Introduction
We live in a “throwaway culture.”
We throw away just about everything. But it’s not that we haven’t noticed. We’ve been using this expression since LIFE magazine, in 1955, published an article entitled “Throwaway Living” speaking of this new phenomenon that had emerged in the prosperity and innovation of the decade.
Instead of blowing our noses using washable handkerchiefs (as did old farmers), we use tissues and throw them away. We diaper babies’ bottoms, and then throw them away—the diapers, not the bottoms. We buy a pair of shoes and throw out the old. We buy water packaged in plastic bottles, drink the water—and throw the bottles away. We buy large and small appliances and when they break we throw them away and buy new ones. When our TV breaks, we throw it away and buy a bigger and better one.
In an era long past, there once existed small shops that would repair a lot of these items. You could get your TV, toaster, radio, and iron repaired for a small charge and they were as good as new. Today, though, these shops have mostly disappeared. But there has been a grassroots effort to bring these kinds of shops back—with a more modern day twist. Enter the organization called Repair Cafés.
Repair Cafés are free meeting places and they’re all about repairing broken things with the help of community volunteers. At a Repair Café, you’ll find tools and materials to help you make almost any repairs you need on clothes, furniture, electrical appliances, bicycles, crockery, toys—just about anything in your home that if broken could be fixed. And you’ll have also expert volunteers who have the skills to help you make your repair happen, while teaching you some skills as well.
Visit repaircafe.org and you read, “We throw away vast amounts of stuff, even things with almost nothing wrong which could get a new lease on life after a simple repair.” They further explain, “Visitors bring their broken items from home, and together with the specialists, they start making their repairs in the Repair Café. It’s an ongoing learning process. There are over 1,300 Repair Cafés worldwide; unfortunately there are only two in Ohio.
But nonetheless…why am I mentioning the Repair Café movement? Because we live in a “throwaway culture” where we throw away more than clocks, lamps, diapers, and electronics.
We also throw away relationship, values, traditions, manners, decency, civility, and common sense. Some might even say we throw away our souls in pursuit of some elusive, worldly dream we covet. We cast aside the spiritual component of our lives convincing ourselves we will be fine without it, or that we can just pick it up again at Christmas or Easter or Mother’s Day.
But what so often happens is we are quick to throw it away again, until one day we wake up and realize something is not right, something in us is broken. But what are we to do? Our culture has taught us to just throw away whatever is broken.
Well, fortunately, there is an alternative.
Move 1
In our text for today we encounter David who is broken, and he has woken up to the brokenness in his soul.
It may be hard to believe, but David— this towering and impressive figure of the Old Testament, the greatest king in Israel’s history, the monarch who reigned at the height of Israel’s glory—developed a throwaway mentality.
He threw away the laws of God. He threw away the sanctity of the marriage bond. He threw away his self-respect. He threw away a woman’s honor and reputation. He threw away a man’s life— Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba. He recklessly threw away and abandoned the person God called him to be, the person Samuel had anointed when David was but a lad tending sheep, writing poems and playing the lyre.
Here in Psalm 51 David is a man ruined, a man whose life is in tatters, a man who is utterly lost and broken, and he has woke to who he is. He lied. He raped his neighbor. He ordered the murder of her husband. He tried to cover up the crime. To say he abused his authority and position is a gross understatement. He is in a downward spiral of destruction. He needs his soul to be repaired because he knows it can’t be thrown away. And so he goes to God, the Great Repairer of Souls, the Great Weaver of Broken Threads.
David knows a lot about God, and right now the most important thing he knows about God is that God doesn’t throw away anything. David knows that “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. … The Lord does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities” (Psalm 103). That’s why he can pray in verse 11, “Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.”
God doesn’t throw away anything. This is critical to know, and make known, because God will not cast us away from the divine presence. When we feel far from God, it is not because God has moved; rather we are the ones who have moved.
And the reason we might have moved is because we have turned God into a “throwaway God,” a God to whom we listen when it’s convenient; a God to whom we pray only when in distress; a God who has become largely irrelevant because we really don’t apply the knowledge, wisdom, and ways of God to our day-to-day lives—unless it serves us at the time. And when that time is done…we throw God away all over again.
Hard to hear, but it happens to even the best of us. David proved that.
Move 2
Though we live in a “throwaway” culture, thanks be to God that God doesn’t throw away anything other than our sins. And God doesn’t throw away anything but our sin because God knows how to make things new, and God is able to make all things new.
David proves this too.
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Notice David’s attitude. He knows his soul is broken and he knows he needs his soul repaired when he says, “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.”
Acknowledging the brokenness is a key factor, and this psalm is full of such acknowledgment. In verse four he says, “Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.” David gets even more dramatic in verse five, “Indeed, I was born guilty.”
It’s then he opens himself up to God’s repair, submitting to the treatment, asking for specific remedies. He prays for mercy. He asks to be made clean. And finally, he wants a new heart, which is the crucial part of his acknowledging the brokenness. The old heart, the old components, the old nature—whatever you call it—is actually beyond repair in this world. There are no tools at David’s disposal to fix his old heart—which is sometimes the case. Some things are broken so badly, worn out so completely, that nothing can repair them, and the only thing to do is discard it.
This is where David knows his heart is. And so David prays for a new heart. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.” (v. 10).
Move 3
It is critical to note that David comes to this realization of his brokenness on his own. Yes, he had others who at times held up the mirror for him to see—his beloved friend Jonathan among them— but it still took him coming to the realization of his brokenness and his need for repair and restoration before it could truly happen. This is personal.
David’s remorse was all about his own brokenness, not someone else’s. And it is God, and God only, who is in the repair and restoration business; not us—which is another crucial piece for us to accept here because too often we think we can fix ourselves and others on our own.
People stay in abusive relationships believing they can fix the abuser—but they can’t. Some people think other people need to be “fixed” and so they judge them, but what they are really saying is that they disapprove of their behavior. And some people don’t want to be fixed, and certainly not by you or me. Sometimes…most times, all we can do is share the reminder that God can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. But in the end, finding the healing and restoration and newness we want and need lies solely in our willingness to recognize and acknowledge our own brokenness…not someone else’s.
This is what David does and shows us. And in doing so he reveals that no matter what God never ever throws away anything but our sins, and God is able to make all things new.
Conclusion
We are twelve days into the season of Lent—a season that is designed for intentional soul repair and restoration.
Jesus went into the wilderness to get himself prepared for what was to come in his ministry, and in doing so he discovered everything he would need for his soul to endure and overcome the brokenness that was inevitable.
He discovered in those 40 days of prayer and fasting that no matter what happened, no matter what came upon him or at him—even temptations, betrayal, brokenness, and death—that God would never, ever, throw him away.
This same opportunity to discover this truth is offered to us in the season of Lent.
We can discover again that God can repair our brokenness, God can make new our hearts, and God can set us on a course in life with the assurance that no matter what, God will never, ever throw us away.
Lent is the time and place where we can bring and acknowledge out brokenness to God, and together we work with God to find healing and restoration—we find a new lease on life.
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So in our throwaway culture let us remember that no matter how broken we are, no matter how often we throw away God and the ways of God, God will never, ever throw away us. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer
Creator God, out of your great love and mercy, you formed us from dust and breathed into us the breath of life. You set within our souls a spirit of creation and care for that which is outside of us—the very nature that is yours.
Yet, we do not always reflect this spirit of you, who created us. Which is why in this season of Lent we approach your throne of grace to confess our sins, and once again find that no matter what, you have not left us, and you are always calling us back to you.
Merciful Savior, we confess to you, and to one another, that we fall far short of being all you created us to be.
We have not loved you with our whole hearts, preferring instead to pursue our own way, erect idols of our own making, and secure our own needs.
We have not loved our neighbors. In fact, often our neighbors are invisible to us. We are too preoccupied, too busy, too self-important to notice those who are different, lowly, needy, or on the margins.
We have failed to love ourselves as well. We overindulge our bodies, do not rest or exercise enough, and are impoverished in soul and spirit. We cling to bitterness and anger, and grasp tightly to the hurts of yesterday rather than entrusting them to your healing and forgiving grace.
So we pray, forgive us, again.
Then through your forgiveness and mercy and love grant us the desire and the faith to let go of these worldly ways, and return to you and your ways— to renew and reinvigorate the spirit of creation and care you set within us so that we, like you, will always be a presence of grace and forgiveness, and a conduit that helps others find, too, their way back to you.
We ask that you would hear now the prayers we have to offer, from our hearts, to you, in this time of Holy Silence.
All this we pray in the name of the one who makes possible healing and wholeness and renewal, Jesus the Christ, who taught us to pray, saying, “Our…”