1957 was a year of some of the most iconic music, sports, and technological events. It was the year that baseball became a coast-to-coast sport: The Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles and the New York Giants moved to San Francisco. “Seventy-six trombones led the big parade…” and The Music Man was a hit. Elvis Presley sang, “I’m All Shook Up.” But what really shook up the world actually happened in space. Sputnik, the first human-made satellite was launched into orbit.
When the Soviet Union became the center of attention for this technological advancement, we would have no idea how many satellites we’d be putting up in space over the next 63 years. “Since the dawn of Sputnik in 1957, space-faring nations have been filling Earth’s orbital highways with satellites: GPS, weather forecasting, telecommunications. Decades later, orbital debris is a growing problem.” And you know what we call all of that stuff in space that floats around and supposedly makes our lives easier? Technically it is referred to as orbital debris as you just heard, but we call it “space junk.” And the amount of space junk in earth’s low orbit will only grow in the years to come as more and more technology and communications companies launch satellites and as we begin to turn outer space into a tourist venture. Space is getting cluttered.
Picture a band of debris, circling the earth. “[It’s] everything from upper-stage rocket bodies, completely intact dead satellites, shards of stuff...flecks of paint, bolts, nuts,” says Moriba Jah, Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. The amount of junk in space is out of control. And with the amount of junk floating around in orbit, becoming more and more dense, eventually it will obscure our view of the heavens if something doesn’t change. Our telescopes won’t be able to see through the junk that floats between earth and the other stars. I don’t know about you, but I want an unobstructed view of heaven. I want to be able to show my children the stars and to tell the stories of the constellations. I don’t want anything getting between me and God.
And that’s what I hope we might be able to do together during this Lenten season. As we learn, week to week, what it might look and feel like to travel light, I want to challenge us to take the heavy bags of pride, guilt, shame, and fear off of our shoulders so we might be able to worship God more freely, help our neighbors more readily, and love ourselves more easily. I’m tired of the junk floating around in my life, and I bet you are too. That’s why I am praying that by the time we get to Easter, our view of God will be so unobstructed that we might run to the tomb and see the resurrection with new and increasingly open eyes. For Easter to really change us this year, for us to truly be a resurrected people, I think Lent might need to beckon us and challenge us to put down that extra baggage, to get rid of the junk, and travel light.
And that’s why our scripture for today is important for this first Sunday of Lent. The beginning word in Psalm 32 is ‘asher.’ “Blessed or happy is the one.” But it isn’t simply to be happy or blessed as we know it. It has to do with an entire way of life, a relationship. It has to do with being close to God and being unburdened and unobstructed from God. We have all of these things that fight for our attention and we have all of this baggage of guilt and shame that we need to confess and let go of. And this word, ‘asher,’ calls us to what we can be if we see through the clutter and mess that feels so out of control in our lives. When life is out of control and we seek to confess and we strive to look for God, we may, indeed, find happiness. We may, indeed, find true joy.
You see, Psalm 32 is coming from the psalmist, King David, whose life was horrifically out of control. He had made some horrible and hurtful decisions, and then he tried to cover up his mess. He tried to control a woman, Bathsheba. He tried to control her husband Uriah’s fate. He tried to control the consequences of his actions and mitigate the damage he had done. And by doing all of these things, his control and power over God’s kingdom and over his life and others’ lives turned into death and destruction and deceit. David’s life was out of control and flying off the rails and he didn’t know how to get it back on track once again.
And so, he called out to God and called himself out for his misdeeds and his sins. Psalm 32 is a prayer about sin and forgiveness and is appropriate for today as we begin the season of Lent when we enter a season of confession, honesty, and transformation. And David knew the ravages of keeping his wrongdoings a secret and the relief that comes from confession and forgiveness. “Happy are those…” begins our psalm for today. When things are out of control it is best to lean into the law of God and to love others as you love yourself. For David and for us to find some control and balance and restoration in our lives, we need to release the space junk and let it go, to give it over to God so we can walk in righteousness and in freedom and in joy.
Listen, we aren’t letting David off the hook here. We aren’t minimizing the voices of those he abused and murdered. But for David, no change and no transformation could happen until he confessed and acknowledged his guilt and wrong doing. And when he did, the freedom that this psalmist found was the freedom from guilt. He says, “When I kept silence, my body wasted away… Then I admitted my sin to you… and you forgave the guilt of my sin.” Guilt can be debilitating. One commentator said, “Long before modern medicine noted the deleterious bodily effects of shame and guilt, the psalmist notes the wasting away that unacknowledged sin can produce in a sinner. The one who attempts to hold on to the burden of sin ‘dries up,’ because God’s hand, the same divine hand that ought to be openly grasped in relationship has become the hand that is ‘heavy’ upon him.”
Max Lucado mentions the heavy hand of God and the load of guilt we all carry. He says, “Carry a load of guilt? Many do. So many do. What if our spiritual baggage were visible? Suppose the luggage of our hearts was literal luggage on the street. You know what you’d see most of all? Suitcases of guilt. Bags bulging with binges, blowups, and compromises. Look around you. The fellow in the gray-flannel suit? He’s dragging a decade of regrets. The kid with the baggy jeans and nose ring? He would give anything to retract the words he said to his mother. But he can’t. So, he tows them along. The woman in the business suit? Looks as if she could run for senator? She’d rather run for help, but she can’t run at all. Not hauling that [luggage] everywhere she goes. Listen. The weight of weariness pulls you down. Self-reliance misleads you. Disappointments discourage you. Anxiety plagues you. But guilt? Guilt consumes you.”
And the way for the psalmist to drop his bag of guilt and travel light was to confess and reform. We see that when he confessed and reformed his life, God’s forgiveness brought happiness and joy once more. It is the joy of moving away from God as the heavy-handed judge to the God who loves, redeems, and brings wholeness. God had become a “hiding place” where the psalmist could feel delivered and at peace. The sinner who was wasting away and crumbling under his out of control life eventually found joy and forgiveness.
Friends, when we do something wrong, when we hurt ourselves or someone else, what is the first thing we try to do? We often want to keep it a secret, cover it up, and not admit our actions. We don’t want anyone to know that we have done something wrong. And whether it’s the heavy hand of God or the debilitation caused by guilt and shame, we feel the lies and the pain piling up until we no longer have any control over our lives. God’s hand feels heavy because we are carrying around the baggage that we need to confess and let go of.
One of my favorite authors, M. Scott Peck, noted in his treatment of patients, a curious connection between back problems and neck pain with guilt due to poor relationships with others. You know how we often say someone is a pain in the neck? Well, the Psalmist, King David, is saying the same thing. “My bones have worn out. I am wasting away because of the weight of your hand, O God! I can’t carry this burden anymore and so please, God, take this pain away from me! I’m tired of my mistakes, my bad decisions, my missteps ruining my life and making everything out of control. I confess and I will change. Just restore joy in my life, O God.”
I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to feel out of control. Whenever I am in the car I have a strong need to be in the driver’s seat. Otherwise, I’m stomping the invisible brake or clutching tightly to that “oh, crap” handle bar above the window. I don’t like to feel out of control. I want to control my schedule. My to-do lists have to-do lists. I want to control my daughters’ behavior and in doing so, I sometimes find that I stifle their ability to be kids and to make mistakes. I want to control my health and get so frustrated when doctors can’t figure out that weird pain in my elbow. I hate being out of control.
But, like many others, although I take pride in being orderly and organized, my work days as a minister never quite go the way I plan – someone is admitted to the hospital, a last minute meeting comes up, an emergency happens. Life feels very out of control most days. But I think that as we try to let go of the things that hinder us this Lenten season, we might find that we can open our hands and our eyes to God, the one who is indeed in control.
With emptier and less cluttered lives, we can rest ourselves into the arms of the divine and let God handle things for a while. For when we let God be in control every now and then, we might find that we don’t have to white-knuckle our way through the day. We can be truly free and truly happy. Could it be time this Lent to confess, to put down the luggage of guilt, and to let go, knowing that God can handle it? Maybe today we can remove one satellite blocking our view of God. Maybe today we can take the first step in travelling light together.