“Forgive Me”

Scripture – Psalm 51

Sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Gregory Knox Jones

Sunday, March 23, 2025

When I selected seven psalms for my sermon series, Psalm 51 was a no brainer. Falling in the heart of Lent, it is the quintessential Psalm for this liturgical season. The psalmist pleads, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.”

Lent is the most challenging season of the liturgical year because it prods us to do what we would rather not. It pressures us to focus on our failings. And as today’s prayer of confession reminded us, it includes the things we have done that we ought not to have done as well as the things we have not done that we ought to have done.

Psalm 51 is attributed to King David. It is his confession to God after the prophet Nathan revealed David’s despicable deeds.

David was king of Judah and Israel and he was renowned as a great military leader who had conquered all of the surrounding enemies. He had renamed Jerusalem as the capital city and had built a grand palace. As the most powerful person around, he was at the pinnacle of his career.

Then, one afternoon, he rose from his nap and strolled along the roof of his palace. He spotted a beautiful woman who was bathing, and he was immediately infatuated with her. He dispatched one of his underlings to inquire who this woman was, and the word returned that her name was Bathsheba. She was the wife of Uriah, one of the king’s soldiers. That should have put the brakes on his interest, but lust jumped into the driver’s seat. And after all, he was the king and the king should have whatever he desires, shouldn’t he?

Coveting another conquest, David had Bathsheba brought to him and he took her to bed. She became pregnant, so David had a situation on his hands. Fearing a scandal, he attempted to cover up his sordid affair by ordering Bathsheba’s husband home from battle. He figured Uriah would sleep with his wife and when she delivered, he would believe the child was his. On that day, David would toast himself for his clever plan.

However, David’s scheme had a major problem: Uriah. He did not proceed as predicted. When he returned home, he believed it was wrong for him to enjoy intimacy with his wife while his fellow soldiers were engaged in the rigors of war. David was astonished at Uriah’s loyalty, so he extended Uriah’s leave and hatched Plan B. He plied Uriah with several rounds of his finest bubbly. Surely that would numb his conscience, lower his defenses and send him skipping home to the voluptuous Bathsheba. However, Uriah had developed a disciplined character – unlike the king. His fierce fraternal friendships would not allow him to engage in such pleasure.

Fiasco loomed on the horizon. Once Bathsheba’s condition became apparent, Uriah would know that the child was not his. However, David believed he had gone too far to turn back. He panicked and stooped to even more shameful depths. In desperation, he sent Uriah back to battle where his commander was instructed to place Uriah on the front lines of the skirmish and then withdraw support to ensure that Uriah was overwhelmed by the enemy. The officer carried out the scheming king’s command and Uriah was killed in battle.

David breathed a sigh of relief and may have even congratulated himself for his shrewd handling of the dilemma. It all might have ended there and no one would have been the wiser, had it not been for the prophet Nathan. Those pesky prophets.

Nathan went to David and told him a story. He said there were two men who lived in a certain city. One of them was rich and the other was poor. The wealthy man owned herds of sheep. The poor man had a single lamb. And this lamb was very special. The poor man had raised it from birth. It had grown up with him and his children. It was like a daughter to him.

Then, one day, a traveler arrived at the home of the well-heeled man. But rather than taking one of his own flock to prepare a meal, the rich man snatched the poor man’s single lamb.

Upon hearing the story, David became furious at the cold-heartedness. He said, “The man who has done this deserves to die.”

Nathan replied with the four words that would haunt David the remainder of his life. “You are the man.”

David had taken the wife of another man and even had the man killed, because he could. His greed and his hubris created an insatiable desire for more.

The episode is a classic example of how a position of power can corrupt. The king believes he can do what he wants merely because he’s the king. And when the king is untethered and feels compelled to show others who’s boss, people suffer. Until Nathan opened David’s eyes to the ruthless, mean-spirited, and greedy bully he was, David would not take responsibility for his actions. There are benevolent kings and there are brutal leaders who think they are kings.

Of course, David could have gone even further over to the dark side. He could have had Nathan thrown into prison or executed for exposing him. He could have tried rationalizing his behavior or he could have manufactured alternative facts to deny his culpability.

What stopped him? At his core, David was a man of faith. He had enough character to admit his grave wrongdoing. Plus, he possessed the required humility to pray: “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.”

It is surely a severe lack of character that causes someone to deny any wrongdoing. It is surely a deep lack of character to possess no sympathy for others who are hurt by one’s decisions. But David was determined to be right with God, so he chose the higher road. His confession: “For I know my transgressions” separates him from leaders who are drunk on power. His confession reveals that he has a conscience after all.

Today’s psalm is not only for kings and people who wield significant power. It is for all people of faith. But clearly understand: confessing sin is not intended to puncture our egos, to make us think we are unworthy, or to believe we cannot do anything right. Rather, confession is intended to keep us honest, to keep us grounded, and to remind us that our moral compass can sometimes go askew. Who has not done something awful – or neglected to do something crucial – that we wish we could change? We might have treated an employee or a friend with disdain, we might have withheld from someone in need. Many parents carry guilt over not better handling a situation with a child. I remember exploding with angry words that I wish to heaven I could retrieve.

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we do not need to confess our sin because there are far worse people in the world. We have never committed murder or embezzled funds or ordered bombs to be dropped on women and children. Certainly, there are degrees of sin.

And part of our duty as people of faith is pointing out injustice, selfishness, greed, and cruelty. However, that does not absolve us from our personal failures, as if disclosing someone’s greater sin excuses our wrongdoing.

Writing about this psalm, retired professor Tom Long points out that “repentance is essential for all who strive to be honest to experience, responsible to others, and whole as human beings…Repentance involves the courage of deep introspection, the honesty of authentic confession, and an earnest move from the far country back home.”¹ Sin distances us from God, confession closes the gap.

Raise your hand if you remember the Etch A Sketch. Did you know they still make those things? I had no idea. It was invented by a man in France and sold in this country by the Ohio Art Company beginning in 1960. However, now that it’s manufactured by a company in Canada, it will probably have a tariff slapped on it and become too expensive!

The Toy Industry Association named Etch A Sketch one of the 100 most memorable toys of the 20th century. If you did not own one, you had a deprived childhood because every other kid owned one. The Etch A Sketch has sold over 100 million units.

It still has a red plastic frame with a grey screen and two knobs you turn to unleash your creativity. You remember how it works. You turn the knobs back and forth to create your beautiful work of art. However, when it doesn’t turn out exactly as you imagined, or you are inspired to create something grander, you simply turn it upside down and shake it, and voila! The slate is clean and you begin anew.²

Confessing sin is a bit like an Etch A Sketch. When we mess up – and we know we will – we shake ourselves to make a fresh start. While the sin we commit – or omit – will have repercussions, confession reminds us that with God’s help, we possess the power to change. Repentance is not simply remorse but rather turning in a new direction.

There would be no reason to confess sin if it simply heightened our shortcomings, filled us with guilt, and made us depressed. But knowing that God forgives us can open a new future. God is a God of resurrection who longs to bring life out of us when we think we are dead. God breathes new life into us so that we can become partners in healing our troubled world.

If you constantly criticized a member of your family, can you now focus your energy on praising her? If you broke someone’s trust in you, can you go to extra lengths to be transparent? If you were too tight-fisted, can you become known for a generous spirit?

Physician and author Rachel Naomi Remen shares the story that her grandfather told her when she was a child. “In the beginning there was only the holy darkness, the source of life. Then, at a moment in time, this world of a thousand thousand things emerged from the heart of the holy darkness as a great ray of light. Then there was an accident, and the vessel containing the light of the world broke. And the light was scattered into a thousand thousand fragments, and they fell into all events and all people, where they remain deeply hidden to this very day.”

“We are here because we are born with the capacity to find the hidden light. We have the capacity to make it visible once again and to restore the wholeness of the world. This is a collective task. People of faith are intended to be healers of the world. And it’s not about healing the world by making an enormous difference. It is about healing the part of the world that touches you…”

Most of us feel that “we are not enough to make a difference; that we need to be more somehow, either wealthier or more educated or somehow different that the people we are. Not people who have made significant mistakes. But according to this story, we are exactly what is needed.”³

How would you change the way you live if you believed you were exactly what’s needed to heal this suffering world? What might you do to start the healing?

NOTES

1. Thomas G. Long, “Preaching Toward True Repentance,” Journal for Preachers: Lent 2025, p. 14 and 16.
2. Thanks to Susan Sparks for reminding me about the Etch A Sketch in “Etch-A-Sketching Life,” org, February 19, 2021.
3. Rachel Naomi Remen interviewed on “On Being,” July 29, 2010.

Prayers of the People

Randall T. Clayton

O God, whose mercy is wide, and love is deep. When we stray from your path, you gently nudge us back, and even when we turn our backs on you, you never turn your back from us but call us beloved children. Keep us ever mindful of what it means to follow you, of the promises we made at the baptismal font, and of your concern not just for us, but for all the people and animals of the earth. Help us to identify, name and correct actions and attitudes that lead to hurt and pain for our families and our neighbors no matter where on earth they reside. Turn our hearts toward the hurting, and toward the poor and destitute in our community and even across the globe.

On this day we lift to you our concern for hurting people across the globe. For those who live and work in war-torn parts of the world. Bring an enduring and a just peace where war tears apart lives, property, infrastructure, and hope. For those who fled their homes and communities as a result of warfare, for those who are wounded, whose way of life is upended, who grieve the deaths of loved ones, we pray. Bring healing and hope. Give safety to workers delivering food and medical supplies, even as we ask that you help make the paths clear for them to deliver help. Show us how we might sow the seeds of peace wherever violence erupts.

We pray for the world’s leaders – show them the things that make for peace, give them wisdom, give them empathy, and a heart willing to seek the best for the least among us. We pray for elected and appointed officials in our own land. Give safety to our judges and our legislators.

Throughout scripture you call your people to welcome the alien, and so we pray for those in our midst who have migrated here and are now living in a land that is foreign to them. We pray for their safety, that they may be treated with dignity, and that their hopes for a better life, or a safer life, or life itself, might be fulfilled.

Among our number are those who are hurting, physically, emotionally, or spiritually – we ask for your healing presence. And among our number are those who are grieving – acutely feeling the absence of someone we loved, of a hope we had, of a measure of independence. Bring healing and new possibilities even where hearts are breaking, and spirits are sagging. In times that feel chaotic to many, we pray that you give us a sure and certain trust in your love; let us find joy in the community we have here in this place; and show us how we might more effectively be ambassadors of hope and peace in the world around us.