Psalm 32:1-8

1 Happy are they whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sin is put away!

2 Happy are they to whom the Lord imputes no guilt, and in whose spirit there is no guile!

3 While I held my tongue, my bones withered away, because of my groaning all day long.

4 For your hand was heavy upon me day and night; my moisture was dried up as in the heat of summer.

5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and did not conceal my guilt.

6 I said," I will confess my transgressions to the Lord." Then you forgave me the guilt of my sin.

7 Therefore all the faithful will make their prayers to you in time of trouble; when the great waters overflow, they shall not reach them.

8 You are my hiding-place; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance.

(This year, Monday Matters will focus on wisdom conveyed in the treasures of the book of Psalms. We'll look at the psalms read in church before Monday Matters comes to your screen. Please note that these days in the church, there are two tracks of readings in the lectionary, offering a choice of psalms. Your church may or may not have read the psalm included in this email.)

Desmond Tutu reflected on his leadership in South Africa in a book entitled: No Future Without Forgiveness. As apartheid was dismantled in his country, as the nation embarked on a new chapter, Tutu recognized that the future would only come as forgiveness was extended, facilitated through a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He was in sync with Nelson Mandela, who upon release from prison after almost three decades, immediately forgave his captors. Mandela said that if he didn’t forgive them, they still had him in prison. The future that forgiveness brings is multi-faceted. It is not only a matter of forgiving those who have done us wrong. We all have those people in our lives. It is also a matter of accepting forgiveness extended to us, forgiveness that comes from God and from others. Maybe it’s also a matter of forgiving ourselves.

As Anne Lamott says: Earth is forgiveness school. The wisdom of the connection between forgiveness and a future is reflected in one of the psalms which the lectionary suggested for reading yesterday. That psalm (reprinted in this email) describes the progression that came in the spiritual life of the author. The psalmist admits that he was stuck. He was holding his tongue, presumably refusing to express to God or others the ways that he had fallen short. Once he had acknowledged his own guilt, he was able to move forward. As long as he held onto the guilt or shame that he knew to be the truth of his story, he was not free to live into God’s saving grace.

Maybe that’s why so many of our liturgies include a confession, often from the very start. There’s something freeing about acknowledging the ways we mess up. As Jesus said: The truth shall set you free. And yet, we spend a lot of our time failing to admit those shortcomings. While we may be quick to judge others mercilessly, we make all kinds of excuses for our own failures. We imagine that in a manufactured image of ourselves, we’ll find new life. It’s hard to keep up that image. It can be so very tiring.

In her new book, Strong Ground, Brene Brown talks about key themes for leaders. I share those thoughts with Monday morning readers because I suspect many serve in leadership roles, in churches or businesses or volunteer efforts or in families. Dr. Brown notes that in our culture, vulnerability is seen as weakness. “We seem not able to accept that vulnerability – the ability to recognize and regulate the emotions we experience during times of uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure – is the source code of courage.” As I read that, and thought about Psalm 32, I added the acknowledgement of our own fallen nature as a piece of this life-giving, courageous vulnerability. In confession, the psalmist makes himself vulnerable to the Holy One. In confession, we do the same. When that happens, we can be free to step into the future.

This applies to each one of us in our spiritual journey for sure. As we have just observed All Saints Day and All Souls Day, we recognize we are saints and sinners at the same time. I think of a favorite saint, St. Teresa of Avila, who acknowledged in a moment of vulnerability: O God, I do not love you. I do not want to love you. But I want to want to love you. I love the Christmas message from Dorothy Day: I’m so glad Jesus was born in a stable. Because my soul is so much like a stable. It’s poor and in unsatisfactory condition – yet I believe that if Jesus can be born in a stable, maybe he can also be born in me.

This dynamic probably also applies to the institutional church, as over the history of the church, there has been a sell out, a servitude to the values of the culture. The future of the church calls for us to recognize that. It’s why the work of Sacred Ground coming out of the Episcopal Church Center, has been so transformative.

It applies to our nation, especially in this time of division, as some leaders seek to wipe out acknowledgement of our own history of enslavement and genocide of indigenous people. Until we acknowledge that history instead of trying to erase it, we may not be able to move out of the racial divide that persists. That kind of acknowledgement may well be the most patriotic thing we can do to express love of nation.

Take this psalm, take this week to think about ways you are holding back from acknowledging the ways you have fallen short. Find the freedom that comes with acknowledgement. The truth shall set you free.

- Jay Sidebotham