Straying or Holding the Path – Psalm 32

A text – Psalm 32

¹ Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
² Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

³ While I kept silent, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.
⁴ For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. 

⁵ Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin. 

⁶ Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them.
⁷ You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. 

⁸ I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
⁹ Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you.

¹⁰ Many are the torments of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord.
¹¹ Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

A reflection:

We are lucky to have Psalm 32 a couple of times in the year in the lectionary. It is a beautiful story to hear. A person is beset by a deed he has done. He feels awful. He groans. His body wastes away. He can feel the weight of the hand of the Lord upon him, and his strength is gone. This he says is because he keeps silent about it. But then he comes clean, confessing to the Lord. When God forgives him, God hides him from trouble and preserves him. Steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord, he says.

Notice way up in the first verse he says that his sin is covered. It doesn’t vanish as though it had never taken place. It is covered up so neither God nor the person has to see it any longer. The consequences of the wrongs we do may last for a long time – maybe forever. But we can keep living and doing better.

There is a reason our Christian worship services include a section for the confession of sins and their absolution. We surely don’t go a week without forgetting God and forgetting what our neighbors need, so we need that act in the worship service. But believing in God’s forgiveness is hard for some of us. We think we should be perfect. Never in need of forgiveness. If our lesson from Wednesday, Adam and Eve’s story, teaches us anything, it’s that in our very human nature we have a habit, built in, for deciding for ourselves what is right and good. Every day we veer off a little from the path we know God has encouraged us to follow. Every day.

One of my favorite columnists, David Brooks, wrote his final column for the New York Times this week. He believes that for many years now the American people have been suffering a collective loss of faith, and this loss has begun to turn us and our children into people who are not sure which way to turn for truth and goodness. I can’t imagine a more opportune time for temptation, like the ones in our lessons this week, to hover close at hand, waiting for us to grab something that seems to be an answer. But we already know who has the answer to our best pathway. Jesus showed us, and we delight in reading his story over and over. God, our loving parent, put it into us before we were born. It lives beside our daily desire to do our own thing. But we can choose. Every day.

A prayer:

Lord God, thank you for loving us. Thank you for giving us both your path and a devious streak to veer away from it. Thank you for forgiving us when we stray and for keeping your way clear enough to choose it the rest of the time. Help us to decide to go your way today. Amen.