Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
NL Daily Devotion for Wednesday, March 10, 2021
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
I don’t think God wants our sprit broken. I might replace the word “spirit” here with the word “self-willfulness.” I’ve been full of this self-will my whole life, this grandiose belief that I know everything about everything and I don’t need God or anyone else to tell me what to do. Especially before I got into recovery, but at times even since.
In the Jewish tradition, when a person sinned, she could sacrifice an animal at the temple as penance and be forgiven. The Psalmist is telling us that an animal won’t cut it. The only sacrifice God wants is humility. An admission that I’m not running the universe, that I don’t know everything, and that I’m willing to do what God calls me to do—love and serve others—rather than being solely self-serving. God doesn’t “despise,” i.e. look down upon/regard as worthless, a broken and contrite heart the way humans might (we tend to see such things as weakness in western culture). Instead, God embraces our brokenness in God’s boundless mercy and grace.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Amen.
