Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false, and do not swear deceitfully.
I guess this sounds reasonable and right ... only the worthy shall be allowed to ascend the hill of the Lord, to stand in his holy place. But I think the interesting thing is how this reasonable logic has been obviatedby the gospel message ... now everyone is welcome. A homily I read recently speaks of this - link - and says, in part ...
... God the doorkeeper. Part of me would be very happy knowing that God has standards—high standards too—it’s the part of me that would look down on any club that would have me as a member …... I guess I want standards too. I guess I find it hard to believe that I don’t have to try and try and likely fail. I guess I’d rather fail than lay down the burden and let myself be loved. Because I guess it does come down to love and loving and being loved.
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...and the end of this homily reads, "Isn’t it sad? All the running we do, all the hiding, all the reaching after emptiness—when we could be resting in the great wide open arms of love."
So true. How we resist, and hide, and create barriers to these open arms of love just waiting for us. Through the structures of organzied churches very complex and complicated standards have been built up whereby only select people are thought to be "chosen." This has always felt adversarial to me. In actuality, this psalm states it so simpy: We shall stand in that holy place if we have clean hands and pure hearts, and by lifting our hearts to what is true and honest. I would say, yes, everyone is welcome here. This holy place is available to everyone. These open arms of love are there for us.
Gosh - maybe after reading what Larry had to say about clean hands - maybe clean hands (hands that follow church law) are irrelevant to reaching these open arms of love. Indeed, it seems the spirit of purity is all that is needed.
Hi Meredith :-) I think the gospel message is that there are no standards one must meet to approiach or to be accepted by God - at least that's the spin I like :-)
I like the way you spin it.
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