Praying from the Pit--March 29, 2023

Praying from the Pit--March 29, 2023

"Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.  Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications! If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?  But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered." [Psalm 130:1-4]

If God were in the business of keeping score and counting red-ink marks on our permanent records, we'd all be out of luck and out of hope. But--because God apparently isn't interested in "marking iniquities" [that's biblical-speak for that permanent record business], we are freed to call out to God just as we are, even if it's the deep hole we've just dug ourselves into.

That is, we come to God on the basis of our need, apart from any need to prove our "worthiness" or to elbow someone else out of the way for a spot in line.  And the same is true for everybody else.  It's not the "worthy" or the "holy" who have God's ear--it's the needy and the hurting, even when we've caused our own need and hurt.

I find that simply breath-taking, especially to see that it's here in the Scriptures--this is not merely the wishful thinking of a desperate sinner hoping God will bend the rules, and it's not a bunch of modern-day theological game-playing.  It's right there in the psalms: "If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, who could stand?"  In other words, "If you kicked out everybody who messed up, there would be nobody left."  And yet, the praying poet starts with the unshakable conviction that he can cry out to God from the pit he's in--whether that's a literal ravine, a dark night of the soul, a deep season of depression, or raw grief from losing someone to death.  Whatever the situation, the psalmist believes that God will hear and care, and no matters of past sins or present circumstances stop up the divine ears.

This is a pretty big deal, and it's something we need to be clear about as Christ-followers, especially as we head into the central story of our faith in Holy Week next week and focus again on the cross and resurrection of Jesus.  Centuries before those events, an Israelite poet prayed with assurance knowing that God's saving help wasn't reserved for some elite group of select sinless people, but keeps reaching for us even if we've gotten ourselves back into the pit so many times we've lost count.

So when we talk about Jesus laying down his life for us on the cross, or about God's victory over death in the resurrection, we've got to be clear that these are not rewards for the holy but redemption for the hurting.  Jesus doesn't lay down his life with an asterisk and fine print, saying, "I'll die, but only for the ones who have stayed out of trouble well enough," but insists that it's God's love "for the world" that is revealed in the cross--even when that world seems hell-bent on its own destruction.  God doesn't announce through the angels on Easter morning, "There is eternal life available, but only for the Top One Hundred saints,  so keep those holiness scores up there if you want a spot on the list."

And because of that, there is no room--and no need!--to compare ourselves to others, put somebody else beneath you because you have decided their sins are worse than yours, or treat the body of Christ like an exclusive country club for the spiritually elite.  Because God isn't in the business of comparing our heavenly report cards or "marking iniquities" in the first place, there's no reason and no point to disparage other people in the attempt to make ourselves look better by comparison.  God's not keeping score--we don't need to, either.

And if God's not tallying up a record of our sins, infractions, and trespasses, then I guess we don't get to be gatekeepers trying to keep out others we think are less worthy than we are.  That's not how it works--God has always been attuned to the needs of the suffering and the hurting, rather than giving out gold stars or lumps of coal.  What if, today, we dared to believe that was true--and treated other people in light of that truth, too?  

What if our prayer today wasn't, "God, you should listen my prayer and grant my requests because I'm so much holier than THOSE people," but rather, "God, hear the cries of all of us who are in the depths today--and reach us with your grip of grace"?

Let us dare it.

God, hear the cries of all of us who are in the depths today--and reach us with your grip of grace.