Grace for Catastrophes Big and Small
Psalm 51:1-12
Psalm for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost (Year B)
This is what happens virtually any time we are watching diving, gymnastics, or any Olympic sport scored by judges. The athlete will twist or flip or turn or do any combination of things that I could never have done at any time during my life.
Me: That was pretty impressive.
Commentator: Argh! Just a devastating mistake!
Usually the catastrophe is a toe not quite pointed the right way. A little bobble. A bit too big of a splash. It is often not anything blatantly obvious, but the judges’ scoring indicates that, yes, it was a devastating mistake. It is one of the reasons why the Olympics make for such riveting television (and why my heart goes out to almost every person competing): years of training come down to a moment when the difference between success and failure teeters on a razor’s edge.
What does that do to a person? Look, if you had one shot or one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment, would you capture it or just let it slip? (I did that solely because I have made some of you reading this think “mom’s spaghetti”) Seriously though, I wonder what happens to the person who messes up and lets that moment slip away. I would hope that they have people who comfort them and let them know they are more than that one moment. I hope that they can forgive themselves.
Most of us do not know what it is like to stumble on the biggest stages in the world, but we have experienced those moments that throw our world askew. Sometimes they are minor bobbles and mistakes. Sometimes they are big time disasters and royal screw-ups. Whether they are big or small, these catastrophes hurt us, the people around us. If you really want to go down a mind-blowing rabbit hole, we are even told in scripture that these mistakes hurt God.
Hurting God or other people is where I start to spiral a little bit. Which is one of the reasons that I am thankful for the Psalms. Among its many songs of joy, anguish, anger, hope, and loneliness, there is Psalm 51 which wrestles with our self-inflicted catastrophes. The psalm is credited to David and it is believed that the sin that is ever before him is a combination of infidelity/sexual assault via power dynamics/conspiracy to murder. This is not a minor bobble or a slightly bigger splash. This is a belly flop off the diving board. This is wrestling one of the uneven bars loose and tossing it into the crowd like a javelin. Actually those examples are underselling it.
And yet, there is grace for even someone like that. Even for David, God can have mercy. Even for David, God can create a new clean heart and restore him to joy. This does not erase the fallout from the catastrophe. There is still mountains upon mountains of healing and reconciliation that must happen. Yet Psalm 51 reminds us that even the biggest catastrophes do not have to be the end of the story. We take the step of admitting our fault and there can be grace for us.
