psalm 51: shame and a broken spirit - 1st sunday lent
I
would like to continue where we left off in our reflection last Ash Wednesday
as we reflected on psalm 51, our responsorial psalm. Let me recall first that this psalm is
David's prayer after he was confronted by the prophet Nathan when he committed the
sin of adultery with a married woman by the name of Bathsheba, and this adultery
led him to tell lies, and these lying led him to commit murder. So it's a sinfulness that spiraled out of
control. And David wanted to hide it.
Two
things about sin.
First,
whenever we commit sin or make a mistake our tendency is always to hide or to
deny, not to admit or at least to rationalize, to reason out in order to lessen
the impact of our fault or to avoid full responsibility. David would have wanted to put his sins
behind him, to hide them thinking that nobody would know. He thought it was a perfect crime. But the prophet Nathan confronted him and
once again put his sin before him – um ari ho ipanginwala pa da, tago-tago-on
mo pa. And so what did David say? Psalm 51, "have mercy on me O God in your
kindness...For I acknowledge my offense and my sin is before me always." In this psalm, David acknowledges that his
sin is before him always – he committed adultery with Bathsheba whose husband
he murdered so that he could cover up his adultery. But with the confrontation of the Prophet
Nathan he had to learn to admit his sin, to humbly acknowledge his frailty, to
even shamefully admit his mistake.
Ginasiling
sang mga sociologist nga ang Pilipino kon madakpan gani sang polis nga naghimo sang
trapik violation halimbawa, ukon kon ano man nga sala nga hayag gid bala kag
wala na lusot, dayon na niya pangarot sang iya ulo. Ngaa nagapangarot kita sang ulo naton kon
madakpan kita? Actually indi katol ang
aton ulo. Galing automatic ang kamot ta
nga nagasaka sa ulo ta in an attempt to cover our face because we are ashamed
of our fault.
Shame
is part of admission of fault because we don't want to admit fault, because we
expect ourselves to be always good, we expect ourselves to be always right, we
expect ourselves to be always correct.
And that's a problem.
My
struggle with the college as their prefect always centers on this, at least at
the first part of the year. We have a
logbook. In the logbook, you write the
time you leave and the time you come back.
The logbook was perfect. When the
time in should be 6pm they arrive 5:58 or 5:59 or exactly 6:00. But never at 6:01 or 6:02. Until one Friday afternoon, with nothing to
do I stood by the main door and at 6:03 6 went running in, at 6:05 another two
were running from sidewalk to the door, 6:08 another 4, 6:10 apat. 6:20 dulom na naglakat na ko masulod thinking
nga wala na. And lo and behold with his
unmistakable smile that can be seen a kilometer away, si Rhett.
I
said that the problem is we expect ourselves to be always good, we expect
ourselves to be always right, we expect ourselves to be always correct. The
reality is in many cases we fail and when we fail we hide because we are
expected to be good, we reason out because we are expected to be right, and
worst of all, the problem is we lie because we are expected to be correct. Because of this it is difficult to admit that
we are at fault. Yes there will always
be consequences to our mistakes, this is part of responsibility, this is part of
making ourselves accountable. But the
fact is things can get worst when we make it a habit to hide our mistakes,
thinking, like David, that nobody will know.
"I acknowledge my offense and my sin is before me
always." Not behind me but always before me.
Second,
in psalm 51 David acknowledges not just the sins he did but he also discovered
that there is in him, as in all of us, an inclination to sin. "Behold, I was born in guilt, in sin my mother conceived
me."
Halin pa sang sa pagpanamkon sa aton
sa tiyan sang aton iloy yara na nga daan sa aton ang huyog sa pagpakasala.
However
in the Acts of the Apostles St. Luke called David "a man after God's own heart."
What made Luke decide to call an adulterer, a liar and a murderer "a man
after God's own heart?" Perhaps it
was the honesty, the truthfulness of David to acknowledge his faults, to admit
his fallen nature, to be contrite, to be sorry for his mistakes, to confess his
sins. True saints are those who realize, like David, just how
unsaintly they can be in both action and disposition, and who do not try to
pretend otherwise, or put on appearances to mask reality, either to themselves
or to others. (Daniel B. Clendenin)
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