Monday, March 6, 2017

Saying, "I'm Sorry"

"Saying, 'I'm Sorry'"
Psalm 32

There are a couple of people who have hurt me deeply—hurt my kids as well.  (I confess, my blood pressure just went up a couple of notches having made that statement.)  I just have one wish.  I wish they'd look me in the eye some day and say, "I'm sorry."  That's all.  A heartfelt, "I'm sorry."  They have never spoken those two words to me (or my kids that I know of.)  They've had plenty of years to do so.  But so far, nothing.

That's all it would take!  I've forgiven each of these individuals.  I think.  Am I wrong in wanting to hear them say, "I'm sorry"?  I think all my memories surrounding these people would become unweighted, and I would feel a long-desired lightness.  It's hard, because one of the people doesn't think they have anything to be sorry about.  So it will probably never happen.

(Pause)  Then I wonder if there are people I need to say "I'm sorry" too.  (There's a journaling list you could make:  All the people to which you need to say, "I'm sorry."  And then do it, as best and as wisely as you can.)



There is One who should be at the top of all our lists.  One whom we have wronged, ignored, betrayed.  One we've treated with indifference.  One we've said Yes to, but then lived out a No.  Of course, it is God.

That is what this Psalm is about—saying "I'm sorry" to God, not to each other.  There certainly is a lot of both that needs to happen.  But God first.  Because we have hurt God deeply.  There are times when our lives have gone badly, and we assume by no fault of our own.  Because things went so badly, or because we felt God was in charge of this mess we call the world, that God therefore owes US an apology.  That God needs to look us in the eye and offer a heartfelt apology for allowing some drunk driver to T-bone our car; or allow us to get bone cancer; or allow our parent to get Alzheimer's and forget who we are; or allow a tornado to blow through a town flattening it.  And so forth and so forth.

Maybe that's one of the things we need to say "I'm sorry" for to God—blaming God for every random bad thing that befalls humanity, especially when we are those individual humans stuff happens to.  Maybe we need to say, "I'm sorry" to God, because God is such an easy target to blame for all the bad stuff.

That's going to be your journaling assignment between now and next Sunday:  to make a list of all the reasons you should be sorry to God.  Like we do in our relationships, don't you think God is waiting, thinking to God's self, "I wish they'd just say, 'I'm sorry.'"

But it's not just a matter of saying, "I'm sorry."  It's also what you are sorry about, exactly.  You can say to God, "I just want to, generally, say I'm sorry for the stuff I do, the way I think, and all that.  OK, we good?"  God is left thinking, "This guy doesn't have a clue.  He just wants to get it done and over with, while at the same time have no personal detailed understanding of what he's doing."

You have to start here.  You have to know what, exactly, you are sorry about, and you have to tell God all about it.  If you don't start here, you're a goner.  That's what the Psalmist came to realize.

When I kept it all inside,
    my bones turned to powder,
    my words became daylong groans.
The pressure never let up;
    all the juices of my life dried up.  (MSG)

What's going on in the inside of each of us has an effect on the outside of us.  What we look like, how we carry ourselves, our tone of voice, can all be visible signs of our inability to get things right with God.  The first thing you have to do to get right with God is say, "I'm sorry."

Like I mentioned earlier, we do a lot of blaming God for our mishandled lives, for accidents of life, etc.  In other cases, we may blame others.  It's my spouses fault for me feeling like my bones have turned to powder.  It's my jobs fault for all the groaning I do.  It's the economy's fault for all the pressure I'm feeling.  It's this darn weather's fault for me feeling like all the juices of my life are drying up.

Blaming is just part of the problem.  The biggest part of the problem, according to the psalmist, is that we hold it all inside.  We don't do anything with all the hurt and pain we are feeling.  We just keep it all inside.  And the thing that we are keeping inside is our inability or unwillingness to take responsibility for our fractured lives, and tell others we are sorry.  We are sorry for how we let our own brokenness brake others, and then fail to say, "I'm sorry" for letting our brokenness get out of control.

There's only one way to deal with all this built up pressure from our inability to say to God, "I'm sorry."  Let it all out.  In a couple of places in the psalm, God praises the psalmist for telling his sins to God.

In verse one, God says to the psalmist:
“You told me your sins,
without trying to hide them,
    and now I forgive you.”

The phrase, "…without trying to hide them…" has to do with being clothed.  What God is saying to the psalmist is, "You didn't put on some kind of clothes to try and give a false impression about what you're really hiding underneath.  The word the psalmist uses literally means to dress different in order to deceive.  So God is praising the psalmist for not trying to hide behind anything, but instead told the truth about his sins, and said he was sorry to God.  Just put it out there and take your lumps.  Instead of lumps, God gave forgiveness.

In a similar way, at a different place in the psalm, the psalmist laid everything out on the table and said his, "I'm sorry's" to God:

So I confessed my sins
    and told them all to you.
    I said, “I’ll tell the Lord
    each one of my sins.”
Then you forgave me
    and took away my guilt.  (CEV)

What the psalmist discovered was that there was only one way to be able to stand before God and feel totally cleansed.  It's wasn't going to be by deceit, or rationalizations, or excuses, or subterfuge.  The only way to experience the freeing forgiveness of God is to be forgiven by God and have God totally wash your guilt away.  And the only way to get to that kind of cleansing is telling the Lord "each one of your sins" and at the same time telling God you are so sorry for it all.  That's where each of us has to start.

And this is a constant process—this saying, "I'm sorry" to God.  You have to be able to exercise control in your life somehow, so that you can always be under the forgiveness of God.  The psalmist expresses this in verse 9:
Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding,
    which must be curbed with bit and bridle,
    or it will not stay near you.

There are two kinds of control that we can choose in our relationship with God.  The first is to have understanding.  It's an internal kind of of control.  You are able to understand that the best way to be before God is confess everything to God, and tell God how sorry you are.  That's an internal way of control.  God then rewards that person with discernment, so that in all life situations you will know the way to go, and not choose the ways that make you come back, time after time, stand before God and offer up your, "I'm sorry."

How many of you have played the game pictured on the front of the bulletin.  Me, too.  I played it all the time with my kids.  Why is the game called, "Sorry"?  (So, is it called "Sorry" because you accidentally forced someone else's game piece back to start, or because you intentionally sent an opponent's game piece back to start?  It makes a difference, doesn't it.)

I tell you the truth, when I was looking for pictures of the game box for the bulletin cover, I never knew there was a subtitle to the game.  The box to our game got obliterated in a months time and I threw it away.  I never saw the subtitle which, as you can see, reads, "The game of sweet revenge!"  How can a game called "Sorry" have a subtitle like that!?  How can you say, "Sorry" while you are in the midst of getting "sweet revenge"?  Unless you are being highly sarcastic!

Or, unless you have no understanding and discernment.  Unless you play out your life really never being sorry because you are more concerned with getting back at people, or getting under their skin.  Unless you have no inner control and discernment about how to avoid those situations where you have to come groveling back and say, "I'm sorry."

The external control is, as the psalmist describes, like being a horse or mule that needs to have a bit and bridle.  I don't know about you, but having some kind of symbolic bit constantly in my mouth, tied to the bridle reins where God has to pull on this thing in your mouth to force you where you should go—that does not sound like the best way to be the person of God.  That God has to make you be the person God wants you to be by force because you can't be trusted to understand and act from within yourself.


"Look," the psalmist says at the end of the psalm.  "Many are the sorrows of the wicked…"  That is, based on the what the psalm is about, it's the people who can't say, "I'm sorry," who are the the most sour about about life, who are saddest about the way their lives are turning out, who begin to wake up and see that their sarcastic sorry-saying, is dragging them more and more into wickedness.

But, by contrast, God's "steadfast love" (that is, God's total forgiveness) surrounds those who have the wisdom to simply tell God, "I'm sorry."  Gladness and joy are what await the people who can humbly face God and list out all that they are sorry for, so God can lovingly forgive each of them.

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