Accountability



Examine my heart, visit me by night,
     melt me down;
     you will find no impurity in  me.
                                  (Psalm 17:3)

We cannot live without the psalms. They are indispensable in our lives because the psalmist, in every instance, speaks directly to God for us in ways we cannot muster on our own.

The words are eloquent, furious, capricious, heartbreaking, joyous, desperate, soul-searing. In my Bible the psalms occupy about one-eighth of an inch of the depth of the book. But the entirety of what it is to be human is encapsulated in those pages. We dismiss them from our lives--as too many worshipping bodies have done--at our peril, for without their fortifying nourishment we are much easier targets for the devil. God grant us the will and courage to welcome them into the innermost recesses of our hearts.

Consider the verse above from Psalm 17. It amounts to a challenge to God: "See whether or not I have indeed given my life to you. See whether any corruption remains." Yet this challenge is a deeply unsettling one. Imagine that, at any given moment, we were to be melted down. Alas, what impurities would emerge at the end of the process: the dark detritus of arrogance, of pride, of laziness, of selfishness, of gluttony, laid bare at the bottom of the refining furnace in full view of all the heavenly host.

The comparison with aluminum recycling may actually be useful. Aluminum is one of the most productive of all metals to recycle. It takes 9 to 18 times as much energy to produce raw aluminum as to melt down and refine existing aluminum products for future use. However, the high level of impurities in aluminum products submitted for recycling is a growing problem and impedes the efficiency of the process.

Much of these impurities have to do with the paint on soda cans that contaminates the product and makes it unsuitable for uses that require a high level of purity. The comparison with our own poor souls is not so far-fetched: How uncertain we are of our own merit in God's eyes! (Read farther down in Psalm 17: "Keep me as the apple of your eye....") How often we give into the temptation to clothe ourselves not with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience (Colossians 3:12) but with glittering adornments that elevate our own sense of worldly self-importance and serve to better market our product!

In this world, we are constantly being perfected in Christ but we will never be perfect. Only Christ is perfect. Nonetheless, in the choices that we make, let us always be accountable to God. Is each decision we make one that will add even more impurity to the residue of our souls? Or are we doing our best to follow the teachings of our Lord?

I have not regarded what others do;
     at the word of your lips
     I have avoided
     the ways of the violent.

 My footsteps hold fast
to your well-worn path;
     and my feet do not slip.
                             (Psalm 17:4-5)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Feed My Sheep

Image
Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Bexley, Ohio, which last year merged with Capital University across the street, has a new dean who is widely admired. In a recent edition of her weekly newsletter, Dean Kathryn Kleinhans talked about the state of seminary education across the ELCA: “The numbers are out. This year the seminaries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – together – are graduating a total of 114 students available for call. That’s not even two for each of the ELCA’s 65 synods. Geographical restrictions limit even further the number of candidates available for a call anywhere in the church. Any of our bishops will tell you that the need is much greater than that!" Why are there so few seminary graduates? It's complicated, but the bottom line is that the ELCA itself is struggling. Congregations are closing or merging (and members are always lost in mergers), few are flourishing, and those who are somewhere in between are cut...
Read more

LET CREATION SING

Image
(From Sunday, March 11, 2018) Sometimes I go outside and try to feel how the breezes are blowing not around but through my body. I am a porous thing of the wind, miraculously held in place by skin -- or, as quantum physics might tell us, -- a holistic entanglement of immaterial energy waves, as are all material things. This dissolves the superior view of human-hood over against creation, of which I find myself frequently guilty, and place me in solidarity with all that is around me, animate and inanimate. The experience of being in solidarity with God's creation is a form of prayer. Listen, and you can hear all creation singing. Everywhere there is life, there is song. The Bible tell us that the entire breadth of creation shares equally with human being in actively praising God. "Let the sea roar, and all that fills it” we sing in Psalm 96, "let the field exult, and everything in it" (vv. Ilb-12a; RSV). In Psalm 98, “Let the floods clap th...
Read more

Cradle to Cross

Image
 Luke 1:46b-55 It is finished. Dare we hear, in Mary’s Magnificat, echoes of Jesus’ last words in John? If we consider Holy Scripture as God’s creative word which acts on us at every encounter, our attention to reverberations across the Gospel can bring us closer in tune with the breadth of God’s plan. In Mary’s song of praise in Luke 1 she sings not of the great things that will come to pass because of the birth of the Savior but of that which is already accomplished: God has shown strength with God’s arm; God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. Her words signal the fulfillment of God’s salvific work, affirm her obedience to God’s plan, and testify that God is in solidarity with all who suffer, just as do Jesus’ words from the cross.   We read this, we hear it, we may even know it to be true, but ...
Read more