psalm 51 - create a clean heart for me - 24th sunday C

Today we focus on Psalm 51, our responsorial psalm this Sunday.  The title of the psalm gives us the circumstances of its composition - "A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him after he had gone in to Bathsheba."  That’s the title.  I believe you know the story – David had an affair with a married woman Bathsheba which produced a child.  To cover up the sin, he persuaded the husband Uriah to sleep with his wife.  But after several failed attempts to convince Uriah to do so David panicked and had him sent to battle where the fighting is fiercest so that he would surely get killed.  With the husband dead, he married Bathsheba.  This is the trademark of sin – it leads one deeper and deeper into the abyss.  Adultery led to lying and cover-up which eventually led to murder. David’s conscience however bothered and haunted him.  And because God loved David so much, God did not want him to be destroyed by this hidden sin.  And so one day the prophet Nathan confronted David of his sin and in great remorse psalm 51, the great psalm of mercy, was composed.

“A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me.  Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and of my sin cleanse me.”

There are several things I would like us to focus on in this beautiful psalm. 

First, David asked for a clean heart.  He did not say, Lord, please change my behavior, please help me stop my amorous adventures.  No, David did not ask for a change in attitude or outlook or a better plan for his life.  Instead he asked for a clean heart, “a clean heart create for me, O God.”  It is not that behavior is unimportant, no.  But real conversion must always be a conversion of the heart.  When the heart is in place everything will just follow – behavior, attitudes, outlook, plans.  Only when the heart is in place. 

When David acknowledged before God his sin he did not say “I committed adultery and I covered it up with lies and then I ended it with murder.”  Rather he said to God, “against you, you alone I have sinned, what is evil in your sight I have done.” 

When the prodigal son presented himself to the father he did not say, “father, I was so stupid in demanding my inheritance, I was stupid in squandering them off in loose living.”  No.  Instead he said “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.”  Sin is not a bad behavior, sin is not a psychological disorder, sin is not bad judgement, no.  Sin is against a person, a person who loves us, a person who is after our good, a person who cares for us.  Sin is a failure to love enough that person, because our hearts are misplaced, because our hearts are somewhere else.

The second point which I would like us to focus on is the word create – create a clean heart in me.  The word create in this psalm is exactly the same word used in the first chapter of Genesis.  It is a Hebrew word which is reserved only for God – only God can create, only God can create a clean heart.  It is a divine initiative, something we cannot impose on God, something we cannot demand, it something we can only ask for.

In the seminary in the Philippines I am always seen as a disciplinarian.  That is why they are happy that I am not there.  We have seminarians from age 12 to 23.  So stop complaining if you have 2 teenagers in the house, I have 135.  Anyway they always see me as the disciplinarian. When I join them in prayer I would always demand from them that they do not slouch, that they hold their prayer books correctly, that they do not fall asleep, they do not talk – a lot of don’t, don’t, don’t.  Am I making them prayerful?  No, of course not, only God can do that.  But I am there to make sure that when God is giving them the gift of prayer they’re wide awake to receive it.

My point is we cannot legislate a new heart, not even an act of congress can do that – only God can do that.  But at the very least, at the very least, we can show to others glimpses of God’s love by loving unconditionally, we can allow ourselves to become channels of God’s forgiveness by forgiving and less angry, we can become instruments of God’s loving kindness to others, of that joyful disposition of being in the Lord by being more welcoming and less judgmental.

As we commemorate today 9/11 let us pray that in an age of hatred and animosity, we can become channels of God’s peace in our communities, instruments of God’s love that knows no race or sex or creed or culture until, until finally God creates in each one of us a clean heart.  Amen.