Psalm 26:1-12 · Psalm 26
Clean Hands
Psalm 26:1-12
Sermon
by Will Willimon
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Here is someone whom you would not want for a roommate. Here is someone whom your mother might pick for your roommate, but even your mother wouldn't want to live next door to the person who wrote Psalm 26. Hell would be an entire Saturday night in the presence of this person. Would you listen to him pray?

"I have walked in my integrity,
I have trusted in the LORD without wavering…
I walk in faithfulness to thee.
I do not sit with false men,
nor do I consort with dissemblers;
I hate the company of evildoers,
and I will not sit with the wicked.
I wash my hands in innocence,
and go about thy altar, Oh LORD,
singing aloud a song of thanksgiving,

and telling all thy wondrous deeds…
as for me, I walk in my integrity;

redeem me, and be gracious to me.”  (Psalm 26)

Brother! Can you believe this guy? It's people like him who give religion a bad name. You have met him before. You have heard his prayer. Jesus tells a story about two men who went to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself, careful not to be defiled by these sinners and prayed, “God, I thank thee that I am not like other people, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get."

Mark Twain spoke of someone as, "A good man in the very worst sense of the word.” Here he is! Psalm 26. "God, I thank thee that I am so good. I have not wavered, have not sat with false people, evildoers, dissemblers, drug takers, heavy drinkers, adulterers, blasphemers, sodimizers, fornicators, or other people who do those things which are described in the Bible with big words which we're not sure of what they mean but that sound bad."

Here is cool, calm, collected religion. It is religion of the covenant. “I will be your God, you wil1 be my peop1e.” Obey my laws, all will go well for you. I have obeyed thy law, all will go well with me. His prayer, what the Psalmist has to say to God, is thus an inventory of his virtues. He's in church to remind God of how well he has kept up his side of the bargain. God's job is to make rules. Our job is to keep the rules.

He doesn't ask anything of God, for what is there to ask? The relationship to God is fixed, settled, complete, finished. All you come to church for is to reiterate the settlement, to go over the terms again each Sunday. We are God's cherished ones. Let's check each other out to be sure that we are still right with God, that our social attitudes are suitably progressive, that our hands are clean.

Who prayed this Psalm? It is the Psalm of an obedient person. It is the prayer of those who live confidently in the structure. It is the prayer of the older brother who always stayed home and did what Mother told him; not the prayer of the younger Prodigal Son who had a taste for harlots and loose living. It is the prayer of those whom the Duke Admissions Office blesses. I don't care what they say about a "well rounded student body", the Admissions Office is out looking for the guy who prayed Psalm 26! They wish that all of you looked like him!

I was talking with a Duke student sometime ago. I asked him, "Where you always a good boy? Were you the perfect child, as far as your parents were concerned?"

He replied, "Look, I wouldn't be here if I were a slouch." Right. Lord, I have always done my homework. When the book was assigned, I did not go and purchase the "Cliff Notes". National Merit Finalist. President of the Debating Club. Eagle Scout. Academically speaking, my hands are clean.

And it's only natural that, if we are the good little boy or girl, the perfect son or daughter, that we come to church the same way we came to Duke. Coat and tie. Mind your manners. No ambiguity here. Honor the covenantal arrangement and all will be well. Life is a symmetrical, neat equation of compliance/obedience. Here I am on Sunday, taking inventory of my virtues: Integrity? check. Trust? check. Faithfulness? check. Innocence? check. Your job is to be obedient, right, to keep your hands clean and not to press God too much about things. God's job is to respond when we push the right obedience button. Our job is to study hard, take careful notes, play by the rules and life will reward us accordingly. My hands are clean.

Yet, if you push this sort of thing too far, you are on your way to an autonomous believer who really doesn't engage a transcendent partner. God isn't needed in this religion of clean hands. Look at Jesus' story of the Pharisee and the Publican. Listen to how often "I" is used: God, I thank thee that I am not like other people. Like this tax collector. I tithe. I pray. I give. My obedience, my virtue determines the shape of the divine-human relationship. The Pharisee assumes that the reward-obedience system works. Jesus said that the Pharisee, "prayed thus by himself." And why not pray by himself? He doesn’t really need God for a religion in which "I" is the center of everything. God, I thank thee, for me.

Count the times that “I”, "me", “my” is used in Psalm 26: I have walked…I have trusted ....my heart, my mind, my eyes…I walk…I do not sit, nor do I consort, I hate, I wash my hands, I love, my life, I walk, redeem me, I will bless.”

The end result of this dull, frozen, religion of the I, and the me, and the my is the dissolution of the divine-human relationship. Because you don't need God for a religion where you are as good as God. When transcendence is closed, settled , unambiguous and hands are clean you have autonomous lives. Self-worship is inevitable. This is the dominant characteristic of much "religion" on the American scene -- a kind of dignified atheism. I am the measure of all things. My nation, right or wrong, my nation. My nation is worth killing for because it is the extension of my god me. Religion is a - theistic when it no longer needs God to make it work.

"This man eats with sinners and tax collectors," they said of Jesus. "Sure," Jesus replied, "If you're well, you don't need a doctor. I've come only for the sick." You don't need a doctor when you're all healthy, strong, well, and full -- like you Pharisees. I've come for the sick, the sinful, the broken -- not for big, strong, competent, good people like you!

We come to church on Sunday morning and busy ourselves with empty forms of obedience, plodding through the hymns, mumbling through the prayers -- all of which seems dumb since we're only talking to ourselves. I. Me. My. Church becomes like a decayed marriage in which the couple goes through the motions of love, the dry rituals of affection, when everything else is gone. There is no surprise in the relationship anymore, nothing to amaze, no mystery, or confusion. You put on your hat and coat after the service and go out. You come back next Sunday, you take off your hat and coat, like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Yes, back in church. Altar still in the same place. Everything still bolted down. God up there. We're out here, inventorying our virtues. Let's get on with it. We must be done by noon.

Whose prayer is Psalm 26? You know. It is the prayer of the successful and the right. It is the prayer of the one for whom things have worked out right. I wanted to be captain of the team and I worked for it, and I got it. I wanted to get into Duke and I studied, and I got it. I wanted her for my wife, and I got her. I wanted the job. I showed them my Duke transcript, and I got it.

It is a prayer for times when you are young and have the world at your feet, and your barns are full, and the vineyards are productive. It is a prayer for bright, sunny, Sunday mornings with all of us here in dresses, hair tastefully styled, coats and ties. God, I thank thee, for me.

And all will go well for you, as long as you stay right, and the sun shines, and your tie is straight, and your star is in ascendancy, and your hands are clean. You can pray Psalm 26, groom your virtues, and you can get along quite nicely with yourself, without God. You don't need God for that.

Early in my ministry, I became acquainted with a young man who was active in a conservative religious group on his campus. He was a biblical fundamentalist, always having the right Scripture verse or theological answer on the tip of his tongue to cover every situation. He was the epitome of the wholesome, All-American boy. But one Christmas he came home for holidays, and I thought that I noted a change in him. He seemed less self-assured, less confident that he always knew the right answer. I told him that I thought I had observed a change in him, a change which made him seem more accessible, more human. He confessed that, on a campus religious retreat, he had sexual intercourse with a young woman. He was shocked that he, a "born-again, biblical Christian could be capable of such sin." Then I knew why I liked him now: He was a real person rather than a stilted facade. His religion was now a way of dealing with the facts of life rather than a means of suppressing and denying those facts. He could no longer pray Psalm 26 with a straight face. But there were lots better, lots deeper, more real Psalms that he could now pray.

Jung noted that each of us wears a mask, a persona, similar to the masks that were worn in ancient Greek drama. This is the face we present to others. It covers our "shadow," our true inner nature which we regard as unacceptable, unmentionable. Jung felt that, the brighter and cleaner the persona, the darker the shadow underneath. My hands are clean. My life is right. My world is together. What lurks behind the masks?

Sometime after graduation, a few years ago, he appeared in my office. He had been suffering from depression he said. He had even required hospitalization on one occasion. Because of his bouts with depression, it had been difficult for him to apply for jobs. Yet his psychiatrist said that he was making progress.

"It's funny," he said, "when I came here to Duke as a freshman, I was self-confident, self-assured. But now, I don't know what I believe. I feel insecure, unsure. Funny, I was more confident and knew more when I was a senior in high school than I do now that I'm a graduate of Duke."

And I said, "Look, I can explain that to you quickly. When you were eighteen you were more self-confident, more self­ assured, because you were ignorant. Everybody feels right at eighteen. But now, with an education, you know what you don' t know. You know that you are needy, vulnerable, weak. You know that you need others to help you get by. You've learned that you're not autonomous, not self-sufficient. Rejoice! You're a fast learner! Some men don't learn what you've learned until their 45 and have had their first heart attack. You really did get an education here."

Duke University, Duke Chapel Sermons, by Will Willimon