Scripture Sunday: A Willing Spirit

by Ashtyn Adams

Psalm 51:1-12 (NRSV)
​1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 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. 5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. 6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

Psalm 51 is the striking and well-known opening to the Davidic Psalter of Psalms 51-72. The first time I read the psalm online it lacked the superscription, which is typically considered “added” material anyway; however, the superscription endows the psalm with a concreteness and vigor I find necessary and compelling: “To the leader. A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.” The tradents “Davidized” this psalm by identifying the prayer with the narrative found in 2 Samuel 11-12, where David murders Uriah and commits adultery, to say the very least, with Bathsheba. In my Old Testament class, we would joke that David was trying to see how many of the ten commandments he could break at one time, but it was truly difficult to wrestle with the depravity and sexual violence of Israel’s treasured King. On the surface it often seemed that Israel was obsessed with David, deeming him a “man after God’s own heart.” Yet, as my professor, Dr. Strawn, would point out, other translations like the CEB designate David as “a man of God’s own choosing,” and it would be more accurate to say that Israel is less intrigued with David as they are with God’s faithfulness to David despite David’s well-documented flaws and committed atrocities. Indeed, David’s sin is “ever before” him (v.3). Unlike our culture of denial and cover-up though, David confesses and asks for God’s judgment, which is a bold request and one we are too hesitant to pray. As the rest of the historical books reveal, God answers and David suffers the consequences of his actions with the death of his firstborn son and Absalom, and it will be the very child conceived with Bathsheba, Solomon, who is given what David is denied: building the temple, receiving wisdom, ushering in a peaceful reign.

As easy as it is to condemn David, when hearing this psalm in the context of the Anthropocene and climate sin, I too can cry, “I know my transgressions,” and “have done evil in your sight.” In the 2 Samuel narrative, the Hebrew emphasizes how David “takes” what he wants just as we take and take from the Earth. The desire for truth in our inward being is a desire we therefore must echo and be unafraid to cultivate, owning up to and facing the exploitative, death-dealing ways we have treated the Earth, the violence we have committed against it like David against Bathsheba. We can be unafraid to confess because we face a God whose judgment is not aimed at further destruction, but is a rescue and saving help. The sin David describes is a filth that pollutes his living space, clothing, and even inner being; the sin feels heavy and inescapable. If we look at plastics, for example, we can likewise find them all around, even inside us. How can we escape this sin? From where is our help to come? ​

An escalating trio of Yahweh’s characteristics is employed and alludes to the “mercy formula” in Exodus 34:6 as David petitions Yahweh to show what he knows to be inherent to the deity: “mercy,” “steadfast love,” and “compassion.” The effects of God’s mercy are what combat the multiform dimensions of sin entangled in our reality, not so that we can return to our state before sin, but so that we might be made a new creation. There is no going back for us in the Anthropocene, and there was no going back for David. However, with responsibility and ownership comes the potential for new life, a way forward with an abiding, transformed core that does not forget the past but can better live into the future. ​

There is no going back for us in the Anthropocene, and there was no going back for David. However, with responsibility and ownership comes the potential for new life

Ambivalence is revealed in this psalm as the temptation that stands between us and enduring healing. Just as David acknowledges and conflates his sins against neighbor as sins against God, so too our sins against creation are one with sins against our Creator. The literary concentric structure of v.3-11 “blot out,” “wash me,” “cleanse me,” “that I may be clean,” “wash me,” “blot out,” is a sequence our lives should be shaped by, urgently, eagerly seeking change that enables renewal and rebirth in our homes and communities. We have no promise of an easy way out, and if we continue to look at David’s example, the road in front of us is surely as difficult and grief-stricken. Yet, God promises God’s presence and a sustaining and willing spirit for each of us, which we will need to combat the climate crisis and begin binding the wounds of ourselves and the world around us. Somehow our lament, self-surrender, and the reorientation of our desires toward truth and holiness that wills life for all creation is met with the divine embrace of a God whose love and faithfulness ever exceeds our own. Praise be. ​

Works Cited:
Zenger, Erich, Frank-Lothar Hossfeld, and Linda M. Maloney. “Psalm 51.” In Psalms 2: A Commentary on Psalms 51-100, edited by Klaus Baltzer, 11–25. 1517 Media, 2005. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvb6v84t.9.

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Ashtyn Adams is a Seminary Intern at Creation Justice Ministries. Ashtyn earned her B.A. in Religion from Pepperdine University and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Divinity at Duke University.

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