Hilton Head Island, SC – July 31, 2022
The Chapel Without Walls
Marl 10:13-16; Psalm 25:4-13;
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – Remember not the sins of my youth, or my transgressions; according to thy steadfast love remember me, for thy goodness sake, O Lord! – Psalm 25:7 (RSV)
According to the superscription at the beginning of Psalm 25, it says that it is a Psalm of David. David, as I have said on many previous occasions, was a psychological and theological piece of work if ever there was one. He was a very complex man. Among other things, he had a greatly unpredictable degree of self-awareness, depending on what mood he was in when he wrote each particular Psalm which is ascribed to him.
In Psalm 25, it seems to me David was deluding himself. He begins with a typically Davidic idea. “To thee, O Lord, I lift my soul. O my God, in thee I trust, let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me. Yea, let none that wait for thee be put to shame; let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous” (vs. 1-3).
Frequently in the Davidic Psalms, David declares himself to be one of the straightest of all God’s straight arrows. Also frequently, as in this Psalm, he admits his errors, but usually he sees them as peccadilloes, literally “little sins,” not as enormous moral failures. And so, in our sermon text, he says to God, “Remember not the sins of my youth.” --- I was just a kid, God, and what did I know then? So don’t hold me accountable for adolescent actions. But look at me now; I’m a regular paragon of perfection. --- Apparently the idea is that our behavior improves with age, like wine or cheese.
It is worth asking whether children and teenagers should be held to lower standards of behavior than adults. Court systems throughout most of the world have concluded that in thousands upon thousands of criminal and civil trials. For example, the United States Supreme Court declared that juveniles cannot be imprisoned without the possibility of parole. The court said it was “cruel and unusual” punishment to give an automatic life sentence to any youthful offender who did not commit murder. That decision overturned laws in 37 states, including, as anyone might have guessed, South Carolina.
In a related matter, the Justice Department said that states should not put adolescents convicted of sex crimes on public sex-offender registration lists. Adults, yes; adolescents, no. However, the Justice Department does not have the authority to mandate this policy to the fifty states; it can only recommend it. In our unique and uniquely peculiar system of government, each state decides such things for itself, with no federal requirement impelling them.
What is the Age of Righteousness, if there is such? Sixteen? Eighteen? Twenty-one?
Fifty? When? If anyone is ever to attain righteousness, when will it occur?
In Psalm 25 David didn’t tell us how old he was when he wrote it, but presumably he was not a callow or calculating youth. David knew he had faults. “For thy name’s sake, O God, pardon my guilt, for it is great,” he said in Psalm 25:11. But by the time he wrote Psalm 26, he imagined that he has turned into a transformed man. Its opening verse declares, “Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.”
In these and many other such statements, David seemed to believe himself to be a righteous man. But what, precisely, does “righteousness” mean? Does it mean “sinlessness?” Is anyone sinless? Has anyone ever been sinless? Many if not most Christians believe Jesus was sinless, but that is another issue altogether. It has to do with Christology, not theology or psychology. By the way, isn’t it peculiar that Christology starts with a capital letter, whereas “theology” doesn’t? That will tell you something about both Christianity and Christology.
Anyway, what does it really mean to be “righteous?” It cannot be identical to being sinless, because no one is sinless. Therefore, at what point does a sinful person become righteous? When he sins only 10% of the time, or 5%, or 1%, or 1/10th of 1%?
Obviously there is no universally accepted answer to these questions. But it is my intention here to suggest that no one is 100% righteous, and that such a status is not humanly possible. In fact, to suppose oneself to be righteous may possibly be an illustration of sin itself.
Of course I realize that some people are truly far more righteous than others. Most philosophers, ethicists, theologians, judges, and the like are probably more moral and righteous than the rest of us. Nonetheless, nobody is pure, unsullied righteousness. All of us have committed sins of varying degrees of severity, and therefore none of us is without fault.
In one sense this sermon takes issue with John Wesley and others through the centuries who have thought like him. Wesley taught that human perfection was possible, and that everyone should strive toward it. Years ago, and maybe still today, when Methodist ministers were ordained, they had to declare that they were striving toward perfection. Nice goal, says I, but lotsaluck in getting there. So why even include it in the ordination vows?
The Roman Catholic Church has had twenty centuries of practice in teaching people how to feel legitimately guilty. For four hundred years the Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Baptists have provided outstanding service in the Guilt Department as well. But many within those denominations, and many in every other Christian, Jewish, or Muslim group, have supposed themselves to tend almost always to righteous rather than sinful behavior.
The trouble with most people who consider themselves righteous is that they use a very suspect gauge for trying to locate themselves on God’s Goodness Scale. They compare themselves to Hitler or John Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde or the Uvalde or Buffalo or Highland Park mass killers. That would be like Napoleon or Vladimir Putin comparing themselves to all midgets and dwarves to decide they were pretty tall guys. But how does any of us stack up to people of extraordinarily lofty virtue? All of us here are surely more righteous than killers and crooks, but can any of us claim to be more righteous than the truly good, whoever they may be?
Remember Jimmy Swaggart? He was a very popular television evangelist among evangelicals. He was flamboyantly emotional in his preaching, and tears frequently flowed from his effervescent eyes. He was considered the epitome of righteousness until it eventually came to light that he had call girls come to his hotel room when he was on evangelical missions here and there throughout the country.
I have no doubt that Jimmy Swaggart gave great inspirational assistance to many people who benefited from his television and in-person ministry. But he also lived up to his name by swaggering his reputation as a model of virtue. Everyone can be righteous to a degree, but, as the apostle Paul insisted in Romans 3:1 and 2, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong; no one does good, not even one.” As it turns out, he was quoting from Psalm 14:1 and 2, and Psalm 53: 1 and 2, but he was taking considerable license in doing so, adding several words of his own to try to prove the theological point he was trying to make. In so doing, apparently he was proving his own point by what he was saying.
Perhaps God judges many people to be righteous, and if that is what He concludes, that is what they truly are. But those who judge themselves righteous by definition delude themselves, for only God knows the identity of any truly righteous people. True righteousness is in the eye of God, not in the behavior of humans. Some whom we judge very righteous may be very unrighteous in the mind of God, and many whom we think are terrible may be terrific in God’s eyes. Genuine righteousness is not humanly quantifiable, and only God knows who qualifies.
One of the factors in Judaism which I find most admirable is that perhaps above all else it encourages people to strive toward righteousness. One of the factors in Judaism which I find most troubling is that it appears sometimes to favor right action over right thinking. Being far too much of a thinker and far too little of a doer, I think it is often unwise to emphasize too strongly that we should do certain things without asking why we should do them. An uncritical determination to do the right thing without investigating why we do it or what will result if we do or don’t do it can undermine everything we are trying to do. And in any event, it is not spiritually or psychologically healthy to imagine that we always or even regularly manage to do the right thing. Only God can determine whether that ever happens.
For many centuries Judaism has treasured the concept of what is called in Hebrew the tzaddik. A tzaddik is a uniquely righteous person, a highly commendable person, a very virtuous person. There aren’t very many of them. The tradition says that by their righteous actions God allows the world to continue to exist. Otherwise we’d all be goners.
One of my most treasured books is The Joys of Yiddish. It is a dictionary of Yiddish, Hebrew, and Yinglish words which was compiled by Professor Leo Rosten more than fifty years ago. After defining each word, Prof. Rosten often gives a story or joke further to explain its meaning. For example, he told of a rabbi visiting a village which was reputed to have a miracle-working tzaddik. The rabbi asked what miracles he had performed. A villager exclaimed, “Our tzaddik has fasted every day for three whole years!” “Three years?” said the rabbi. “If he did that he’d be dead!” “Of course!” said the villager. “But our tzaddik knows that if he fasted every day, such a demonstration of saintliness would put everyone else to shame. So he eats only to spare everyone’s feelings --- and conceals the fact that privately he’s fasting.” A very shrewd tzaddik, says I.
Leo Rosten has an even better story. A rabbi was extolling the virtues of the tzaddik who had long lived in their midst. He became very fulsome as he praised the old man seated on the platform beside him. At great length the rabbi extolled his wisdom, kindness, honesty, charitable thoughts and actions, and so on and so on. Finally, when the rabbi had been going on for several minutes, the tzaddik tugged on the rabbi’s sleeve and said, “Don’t forget to mention my humility.”
And that, dear hearts, is one of the main problems of righteousness. If we think we have it, sooner or later that very thought will surely trip us up.
The trouble with Christianity, maybe, is that it talks too much about sin. The trouble with Judaism, maybe, is that it talks too much about righteousness. Somewhere in between, no doubt on the misty flats, is where we all live out our lives. But for this morning I am attempting to convince you that while you should strive for righteousness, you should never delude yourself into supposing that you shall ever arrive there.
At the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, I went to hear the Westminster Choir College Chorus and Orchestra of Princeton, New Jersey. It was a glorious experience: a full orchestra and a choir of almost 125 voices. They performed the Mozart Coronation Mass, the Brahms Schicksalslied, and the Verdi Te Deum. The Mozart Mass began, as is the tradition, with a soft Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison: Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. It began softly, and grew in glorious volume. It was fascinating to me that all three pieces had echoes of the requiems composed by the three great musicians: the Mozart Requiem, the Brahms Requiem, and the Verdi Requiem. If a composer gets on a good kick, he should stick with the kick.
There is no genuine biblical religion without a heartfelt Lord have mercy. Because there is no one of us who is totally righteous, we all need the mercy of God. We begin our relationship with God as sinners, not as saints. When we have received His mercy, when He has forgiven us, then, and only then, can we can become saints. A very few of us might actually turn into tzaddikim.
But until then, as both Mozart and his Mass proclaim, we must hope for the Gloria in excelsis, the glory in the highest, and for Domine Deus, Lord God, and Dona nobis pacem, Grant us peace. And that magnificent little Salzburger, Wolfie Amadeus, lifted us into the very presence of God and into God’s eternal peace on that ever-memorable evening of sheer vocal and orchestral bliss.
Mark reported that on one occasion parents brought their children to Jesus to have him bless them. As they did too often, the disciples rebuked the parents, saying that Jesus had more important things to do. But Jesus rebuked the disciples for their rebuke, saying, “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God” (10:13-16).
Very small children may be essentially righteous, if only because they don’t know the difference between right and wrong. Jesus indicated that on at least a couple of occasions. But the rest of us can’t count on righteousness in ourselves, much as we may try to inculcate it. Strive on for heaven as you live out your life here on earth. And in the process, Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison.