The Vessels of the Lord

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 unto me the joy of your salvation And uphold me with your free Spirit. Amen. (Psalm 51:10-12) Kind David was a mighty warrior, highly regarded for his love and devotion to God and He has been praised down the centuries for writing 72 of the Psalms. He lived approximately from 1040 to 970 BCE, that is, before the Current Era. That makes his body of work, the Psalms, more than three thousand years old. The prayer I read is from one of King David’s Psalms, Psalm 51, which I learned as a little girl in the Lutheran Church. We sang it every Sunday then and the complete Psalm is one of my favorites. David is begging God to forgive him for doing something immoral, unethical and downright humanly unforgiveable. He writes: 1Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions 2Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4Against 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. 5Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. 6You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart 7Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. 9Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities (end) And then he adds the verses I read above, Create in me a Clean Heart…. We know David as the young shepherd, the slayer of Goliath, the loving friend of Jonathan, David the National Hero, David the spiritual heir of Samuel and protector of the Arc of the Covenant. We know him as David, the uniter of The Jewish Kingdom, joining Judah and Israel into one nation. We know David as a brave and mighty Warrior, depending on God to lead him into battle. And we know the very human David to be an adulterer and killer. When David had been anointed King, one day he was looking out from his room overlooking the other dwellings nearby. Until this time David was in good favor with God and won all his battles. Then as he looked over his kingdom, he saw from his roof, Bathsheba, bathing herself. She was very beautiful. He sent for her and loved her and she became pregnant. David arranged for her husband, Uriah the Hittite, to be killed in battle so Bathsheba would be free to be with David. Psalm 51 is David’s prayer to God that he be forgiven for his dreadful sin. When we say the words of Psalm 51 we ask that same forgiveness for our brokenness. The same words David wrote 3000 years ago. Bathsheba mourned deeply for her husband, and she bore David a son. This first child of David and Bathsheba died. Then had another baby and he was named Solomon, who became a wise and noble king of Israel. David was a broken vessel of the Lord – he killed many men in battle and he had killed a good and loyal soldier of his own army whose wife he coveted. He had, as they say, blood on his hands. What then makes David worthy to be the one who heads the lineage that leads to Jesus? It is because David takes responsibility for his sin and separation from God in asking for Uriah’s death and taking Uriah’s beloved wife. David also repents in great humility and begs for God to give him a clean heart and not take the Holy Spirit away from him. Jesus, the ultimate redeemer of the world thus descends from the lineage of David – and becomes the Messiah, the Son of David. In his letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul also talks about his experience of the greatness of the glory of God and his awareness of his own weakness. Paul has a vision or dream which is a revelation of paradise. He saw, “Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat." And he believes as a consequence, God has given him a physical flaw, to keep him from boasting about his own powers of visio. This makes life difficult for Paul - enough for him to beg God to remove this flaw, but God says to Paul “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." And Paul goes on to say – “So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” Counter-intuitive, isn’t it? In our weakness God creates perfect power. How does that work? A few weeks ago the Bishop and Deacons of the Diocese of California got together for our annual meeting. We talked about several different things, but during one part of the conversation the Bishop said, and I am paraphrasing, “We, as human beings, are only as whole as our deepest secret”. In the same way a vase is only as water worthy as its tiniest most hidden crack. A knitted cap is only as strong as its smallest slipped stitch because it is in peril of unraveling. And we, being broken and guilty, vessels of the Lord, are made whole again and powerful by the grace of God. We understand and identify with other people because of our brokenness. We can reach out to God in our misery because we are broken. We can ask for help and comfort because we are broken. Arrogance and pride will not get us to the place of power by the Grace of God because there is no chink in the wall, no hole in the lampshade, no crack in the vase to let the light in. The place of our deepest secrets, worst fears, and greatest humiliation is the opening for God to get in when we are repentant and humble before God. Like David was. Like Paul was: aware of our ability to be separated from God by our own doing. Then when we KNOW that we can sin in this way and repent and come back to God we are stronger than we were before. God is working in us through those faults to make us perfect and powerful in his image so we can go out and serve those who he loves, the marginalized, the poor, the sick and those in prison: who are suffering from weaknesses of every kind. We can help them because we know the power of God to heal us and set us back on our feet. That is the hope of the Resurrection, for our ultimate wholeness in the Kingdom of God, giving us the power to serve God’s people. Now let’s turn to the Gospel for today. At first Jesus visits his hometown and the people are a little taken aback by his purported powers of healing and they didn’t believe in him. “And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, "Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house." So his power is powerless when they don’t accept what is right in front of them and he couldn’t do any deeds of power there. The next part of the Gospel today shows Jesus sending out the disciples to proclaim the kingdom of God and heal the sick. He gave some warning about places where they will not be accepted and told them to shake off the dust from their feet there and continue on. “So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.” Jesus gave them his own power over unclean spirits and they did amazing and miraculous work in his name. Now we know that the disciples were not kings like David or even wealthy people or even priests like Samuel. One was a tax collector, others were fishermen, most of them were probably illiterate in their own language, and they struggled with their own human frailties and disbelief. They were most certainly not perfect people in any sense. I imagine one or two had a deep dark secret that left them feeling broken. Jesus shined his light and power through the broken spots in them and gave them the strength and will to go out into the streets and proclaim the Kingdom of God and heal all who repented of whatever was standing between them and God. And this is our call from God as well: that we should love our neighbors and serve our neighbors and heal our neighbors just as God has loved and served and healed us in our weakness by the Power through the Grace of God. By the power of God our weakness has been and will be made perfect through service to Our Lord and those whom he loves. Amen.