Apologies and Change

Psalm 51:10, 15-17 – Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. … O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (NRSV)

If you want to have a bit of scripture memorized, Psalm 51:10 is a good place to start. Whom among us doesn’t have a dozen situations each day when we need to make that request? Why is it that we’re so slow to learn from our mistakes? Why are bad habits so hard to break? Why do we keep doing the same careless or selfish or judgmental things over and over again? The words of this psalm seem to get at the root of the problem.

So often, when we’ve done something bad, we want to make up for it. We buy someone a gift as an apology. We are extra nice the next day. But as this psalm points out, true repentance isn’t about changing just what we do; it’s about changing how we are. God made us human beings, not human doings.

God does not want our peace offerings unless they are accompanied by a commitment to changing our hearts that misled us in the first place. When Jesus encountered the woman caught in adultery, he didn’t tell her what she’d done was okay. He told her she was forgiven – no fines to pay, just become the kind of person who won’t do that sort of thing.

Going through the motions of acting out an apology is so much easier than actually changing. But that is not what God wants from us. A “broken spirit” may sound extreme to our modern ears, but for many of us, it’s an accurate description of what has to happen before God can begin to mold our hearts into the shape of the cross.

Collect for the Week: Loving God, who took on the imperfection of flesh to show us that perfection is not ours to achieve, break open our hearts, cleanse us of sin and transform us, that your love, your mercy and your grace might flow freely through us and change your world. Through Jesus Christ our Savior and the Holy Spirit, Amen.