Ash Wednesday Service – February 25, 2009

Major League Forgiveness – Rev. David Mundy

I think I can be fairly safe in saying that there is no one here this evening at this Ash Wednesday service who came thinking that they would hear about professional sports. So, of course, that’s what I’m going to talk about, at least for a few moments.

Actually, I want to speak about one of the latest scandals of Major League Baseball, involving one of its biggest stars. A couple of weeks ago news broke that a number of baseball players tested positive for steroid use in 2003, including Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees. For those of you who don’t follow baseball, Rodriguez is a remarkable athlete with a astronomical contract which will pay him $275 million over the course of ten years

While Rodriguez was silent about the accusations to begin with, he eventually admitted that he had used the drugs which make athletes bigger and more powerful. He offered a rather anaemic public apology in which he cited the pressures of the game and the expectations to perform at the highest level as reasons for succumbing to temptation.

What became clear is that Rodriguez had lied more than once about his use of performance enhancing drugs. There is an interview with Katie Couric in 2007 during which he is asked if was ever tempted to use drugs and his answer is a firm and emphatic “no.” Now experts on lying who have watched that interview say that there is facial evidence and body language that Rodriguez was lying but apparently they are aren’t sports fans either because they didn’t “blow the whistle” back then.

There is something all too familiar and rather dismal about this story. While we could substitute the names of any number of rich and famous people of either gender there have been so many stories of celebrities, leaders, dignitaries caught in their indiscretions and deceits. And nearly always the response begins with indignant denial, then moves to admission, and eventually to contrition, although often the way many of these people choose to say “I’m sorry” doesn’t really sound like much of an admission of guilt.

There is nothing new under the sun and every year on Ash Wednesday one of our passages is a psalm of contrition, a heart-felt “I’m sorry” offered by a superstar of 3,000 years ago. That psalm, 51, is attached to the antics of the king of Israel named David. David was a hero to his people and is written up as the apple of God’s eye but it is a good thing that he lived long before the Seven Deadly Sins had been identified because he seems to have violated them all – including lust.

You have probably heard before that king David happened to be on the roof of his palace which had a commanding view of the fortified town which was Jerusalem. It was that view that set in motion a series of circumstances that led to death. This year I will read to you the passage from 2 Samuel which tells the story:

David Commits Adultery with Bathsheba

1. In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.

2 It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. 3David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, ‘This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.’ 4So David sent messengers to fetch her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house. 5The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, ‘I am pregnant.’

The words of Sir Walter Scott come to mind: “Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!” Rather than “coming clean” David arranged for Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, to be sent into the forefront of battle, where he dies. David probably felt that as king this would all just go away, but people knew. A prophet of God named Nathan finds a clever way of challenging his king’s wrongdoing and when David realizes that he has been morally wrong, as well as unjust, he is overwhelmed with remorse and deeply contrite, as we heard in the psalm.

Interesting stories, both current and ancient. When I look around here this evening I don’t see any royalty and as far as I know, none of us have multi-million dollars contracts, so we are “off the hook” aren’t we?

Not so fast! It really doesn’t matter whether we are young or older, well known, or living in relative obscurity, there are aspects of our inner being that are as messy as the gunk we stir up for the ashes on our foreheads. Last year our former student for the ministry, Deb Laforet, now a commissioned ministry serving in Saskatchewan, called me up and asked for the “recipe” for the paste used for the imposition of ashes. She was preparing for her first Ash Wednesday service when she realized that this wasn’t part of her training.

I shared with her what I have learned through trial and error, but if I had been a little quicker I might have told her that she needed to start with an overflowing cupful of human frailty, then mix in the Seven Deadly Sins to taste. In case you have forgotten, those sins are lust, pride, sloth, anger, greed, envy and pride. We might a few more to the list today, but these original seven remain remarkably sturdy after all these centuries.

All of us seem to carry around with us burdens which we need to set down before God and simply admit that we aren’t willing or able to carry them anymore. We may feel a gnawing regret or shame for something that we did in the past that we have brought before God but can’t quite shake.

It may be that we have issues of anger and lack of forgiveness which we figure are under control, only to have them rise to the surface with frightening power.

As parents we can feel a strange sense of moral defeat if our children’s lives are not what we had hoped for.

This is the challenge of our humanity, even when we desire to be good and faithful people. Yet we continue to live in the hope of Christ.

Ash Wednesday would be a miserable beginning to Lent if all we did was focus on our sin or wrongdoing. The message of the psalm is that if we do “come clean,” if we choose to repent of our mistakes of commission or omission, we will be forgiven and can start over. In the psalm the repentant David asks for a new beginning

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and put a new and right spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from your presence,

and do not take your holy spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

and sustain in me a willing spirit.

Even though we may not be public figures or superstars we can receive major league forgiveness, if we seek it. I hope you notice that the title of my message was not Major League Sin, but Major League Forgiveness. In Christ we are loved, forgiven, set free to start again. What could be bigger than that?