June 13, 2004
Text: Psalm 51
James William Kilgore had been a fugitive for 26 years when he was apprehended in South Africa in November of 2002. In April of this year, he was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison for a 1975 bomb offence and six additional months for passport fraud. He pled guilt to second-degree murder for the shooting death of a bank customer in an April 1975 bank robbery in Carmichael, California.
That bank robbery was conducted by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, which included Emily and William Harris, Steven Soliah, Wendy Yoshimura, Patricia Hearst and Kathleen Soliah.
Perhaps you recognize the name of Kathleen Soliah. She was a fugitive too. She changed her name to "Sara Jane Olson" in the mid-1970s, and remained a fugitive for 24 years. She lived as a typical soccer-mom in an affluent neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota. But on June 16, 1999, her past caught up with her. She plead guilty to helping SLA members plant bombs underneath police cars at a Los Angeles International House of Pancakes in 1975. She was eventually given a 14 year sentence.
These are just two of the notable fugitive stories in the newspapers, but there are countless others. People who have committed crimes often run. Sometimes they hope that after 10, 20, or 30 years people just won't care about their crimes anymore. But people do. And the police do.
United States Attorney Kevin V. Ryan, who personally participated in the prosecution of the the James Kilgore case, said "Let it be clear that we will never forget, nor tire, in our efforts to bring to justice those who plan or perpetrate terrorist acts against us. The apprehension of James Kilgore in South Africa nearly three decades after he participated in the violent activities of the Symbionese Liberation Army demonstrates that this is so. We will not allow the passage of time to deter us from bringing to justice any terrorist, whether domestic or foreign." (1)
People who run from the law often find that the law seldom forgets. In the same way, people who run from God find that God never forgets. But it seems that many people would rather run than face up to their wrong-doing. Many of us are fugitives from God.
In our passage from Psalm 51, we discover the true greatness of David in that he longed to come clean with God. "I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me," he writes (51:3).
The story behind the psalm is told in 2 Samuel 11 and 12. It's a sordid tale of adultery, intrigue, and murder. David had deliberately taken another man's wife, Bathsehba, and committed adultery with her. Using his authority as king, he had sent Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, to the front line of battle, where he was killed. Then he had taken Bathsheba as his wife. In due time, they had a child, but the child died shortly after he was born. David apparently thought nothing of his crime until the prophet Nathan accused him to his face. Then in tears, David confessed. David was the greatest king in Israel's history, but he acted like the worst.
David recognized that sin is sin, and it isn't going to go away even if we run from it for 26 years. David turned himself in saying, "Create in me a clean heart and put a new and right spirit within me" (v. 10).
One of the problems with sin is that it is like a spider's web reaching out to entangle others in the effects of the sin. Sin is not just between us and God. It has a social dimension, reaching out and wrapping itself around relationships with children, relatives, friends and neighbors. The only way to get untangled is through repentance and confession. We have to come clean with God and with the community.
When fugitives confess, they begin to break free. As the word of truth is spoken, the many tangles begin to fall away. When a sinner makes a sacrifice acceptable to God - a broken spirit, and a broken and contrite heart (v. 17) - then the process of divine blotting and washing and cleansing and purging gets underway, a process that leads quickly and completely to a clean heart and a right spirit.
But nothing can happen without the truth. No cleansing can occur unless we put aside our fugitive ways and confess the truth about our lives. No inner wisdom or joy or gladness can really be experienced until we admit that we are in need of forgiveness.
Perhaps real forgiveness starts when we say, "I'm not who you think I am. I'm really a sinner." Romans 3:23 says, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."
In an interview with a Christian magazine, Philip Yancey once said, "The only essential difference that I can tell between Christians and non-Christians is not necessarily morality, it's that Christians have acknowledged that we're sinners and we can't make it on our own. We're failures and will continue to fail. And the church in the year 3000 will be just as full of problems as the church in the year 2000, as it was in the year 1000. No other institutions that I know of recognize that. Governments don't, a lot of other religions don't. But that's the baseline of Christianity. If we deny that, and try to put on a good face, then we fall into the trap of the original Pharisees of just trying to make ourselves look good and even make God look good. But God didn't seem all that concerned with it. He became sin for us, as Paul said." (2)
David recognized that he was a sinner. He cried out in spiritual anguish and despair. He realized that his sin was serious. It was so serious that he felt utter separation from God. And for David, that was the one thing he could not stand. His separation from God filled him with pain. He missed that intimate relationship he had with the Creator.
All the joy that he had in God in the past was gone. There was only one way to salvage his life: He needed to call on God. He pronounced himself a sinner. He threw himself on the mercy of God, knowing that he deserved no mercy.
His prayer was an admission of guilt. He did not run from God. He didn't try to maintain his innocence, try to defend his actions or try to explain his motives. He was honest with God. Such honesty with ourselves and with God is rare.
A Christian magazine writer, Robert Wolgemuth, reported the story of Sean, who took drugs and sold them to other kids. "He befriended an elderly widow near his home, then stole her heirloom jewelry, pawned it and paid cash for a brand-new Porsche. As he'd done countless times before, Sean's dad intervened and 'fixed' his son's problem."
The writer says, "One day at summer camp, Sean asked me if I'd go for a walk with him in the nearby woods. As we walked, he began to pour out his regret for his evil and perverse life. He asked if I'd pray with him.
"We found a large fallen tree and Sean climbed up, sitting cross-legged on the log. He prayed first, and I heard words of confession and remorse. This wayward and rebellious youngster cried out to God for grace and forgiveness.
"I opened my eyes to see if this really was the same young man who 'hated everyone because they're all so stupid.' Here's what I saw. Sean, the bad boy, was sitting in God's awesome presence with his hands and face turned upward. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. 'I'm sorry, God, for the terrible things I've done,' Sean prayed. 'Please forgive me and help me to be new.'" (3)
That was what David did, and what we must do if we are to find our peace with God. David prayed, "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" (v.4).
When he said, "You alone," he was not trying to imply that humans do not sin against one another. But he was saying that all sin is basically an affront to God. His sin had broken his relationship with God, and that was foremost on his mind.
The writer of 1 John reminds us, "If we say that we have not sinned, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:8-9).
David ended with these words, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit."
Here, the psalmist prayed for the power not to sin again. He wanted a clean heart that can stay clean. This prayer for a clean heart is unique in the psalms. New hearts are given to people because those new hearts allow them to walk in God's way.
David requested renewal and re-creation. To be forgiven is not to return to some former status quo. Rather to be forgiven is to be changed. It is to slough off the old and put on the new, to exchange the heart of despair for a heart of service of God. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!" This can only happen by the grace of God.
Finally, David showed us the perfect model of grace in verse 17 when he says, "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."
Oscar Thomas Olson once told this story. As a boy he begged and pleaded for an air rifle, until his father finally bought one for him. One day he was up in the barn loft, shooting his new gun, when he heard the breaking of glass. He remembered that the old-fashioned storm windows from their house—the wooden-sash type that are removed in the spring and reinstalled in the fall--were stored in the loft. Sure enough, there they were, piled together in a vertical stack against the wall. The pellet from the air rifle had broken the panes in every window except the last one. Quickly young Oscar Thomas moved the unbroken window to the front of the stack, to hide the evidence.
His summer was ruined. He got no joy from his new air rifle. Every day brought him closer to autumn and the day the windows would be brought out to be installed on the house. To make matters worse, his father seemed to go out of his way to brag on him, to tell all their friends and neighbors and relatives what a good boy his son was and how proud he was of him.
Finally the boy could stand it no longer. He went to his father and told him how he had broken all the windows.
“Oh, I knew that,” said his father. “I was just waiting for you to tell me.”
“I never felt so close to my father in my whole life as I did right then,” Olson said.
God uses broken things to bring us back and to bring us close--broken bread, broken relationships, broken bodies." (4)
It's time to take a moment to account for ourselves. To say to the Lord God, "I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence" (vv. 3-4).
We won't be busted, we'll be forgiven. God is not a lawman, looking to slap the cuffs on us. While the FBI wants to lock criminals up, God desires to set sinners free. God isn't out to bust us, but instead to blot out our transgressions, wash us thoroughly from our iniquity, and cleanse us from our sin (vv. 1-2). The Lord wants us free of all sinful entanglements and life-sapping lies, so that we can enjoy the liberty and honesty of life as a child of God.
Endnotes:
1) http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/can/press/html/2004_04_26_kilgore.html. Retrieved 6/9/04.
2) Philip Yancey, quoted by Doug Duncan, "Thoughtful Evangelical: Philip Yancey Interview," The Door, May-June 2000, 11.
3) Robert Wolgemuth, "He cheated on everything," Men of Integrity, July-August 2000,
www.christianityonline.com/menofintegrity.
4) John Robert Mc Farland, Now That I Have Cancer I am Whole. Andrews and McMeel. Kansas City. Page 251-258.