Bishop Ken Carter, The Bishop’s Blog, 4/30/2018
With some regularity, I receive communications—letters, links to blogs, statements—about what is wrong with the church.
The church is either not conservative or not liberal enough. If the church were more like the Republican Party or Democratic Party, God would be pleased with us.
Or the church has somehow not met a need for us—the music, the youth program, the preschool, the ordination process, the assignment of a pastor, a denominational position.
Or the writer has interpreted the Bible or the traditions of the church or the movement of history correctly and wonders why others do not.
I’m not complaining here. I want to say this clearly. I am simply noting a trend. The common thread in these communications is to externalize what is wrong.
I am asking us to shift our focus.
In the deep tradition of the church we have always known that something is wrong. In a spiritual practice that goes back for many centuries, the church has urged us to read a particular passage of scripture every Friday: Psalm 51.
Psalm 51 is a word of repentance and hope. It is a word of self-examination and hope. It is a word of transparency and joy. It is a word of honesty and trust. The Psalmist believes that God will intervene, restore, set things right. But the Psalmist also calls us to what another tradition has named as “a fearless moral inventory.” Psalm 51 has a sober realism about human nature, and a sure trust and confidence in divine grace.
It is both intensely personal and yet it moves, at the end, toward a broader vision, to Zion, the people of God.
I know, in my own life, that it is easier to see what is wrong in someone else than to acknowledge that in myself. It is almost my default way of being and seeing the world.
But what if the question “what is wrong with the church?” really begins with “what is wrong in each of our lives?” And what if a focus on the former is an avoidance of the latter? And what if the church really is the people, flawed, imperfect people, people just like you and me? And this will always be true, this side of heaven?
To examine ourselves, first, is not to ignore the analysis we need to give to our communities, or the diagnosis we undertake in our congregations, or the criticism that we make of our denomination. It is also not a way of silencing the prophetic voice. But each of these activities, apart from the spiritual practice of first submitting to God’s authority, will be distorted to some extent.
Before I externalize what is wrong, before I quote the word of God in its judgment on a brother or sister, I hear the echo of the spiritual:
“It’s me, it’s me, O Lord,
Standing in the need of prayer.”
What if the progress, the small steps, the reconciliation, the rebuilding of Zion, hinges on our being immersed, transformed and even purged by the words of an ancient text? Read and pray Psalm 51.Psalm 51:
1 (0) For the leader. A psalm of David, 2 when Natan the prophet came to him after his affair with Bat-Sheva:
3 (1) God, in your grace, have mercy on me;
in your great compassion, blot out my crimes.
4 (2) Wash me completely from my guilt,
and cleanse me from my sin.
5 (3) For I know my crimes,
my sin confronts me all the time.
6 (4) Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil from your perspective;
so that you are right in accusing me
and justified in passing sentence.
7 (5) True, I was born guilty,
was a sinner from the moment my mother conceived me.
8 (6) Still, you want truth in the inner person;
so make me know wisdom in my inmost heart.
9 (7) Sprinkle me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
10 (8) Let me hear the sound of joy and gladness,
so that the bones you crushed can rejoice.
11 (9) Turn away your face from my sins,
and blot out all my crimes.
12 (10) Create in me a clean heart, God;
renew in me a resolute spirit.
13 (11) Don’t thrust me away from your presence,
don’t take your Ruach Kodesh away from me.
14 (12) Restore my joy in your salvation,
and let a willing spirit uphold me.
15 (13) Then I will teach the wicked your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
16 (14) Rescue me from the guilt of shedding blood,
God, God of my salvation!
Then my tongue will sing
about your righteousness —
17 (15) Adonai, open my lips;
then my mouth will praise you.
18 (16) For you don’t want sacrifices, or I would give them;
you don’t take pleasure in burnt offerings.
19 (17) My sacrifice to God is a broken spirit;
God, you won’t spurn a broken, chastened heart.
20 (18) In your good pleasure, make Tziyon prosper;
rebuild the walls of Yerushalayim.
21 (19) Then you will delight in righteous sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then they will offer bulls on your altar.
(Complete Jewish Bible).
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