have Uriah murdered in a plot worthy of a Tom Clancy novel. David’s arrogance furthers the story as he pretends to be Bathsheba’s protector (See 2 Samuel 11). We can just imagine Israel saying, “What a righteous man, this David, our King! He has taken Uriah’s widow into his harem and under his care. He is a good and godly man!”

Scripture reminds us that we cannot live as double-minded people. In other words, secrets poison our minds, pollute our souls, and ultimately destroy our spirits. Grace comes to us when we come clean. But so often our nature is to hide the truth from ourselves. One of the primary causes of addictive living, for example, is denial of the problem. None of us wants to be caught; none of us wants to admit our failures; none of us wants to bear the pain of our actions; so we lie, we deny, we pretend, we keep secrets.

Someone has said, “God loves you just the way you are, but God loves you too much to leave you that way.” And so the drama of David’s story climaxes when the prophet Nathan gar-ners an audience with David on the pretext of needing some advice from the “wise king” to settle a problem. Nathan tells David a story about a wealthy sheep owner who steals a poor man’s only lamb to prepare a meal for one of his influential guests. David’s righteous indignation rises and he cries out for justice…“the man who has done this deserves to die,” David declares…only to hear Nathan say to him, “You are the man!” (See 2 Samuel 12)

What do you do when you are caught in your secrets? The problem with our secret sins is that they have a way of finding us out. The power of Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step programs is found in the very first step: “We admitted we were powerless over (alcohol, food, nicotine, sex…you name it) and that our lives had become unmanageable.” The first step toward healing our souls, our spirits, and our relationships lies in admitting the truth.

Our earlier Christian sisters and brothers gave to us this symbolic gift of Ash Wednesday, a visible reminder that we are terribly human and in need of repentance. Repentance is simply acknowledging the truth about ourselves and then inviting God’s grace to begin our transforma-tion. This is exactly what David does in his psalm of repentance following the revelation of his sinful behavior:

For you have no delight in sacrifice;
if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.
The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

We often will go to great lengths to pretend that all is well within our lives. We put on our best Sunday-go-to-meeting faces and sit in worship, hoping others won’t know the secrets we hide: perhaps a wounded marriage, broken relationships with our children, consuming lusts, addictive behaviors, or perhaps the simple sins of obsessive gossip, a negative spirit, a judg-mental attitude toward our neighbor. The power of Ash Wednesday—the opportunity of this day—is to come clean. Our service tonight reminds us of James’s New Testament exhortation: “Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed” (James 5:16).

In order to break our cycle of self-dependency and truly encounter grace we must walk away from the lies we keep telling ourselves. Ash Wednesday calls us to a season of confession: confession of our vulnerability; confession of our own brokenness; and, confession of our sins. David knew this even before Nathan called him to accountability. In an instant he understood that God was not interested in his ritual sacrifices, but God wanted honesty from him. Don’t you love the prayer that David prays?

“Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
and do not take your holy spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me a willing spirit.”

It’s not enough to merely admit our own powerlessness; grace comes to the life that is surrendered to the One who can restore us to wholeness.
John Wesley understood the power of bringing our lives into the light of day and for that reason insisted that Methodists honestly share their sins with one another. Times may have changed dramatically since Great Brittain in the 1700s…but confession is still good for the soul.

PRAYER
Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no se-crets are hidden. Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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