“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.”
(Psalm 51:10 – Watchword for the Week of Sunday 22 March 2015)
Me, me, and me! Unapologetically me! The Psalmist is not afraid in just one verse to three times refer to himself. He doesn’t care about the interconncetedness of all beings. He’s not worried about the state of the church or the state of the nation. He doesn’t want to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, or to care for the widow, or the alien or the orphan. He prays for his own benefit. He doesn’t ask for kingdom come and thy will be done, no, it’s all about me, myself, and I!
That’s where religion takes place: In an individual’s heart. It’s a place where God has spoken from the beginning. Individualism is not a bad thing. God calls prophets and apostles, not committees and representatives. No corporation, no institution, no state, no church, can live if it does not have individuals that take care of the logs in their own eyes before getting into everybody else’s business. “Create in me a clean heart, O God” also means: I am in desperate need of cleaning because it’s not pretty in there. Give me a fresh start this Lent – like a spiritual spring cleaning.
Sometimes the shortest word in a verse has the biggest impact. Here it is certainly the humble a: “put a new and right spirit within me.” It implies that there is a multitude of new and right spirits to be had. For me, I need only one of those for myself. My way is not the highway and if I think my path is the straight and narrow I can be certain that the God of hosts has a host of other paths that are just as viable. The me right next to me, the me across the street or on the other side of the globe has their own journey just as I do.
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