Sermon: October 30, 2022

Preacher: Rev Ryan Slifka

Scriptures: Psalm 32:1-17

Today’s our last Sunday in the Psalms. The Psalms being the prayer book of the Bible. We’ve been through something of an emotional rollercoaster, from Psalms of praise to Psalms of vengeance, and Psalms in praise of God’s law. It’s been a bit of a wild ride. But all good things must come to an end.

And we’re ending with the 32nd Psalm. The Bible names this particular Psalm as a Psalm of David. That’s because traditionally, this Psalm is attributed to David, Israel’s greatest king. David who whipped a stone at Goliath’s head. David who broke the back of Israel’s enemies. David who united the kingdom. David the great poet and musician who scribed the Psalms. Imagine if Winston Churchill also wrote top-forty radio hits, and you’ll get a sense of David’s greatness. Jesus supporters name him as “the Son of David.” Alongside Moses, David’s shadow looms large over the Old Testament.

This Psalm tells a bit of a different story, though. For all of David’s virtues and achievements, David also had some significant vices and failures. Traditionally, this Psalm—alongside the 51st Psalm—it’s thought to be David’s confession for one of his best-known transgressions: his affair with Bathsheba.[i]

If you’re unfamiliar with the story perhaps you know Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”: “your faith was strong, but you needed proof, you saw her bathing on the roof.” David was out on the palace balcony and he spied Bathsheba having a jacuzzi, and decided that she was what he wanted, and had her sent to him.

Problem is, that Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah, his top general and best, most loyal friend. They managed to keep it a secret—until she got pregnant. Getting found out would have wiped out the King’s reputation, it would have destroyed Bathsheba’s marriage, and would have shattered Uriah’s loyalty to David. So David had Uriah sent right to the front line, where he was cut down. They had to cover it up. No Uriah, no problem.

Now, if this Psalm’s a poetic retelling of this episode in David’s life, the whole process wasn’t so simple. David may have successful covered up his transgressions, he may have shrewdly ducked the consequences of his actions, the one thing he couldn’t avoid was guilt.

Verse 3: “While I kept silence,” he sings. “While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. Day and night,” he continues. “Day and night your hand was heavy upon me; and my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. The silence here is presumably David’s keeping this whole ordeal to himself. And apparently this is causing all these physiological symptoms of stress. His body is wasting—he can’t eat. He groans all day and night—he can’t sleep. His strength has evaporated, which sounds like depression—he can’t move. I picture him downing a bottle of Pepto-Bismol a day. He feels this heavy weight on him constantly, the hand of God’s judgment. All classic symptoms of guilt. Guilt for pulling Bathsheba into adultery. Guilt for betraying his best friend, guilt for letting him die to avoid his own responsibility in the thing. And guilt for hiding it. Covering it up. The whole thing is eating him up inside. As much as it’s destroying him, though, he can’t be found out. Because if he does it’s all over.

Now does this right any bells for you? One commentator said that David’s tossing and turning and moaning and groaning is “all to familiar.” It’s-all-too-familiar because many of us know the feeling. I mean, this is an echo of the story of Adam and Eve. They ate the fruit they weren’t supposed to, but rather than coming clean, they hid. The emotional, psychological, physiological toll of running away from our transgressions. Hiding what we’ve done. Lying, concealing, sinning more to hide the original one. Feeling the heavy hand of judgment on our shoulders, and the tightness in our chests. Guilt’s like acid to the body and soul alike.

And, you know, we wanna say something. Everything in us crying out for relief. But admitting the truth could cost us a job, a friendship, a marriage. Respect, status, social standing. It could blow up our whole life. This is why in politics and public life are so notoriously truth-avoidant. Because telling it, admitting even the smallest infraction can cause everything we hold dear to blow up in our faces. So we spend most of our time maintaining our innocence, deflecting our faults, and hiding our crimes. We wanna come clean, but we’re in too deep. No going back. This Psalm isn’t just David’s story. It’s our own.

Of course, if you know the rest of the story, you’ll know that David’s worst fears came true. He was eventually found out.

The prophet Nathan told him this parable about a rich man who has a whole feedlot of cattle and sheep, and a poor man that only had a single little lamb, his beloved—and only—possession. Now, one day the rich man had a guest over. But he didn’t wanna waste any of his own livestock, so he nabbed the poor man’s pet and served his guest lambchops instead.

This story set David right off. “What nerve!” He said, not really getting the point. “What a jerk! If it were up to me, I’d hang him.”

“You’re the jerk,” Nathan replied. He then detailed every good gift God had given the king, but he just wasn’t satisfied with enough. So, like the rich man in the parable, he took the lamb that didn’t belong to him, and he left Uriah for dead. If anyone deserves a hanging, David—it’s you.

David’s found out. He could kill Nathan, too, I guess. But it’s at this point, he finally stops running, and hiding. “I have sinned against the Lord,” he admits to his interlocutor. “I have sinned against the Lord.” He finally comes clean, no matter the consequences.

And you know what? He doesn’t get a date with the gallows. Instead, Nathan tells him that even though he deserves it, he won’t die. Instead he’s forgiven. For the adultery, the betrayal, the lying the coverup. “The Lord has taken away your sin.” Of course there will be consequences. Some of them brutal—there’s no reversing what he’s done. But in God’s eyes, his guilt’s been wiped clean. “I came clean,” David says in our Psalm, “I didn’t hide it anymore, and instead I confessed it to you. And to my great surprise,” he says. “You forgave the guilt of my sin.” He won’t die. It won’t be the same as the old one, but he’s given a whole new life. Just like that.

Now, in the original story we don’t actually hear how this makes David feel. But the Psalm paints a picture of incredible relief. David’s like—if I’ve been forgiven, you can be, too! He exhorts everyone who’s faithful to pray like he has. It was like he was outta control on the rapids, barely keeping afloat,  and then got sucked under. He was drowning in his own lies and deceit, but then the waters parted. His confession was like a cry for help. One that was met with a life-preserver called forgiveness. Death didn’t overwhelm him—he was preserved. Like our Reformation-era opening hymn says, “a mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing. our helper sure amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.”[ii] In telling the truth, he could start again. In telling the truth, all that guilt he was carrying around was somehow relieved from him, by the love and mercy of the living God. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. He would not die, but live.

I mean, this is a perfect Psalm for Reformation Sunday. Because one of the big things about Reformation Christianity is God’s power to forgive. Not in earning or making amends or fixing the damage we’ve done—cuz we couldn’t ever do that. But it comes as a free gift in Christ.

There’s this story that a famous minister tells. But I can’t seem to find where he told the story, so I won’t say his name. But I am pretty sure that this minister tells this story of a middle-aged woman. A lifelong member of his church. Very kind, very devoted to the church. A real model-church lady, and appeared to be a model mother and wife to her husband. One of the saints.

However, not all was well with her soul. This woman paid this minister (not to be named) a visit, and during their conversation, she admitted to long bouts of insomnia, and stress. Often accompanied by a heavy sense of guilt. You see, shortly after she and her husband were married several decades prior, she had an affair with one of his friends. It lasted about a year, but eventually she couldn’t do it anymore. He was an incredible husband, she loved him, and vowed never to do it again.

Out of fear, though, she never told him. She figured that it would have been the end of it all. It would mean her figurative death. The marriage was maintained, but like David, she wasted away in her silence through her groaning all day long. Literally for decades.

After some more sessions of counselling, the minister and woman decided she needed come clean. “I just can’t do it anymore, she said.” The minister reminded her of Jesus’ words “the truth will set you free.” Though skeptical, she resolved to do it. Expecting everything to fall apart.

At their next appointment, however, she was rather cheery. “It sounds like it went well,” the minister said. “But, like almost too well.”

“The thing is,” she responded. “The thing is that he already knew. He already knew. I had no idea. He was his same loveable, understanding, wonderful self this whole time. Even though he already knew. This whole time. He already knew, and I was already forgiven. I wish I’d told him twenty years ago. Because I would have saved myself a whole lot of sleepless nights. A whole lot of guilt, and a whole lot of pain.”[iii]

Now, clearly not every admission of adultery ends with loving forgiveness. Often the truth brings about enormous pain and suffering. Our chickens have a habit of coming home to roost. Yet, this story is a story about the healing power of forgiveness. This husband’s posture of grace, and his forgiveness is a reflection of God’s grace towards us in our sin and our guilt. All this tossing and turning, and wasting away is unnecessary. We can tell the truth, because God already knows. God already sees. But rather than meet our guilt with punishment, God is always ready to forgive.

Though telling it may be hard, the promise is that the truth will set us free, if we’re willing to speak it. Because in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has promised that we will not die. That, like the woman’s husband in his unshaking love and loyalty, that in his death on the cross, Jesus has born all the consequences of our sin. Meaning that we don’t have to hide, or cover up, we don’t have to be afraid. Hell’s gates have been broken open, and death shall have no dominion. Because of who God is, we will not die, but we will live.

“Blessed are those whose transgression is forgiven,” the Psalm begins. “Blessed are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” Which means, blessed are you, dear friends. Hear the good news: Blessed are you. Because you don’t have to hide or cover up any more. You don’t have to be afraid, or toss and turn all night. Because, rather than being swept away by the waters of sin and death, you dear friends, through the waters of baptism you have been caught up in the current of God’s grace. You can stop gasping for air, you can tell the truth, you can empty your spirit of deceit. And that’s the truth. A truth that will set you free.

AMEN.

[i] Stan Mist, “Psalm 32 Commentary,” The Center for Excellence in Preaching, March 6, 2016. https://cepreaching.org/commentary/2016-02-29/psalm-32-2/

[ii] Martin Luther, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” in Voices United, #262.

[iii] Paul Zahl, maybe? But I’m not entirely sure.