Cleaning Under the Rug

Psalm 32 has been attributed to David, the son of Jesse who was called in from playing his harp and singing as he watched his father’s sheep to be anointed as God’s chosen king for Israel, the one who slew Goliath while he was still young before he actually became king, the one whose lineage was to produce the Messiah. We don’t know for sure that King David wrote these words, but all of the extant manuscripts back to 300 years before Christ attribute it to him. It makes sense that he might have written these words, reflecting on his own life.

Augustine, the philosopher and theologian, North African Bishop in the late 300’s into the 400’s, considered one of the most important influences on Western thought and Christianity had this Psalm inscribed on the wall across from his bed, a reminder that abundant life, the life of delight that God wants for all creation, is marked by honest confession.

Here in the South, though, we often prefer to sweep things under the rug. And, usually, the things that get swept under the rug are things that we know are wrong, and we did them, and we don’t want anybody else to know about it. We want everyone who knows anything about it to hush; we don’t want to admit to it anymore. You know the kinds of things I’m talking about. Before he wrote this psalm, King David had an encounter he would have liked to have swept under the rug. One early evening, David was enjoying the spring air from the rooftop of the palace, where he happened to notice and then observe a woman, bathing. She was strikingly beautiful. King David sent someone to inquire about her and learned that she was the wife of one of his soldiers, Uriah the Hittite, whom he had sent away to battle. Her name was Bathsheba. So, King David sent messengers to fetch Bathsheba and bring her to him.

It wasn’t long after that she sent word back to the palace to King David that Bathsheba was expecting a child. So, he sent for her husband to come home. But, when Uriah came back he didn’t go to his house. His commander and fellow soldiers were encamped, facing the dangers of battle and distance from the comforts of home. He would not eat, drink, and be merry.

So, David sent him back into battle with a letter for his commander instructing that Uriah should be put on the front lines where the fighting was fiercest and then all the others should drop back and leave him vulnerable to the enemy. Uriah the Hittite died in battle.

After the time for her to mourn was complete, King David sent for Bathsheba and married her and their son was born, but God was not pleased. David confessed, “I have sinned against the Lord,” to Nathan, who delivered God’s prophecies to David. Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for the Lord, the son born to you will die.” David repented. He fasted and prayed and slept on sackcloth, and the child dies.

This season in David’s life is what inspires him to write, “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.”

David wanted to sweep the whole thing under the rug, but it was too big. The problem is, when you sweep stuff under the rug, it makes a lump…even if you try to stamp it down. When we were in college, one of my friends had a lump under the rug just inside his dorm room door. I can’t ever leave well enough alone, so I pulled back the rug. There was the decayed – almost flat – body of a mouse. His comment, “Yeah, the room did smell for a while.” When we are trying to cover up or ignore our sin, when we try to sweep our wrongdoing, flatten our depravity under the rug, it hardens, and it hardens us. When we refuse to acknowledge it, the lump reshapes us, it becomes a part of our identity. Old Testament Professor James Mays describes confession as putting the “wrong into words so that it is there in speech available to be dealt with…”

You may be thinking, well, “I have never ‘had the opportunity’ to look from my roof into someone else’s bath.” But, you have. We all have. We have all seen someone else’s vulnerability and taken advantage of it. I can not suggest who is on your list. I can share that the confessions I make are both about things I have done or seen first-hand and about systems that I benefit from. I pray about people I have hired to work cheap because they needed to earn a little cash. I pray about and study the long-term impact of racial segregation and discrimination – did you know that after WWII 1.2 million people who went to war, came home and didn’t get to go to college on the GI Bill because of the color of their skin? I pray about children who are abused and nothing is done to hold the abuser accountable and protect the next child. I pray about a mother who bought an old – still running, but nearly broken down – van because it was all she could afford, and when the transmission failed before she got home we were told that she bought the car ‘as is’ and nothing could be done. I pray about the families who are choosing food over rent right now and will be on the street by January. I pray about people who know they are sick but don’t go to the doctor because they can’t afford it. I pray about people being picked up with the promise that they will be sorted out later…. These are just a few of my confessions that I am part of systemic injustice and have been on the rooftop and seen someone’s vulnerability and been part of taking advantage. I don’t know what you see from your rooftop, and I’m not suggesting that it is the same view.

What I am suggesting is that when we come to church, I know we’d rather sweep these things under the rug and pretend they aren’t there. My friend wanted me to put the rug back down and leave the dead mouse, but the only way to get rid of it was to scrape it off and scrub the floor and the rug. It’s hard.

Old Testament scholar Walter Bruggeman said of Psalm 32, “The lucky ones are not those free of transgression, but those able to move beyond it.” The psalm assumes transgressions. Forgiveness is the power of new life. Forgiveness permits the freedom to get on with living.

David was laid bare before God. No pretence. Nothing swept under the rug. We learn from David as he sings to God, “Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my corruption. I confessed and you forgave the guilt of my sin.” “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit.” In his commentary on this passage, John Goldingay points out that “God’s caring, covering, and not counting work only if we cooperate, if we let them do so…..If we try to cover up our waywardness and decline to acknowledge it, then we risk frustrating God’s willingness to carry it, cover it, and not count it, and we risk increasing its likely ongoing effect.”

And once we have opened up and everything we would like to sweep under the rug is out in the open with God, this is God’s promise, “I will instruct and teach you in this way that you are to go; I will give you counsel; my eyes will be watching you.” And this is God’s warning, “Don’t be like some senseless horse or stubborn mule, whose movement must be controlled with a bit and a bridle. Don’t be anything like that!” Repentance requires willingness to change, to be changed, to not only stop sweeping our messes under the rug but to allow God to lead us down from our rooftops and away from exerting power to get what we desire and cover the consequences, and to the joy of being cleansed before God!
There, David sings, “faithful love surrounds the one who trusts the Lord! You who are righteous, rejoice in the Lord and be glad! All you whose hearts are right, sing out in joy!”