What ARE the Sins of my Youth? (And Why Should God Forget Them?)

What ARE the Sins of my Youth? (And Why Should God Forget Them?)

 

Psalm 25:1-10
25:1 To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul.

25:2 O my God, in you I trust; do not let me be put to shame; do not let my enemies exult over me.

25:3 Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame; let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

25:4 Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths.

25:5 Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long.

25:6 Be mindful of your mercy, O LORD, and of your steadfast love, for they have been from of old.

25:7 Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness' sake, O LORD!

25:8 Good and upright is the LORD; therefore God instructs sinners in the way.

25:9 God leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.

25:10 All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep God’s covenant and decrees.

 

Thanksgiving weekend is also the first Sunday of Advent, as often happens (the next time it doesn’t happen is in 2023, when Advent begins December 3). I was thinking I would do a “Thanksgiving” sermon for this weekend, and give Advent a week off, but when I read the Advent lectionary texts, I was nudged to tackle the Psalm. 

 

Advent is a lot of things in Christian lore. Traditionally, it is a time when we reflect on and anticipate the final arrival of the “Kingdom” (or Realm) of God. This often includes texts that refer to what is commonly known as the “second coming” of Jesus Christ. As I have grown older and wiser, and have tried to be a keen observer of current events and world happenings, I have come to emphasize more our “partnership” with God in bringing about God’s Realm, more so than the Second Coming. Why? Because we have been given the Holy Spirit and the tools (gifts of the Spirit) to make this happen, and because way too many people believe they will just wait on Jesus to “fix it” when he returns. This latter view is bad on several counts, not the least of which is many folk who so relish Jesus’ return are looking TOO forward to him squishing their “enemies,” although they would say they are “God’s” enemies. This nasty tendency to believe  in  retribution as the “wow factor” of Christ’s return is enough for me to demote it as a human creation, more than a scriptural one. No, I’m going to say Advent is more about getting our house in order so Jesus may actually want to return someday.

 

This weekend, though, I was taken by the verse in Psalm 25 that says, “Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions…” What were the “sins” of my youth, has my “youth” ended yet, and why does the verse speak of both sins and transgressions? Doing a little spelunking around various commentaries and Bible references, I will take a stab at this, and hope it is an educated one. 

 

“Sins of my youth” may refer to the bonehead things we do as kids and teens, some just because we don’t have a clue, and others because we think it will be entertaining. These things may not rate highly on a “Sin-O-Meter,” but either could have been—or were—harmful to ourselves or others. Think of the series of movies that all began with the title “Jackass.” Years ago, on my day off from the church, I occasionally went to the movie theater. My wife isn’t much of a movie buff, and besides she did not have the same day off as me, especially when she was working full-time. So, I’d pick a movie or two I would like to see, and off I’d go. There was this time when my first and second choice films were both so popular, they were already sold out, when I arrived. I had seen a promo for the film, “Jackass: The Movie,” and believe me IT wasn’t sold out, so in I went. I would say that “Jackass: The Movie” was the stupidest movie I had ever seen, but if you don’t know that already, you really should get out more. In keeping with the theme, I could call it asinine, as “sophomoric” would be high praise for it. Where I’m going with this is that this “film” was full of hijinks of the sort that we might have tried as teenagers? Things like loading a friend up in a shopping cart and pushing him over a steep hill, “having fun” by poking each other in the genitals with a cattle prod, or starting fires in weird places, just to see what happens—these would be major plotlines in “Jackass: The Movie.” As teens ourselves, I would admit to trying the shopping cart trick, only we didn’t put anyone in it, we just pushed it over a steep hill toward traffic (thankfully, it was so unstable, it just hit a curb and turned over). We used to start random fires, just to see how big they got before we put them out. How fortunate we were that none of them ever got so big we couldn’t handle extinguishing them! We got ahold of an old ham radio transmitter and used it to blast profanities through neighborhood TVs. Once, we used a friend’s pickup truck with a hitch to “borrow” a giant promotional steer from in front of a new steakhouse and back it into another friend’s front yard. Since he lived in one of the more “uppity” neighborhoods, the neighbors weren’t too happy with the lawn décor the following morning, nor were his parents. Our church life wasn’t without a few pranks, either. 

 

A bunch of us used to sit in the balcony like little cherubs, but when the sermon started, we would bolt to a little coffee shop across the street named “Famores” for sticky rolls and a coke, arriving back in the balcony just as the congregation was singing the final hymn. I think my dad knew what we were doing, as the church didn’t sell the “Sporting News,” and our pastor, the Rev. Hugh Crocker, would see us leave each week, too. He pulled me aside one Sunday and asked where we went each week. When I told him, he asked, “Do you talk about important things there?” And honestly, we did. It was great “guy talk,” and it really did usually cover the major questions about life, the universe, and everything. Oh, and girls. Rev. Crocker just said, “OK.” I never forget his quiet “endorsement” of our sticky roll klatches, and his “handling” of it (he never told our parents) would later factor into my call to the ordained ministry. I had a number of important pastors and lay persons who positively influenced my faith and life, but none who seemed to understand the wanderlust of a group of small-town teenage church boys in the 1960s like Rev. Dr. Hugh Crocker. I rejoice that before he died, I was able to tell him how much he meant to me.

 

All this to say that the “sins of my youth” mentioned by the Psalmist were probably “Jackass” sins like these—pranks, capers, fun stuff that could have been more treacherous, but thankfully weren’t. Transgressions? Well, that would be a different story. Transgressions, I believe, were things that ticked off God, mostly because they were actually intended to be harmful, or to hurt the feelings of another, out of some sort of spite. When we got old enough to begin dating, or fighting with each other over girls, or competing for accolades on the sports fields or in academic contests, there were transgressions. Privilege or selfishness often led us to attitudes of entitlement. Those of us who owned (or were just granted) popularity often hurtfully made fun of those who had none. High school-aged teens can be very, very mean, and while some may be born of naivete, most was manifest intentionally. Personally, I tended toward being more “inclusive” and accepting than some of my peers in my high school years, but I was not totally without blame—and transgressions. When I began to learn about “white privilege” in college, years later, I knew exactly what this was about. When others discounted it or denied it—as is still happening today—I knew it was all too real, and still is, today. 

 

The author of the Psalm appeals to God’s “steadfast love and faithfulness” to forget all of these things—the “Jackass” sins and the serious transgressions of youth. And God did.

 

Out of God’s goodness, God forgives our badness. The Psalm goes on to say: “Good and upright is the LORD; therefore God instructs sinners in the way.” God doesn’t just forgive and forget—God uses these incidents to instruct us “in the way.” “The way” is a life that seeks “righteousness,” or “right living,” and in “the way,” this is not a goal just to make God happy, but to improve life. Righteous living is less about “obeying God,” and more about fixing the world and the communities in which we live. 

 

The major themes of this Psalm are: God is REALLY good and loving; we are NOT, and whether by “omission” or “commission,” we are guilty of sinfulness, stupidity, and spite, or the “trifecta” of them all. God forgives and forgets, because God loves, and God desires to restore the originally intended fortunes of humanity. Think of the great parable we call the Book of Job. Eventually, after a colorful drama of Satan, God, “Job’s friends,” and poetic speeches by Job AND God, Job’s fortunes are restored and once again, all is right with the world. This is the vector of Psalm 25, only it’s not a parable.

 

Have you spent time pondering whether you are “sorry” for your “Jackass” sins and your transgressions? Some may be, almost to the “clinical” level. We have the unfortunate ability to fixate on our shortcomings—some do, more than others—to the degree that we are rendered dysfunctional. Others, on the opposite end of the spectrum, appear to have the ability to forget their own transgressions, even when a little “remembrance” may bring at least a small level of accountability and repentance. God forgives, forgets, and educates. How we respond to this grace is up to us. Genuine contrition goes a lot farther toward healing and wholeness, and aids each individual to become a “Lego piece” of a restored community. Having a too-short memory of our “Jackass” sins and actual transgressions may feel good, but doesn’t help much. Repentance is not just “good for the soul,” but is also good for the whole human community. “Repenting” means we understand our infractions, and the Greek term metanoia means we will turn and go the other direction from them. One commentator said that “repenting” (metanoia) means “turning our lives God-ward.” Each of us doing so makes us the building blocks of a better, more forgiving and accepting society.

 

As the psalmist says, God’s “steadfast love and faithfulness” are amazing things, and each of us benefits from them. However, if they are not also infused into the human psyche and “redistributed” to the rest of the human community by our prayers, acts of mercy and kindness, and through our willingness to forgive others as we have been forgiven, they are just biblical niceties—cranberry sauce for the turkey, in the vernacular of the season. “Keeping God’s covenant and God’s decrees” is not done to please God, but to rescue and revive God’s community. We must always keep in mind that God’s original purpose was to create a loving, harmonious people with whom God could relate, and who would relate graciously to each other. Recovering this original goal of creation is now God’s “vision,” or aim, and the “Second Coming” is more about putting God’s covenant and decrees back into play than wishing Jesus to physically come again. Doing the latter is akin to the bad parenting model of “Just wait until your father gets home!” The return of Jesus model doesn’t fix the problem, it just metes out punishment for bad behavior.

 

This week, as we pause to give thanks for our blessings, may we also say a prayer for the First Americans who originally resided on the lands we now occupy. And as we begin the Advent season, may we purpose to live out God’s covenant and decrees in order to participate in God’s efforts to redeem and restore us, the church, and the whole of the human community.

 

Grace and peace to all. Happy Thanksgiving. And may you all have an Advancing Advent! Amen.