Psalm 32[1]
1 Count yourself lucky, how happy you must be—
you get a fresh start, your slate’s wiped clean.
2 Count yourself lucky— God holds nothing against you
and you’re holding nothing back from him.
3 When I kept it all inside, my bones turned to powder,
my words became daylong groans.
4 The pressure never let up; all the juices of my life dried up.
5 Then I let it all out;
I said, “I’ll make a clean breast of my failures to God.”
Suddenly the pressure was gone—
my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared.
6 These things add up. Every one of us needs to pray;
when all hell breaks loose and the dam bursts
we’ll be on high ground, untouched.
7 God’s my island hideaway, keeps danger far from the shore,
throws garlands of hosannas around my neck.
8 Let me give you some good advice;
I’m looking you in the eye and giving it to you straight:
9 “Don’t be ornery[2] like a horse or mule
that needs bit and bridle to stay on track.”
10 God-defiers are always in trouble;
God-affirmers find themselves loved
every time they turn around.
11 Celebrate God. Sing together—everyone!
All you honest hearts, raise the roof!
This is a poem-prayer about the joy of forgiveness. It tells of the experience of a person who has known the release of breaking silence, taking responsibility and discovering God’s gracious mercy. Eugene Peterson’s translation gives fresh impetus to a joyful recovery of the needfulness of repentance, turning around, ‘making a clean breast of my failures to God’ (vs5).
Silence imprisons. Hiding and covering up sins and transgressions and guilt does nothing for one’s mental health. It also, the psalmist would argue, does nothing for one’s physical health either. ‘When I kept it all inside, my bones turned to powder, my words became daylong groans. The pressure never let up; all the juices of my life dried up,’ he admits (vs3-4).
It is instructive for the Christian to realise how St Paul was influenced by this psalm in his letter to the Romans as he argued his way to a theology of grace. The clean slate, where sins are not counted against the person any more (vs1-2), is at the heart of Paul's well developed radical outlook of justification by grace (Romans 4.6-8). We cannot earn forgiveness, we can only claim it by confessing our sins.
In Psalm 32, the writer uses three different Hebrew words to describe sin. This is instructive. There is the word iniquity/guilt which is awon. There is the word translated as sin, which means ‘missing the mark’, which in Hebrew is pesa. And there is the word transgression, suggesting a wilfully chosen act of rebellion, which is hata’a. When carrying this weight of guilt, rebellion and disappointment with self (after letting oneself down yet again), the psalmist suggests the real problem is not God’s wrath but the sinner’s silence. God is fully ready to forgive. As vs 5 says, as soon as a penitent person speaks out their sin, the freedom of forgiveness is there. ‘Suddenly the pressure was gone—my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared,’ says this joyful person.
One of the greatest temptations politicians succumb to is the feverish attempt to cover-up. Time and time again, political careers are brought to a shuddering halt not so much because of the personal failure or botched action or policy, but by the lies and deceit which are woven to cloak and ‘cover up’ the first wrongdoing. Denial in the face of facts will eventually do for all of us. My grandmother’s sage advice: ‘Be sure for your sins will find you out,’ rings in my ears. Yet still mostly we just hope never to be caught - because we don't trust the power of grace. Also we fear what others think. And we fear being made to be small. We don't have enough experience of grace in our family life or the workplace or the public square! We don't expect to let other's off the hook easily, so we confuse the need for justice with the need for forgiveness. What is interesting is how all humans have the ‘cover-up’ mentality. We will deny small sins as well as large ones. And the gap grows between us and God. And the pressure grows inside us too.
Whether or not in some future era, historians and political detectives discover there was a cover-up of shambolic decision making which cost the lives of many NHS workers and hundreds of patients, only time will tell. Questions need to be asked. But there also needs to be humility in these days to prevent too swift a blame game as well. What might our culture look like if we had a grace-filled ‘lessons learned’ approach to sinful acts which have devastating national policy consequences?
The psalm teaches us that when the individual makes a ‘clean breast of it’, rather than stubbornly refusing, the body of the person seems to find new health. What if we had a moratorium on blame games in politics so that lessons are learned and the body politic then finds new health as a result?
In conclusion, at the centre of the psalm is a beautiful verse (vs7) which is rendered better in the NIV: 'You are my hiding place, you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.' The impetus of the psalm is to teach and warn and guide God-affirmers that there is no point in hiding sins. But there is every point in discovering that God is our hiding place. And in discovering this place of protection, songs of liberation and freedom soon follow.
I am reminded of the book “The Hiding Place” written by Connie ten Boom in which she tells her story of her family helping many Jews escape from the Nazis by hiding them in their home. Their activities were discovered and she and her sister were sent to the Ravensbrook concentration camp. In her books she often writes about forgiveness including “God takes our sins – the past, present, and future, and dumps them in the sea and puts up a sign that says NO FISHING ALLOWED.”
ReplyDeleteWe can fear naming our sins. We can fear naming our deepest hurts. Silence appears to be the safest option. But in reality it is when we name what we fear that we can begin to experience the freedom of God’s love and forgiveness and we discover that there is nowhere we can go, nothing we have done that can separate us from the the love of God. Speaking with honesty in the hiding place of God will bring the beginning of peace and wholeness.
We remember, too, the Chinese doctor. Li Wenliang, who did not keep silent but who tried to issue the first warning about the deadly coronavirus outbreak. He contracted the virus while working at Wuham Central Hospital and sadly died. He bravely chose to speak out truth. We need more bold and courageous truth speakers.