Psalm 15 | Wayfarer

O Lord, who may abide in your tent?
Who may dwell on your holy hill?
Psalm 15:1 (NRSVCE)

Acceptance.
Entrance.
Cutting the mustard.
Making the grade.
The keys to the kingdom.
The punched ticket.
The front of the line.

Along my life journey, I’ve observed a lot of mental and spiritual energy is devoted to who is in and who is out. In fact, I’ve known and spent time in religious groups whose applied theology comes down to intense behavior modification rooted in fear of social and spiritual rejection and ostracization.

Reading the song lyrics of today’s Psalm, I have to remind myself that in David’s day, the center of the sacrificial worship system set up by Moses (which we read about in the chapter-a-day journey through Exodus that we just completed) continued God’s traveling tent sanctuary that had been set up in various places but which David set on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. David’s dream was to construct a permanent temple structure. That dream would be ultimately fulfilled by his son, Solomon. Until then, the ol’ tent temple was used and people would have to ascend the hill where it resided to conduct their ritual sacrifices and offerings.

Today’s song reads like a moral check-list, and some scholars think it may have been used as some kind of liturgy of questions that those pilgrims wanting to enter the sanctuary area had to go through. In other words, “Do you cut the righteous mustard enough to gain entrance?”

In the chapter-a-day journey through Exodus, I was struck time-and-time-again by the ways in which Jesus and His teaching changed the paradigm. He brought a more mature understanding of Spirit and relationship with God. Jesus spoke out against the religious do-gooders and spent most of his time among the sinners who didn’t cut the righteous and religious mustard. He welcomed sinners ostracized by His Temple cohorts, preached repentance of the heart that leads to real change rather than social behavior modification which leads to suppression of our true spiritual selves, secret sins, and false fronts.

As Paul wrote to Jesus’ followers in Rome (Rom 2:4): God’s kindness is what leads to repentance. I’ve observed along the way is that we humans always want to go back to the “my moral purity leads to acceptance“ model.

But that doesn’t mean I completely dismiss the heart of what David is singing about in the lyrics of today’s psalm because there’s another important life lesson connected here. David goes through his checklist of righteous behaviors:

Do the right thing
Speak truth from your heart
Don’t slander others
Do right by others
Don’t pile on when others are beat-down
Honor God
Keep your promises
Be generous
Don’t take bribes.

He then ends with “those who do these things shall never be moved.” In other words, truly living the right way and doing the right things are the basis of a solid, unshakeable life. You sleep well at night. You aren’t sneaking around trying to get away with things. You aren’t secretly living in shame and the paranoid fear of being found out, nor are you trying to always stay one step ahead of religious checklist keepers and their bandwagon of public shame which is always warmed-up and ready to drive you out into the wilderness of scandal and rejection.

So, in the quiet this morning I find myself back at my heart of hearts. Why would I want to live right and do right by God, myself, and others? Is it to keep up appearances and cut the mustard? Or is it because I’ve honestly come clean with God and those with whom I’m walking this life journey and received from them grace, forgiveness, and acceptance – which leads to so much gratitude that I genuinely want to change my ways and do the right things by them for all the right reasons?

Cutting the mustard, or coming clean? That is the question.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

perfect score — from emanuele75 via Flickr

Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord?
     Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right,
     speaking the truth from sincere hearts.
Psalm 115:1-2 (NLT)

In my daily vocation I help assess the quality of customer service being delivered on the phone by the individual sales and service agents of our clients. Our methodology is to drive our clients to be the absolute best that they can be. We don’t want them just to appease the customer, but to provide memorable, positive experiences. Therefore, our assessment scales tend to measure against a high standard. It is hard to get 100% on an assessment because it requires most agents to step out of their comfort zone, go the extra mile, break old habits, and develop new service skills that make them stand out in the customer’s mind.

I’ve been surprised over time how much push back we get, not so much from front-line agents who don’t want to change, but also from supervisors and managers who believe in low standards. Many managers start with the premise that everyone should score 100% on every assessment and build their assessments to make that happen.

As I read today’s chapter it read like a Quality Assessment form for life. Who is going to make it onto God’s Holy Hill and into heaven? At first reading it’s easy to think, “Oh yeah, I do that for the most part.” But, thinking back to my post yesterday I realize that you can find plenty of examples of me blowing it on every piece of criteria outlined on Psalm 15’s assessment form. God sets an impossibly high standard – moral perfection, in fact – for entrance to His Holy Hill.

Our customer service QA forms set a high customer service standard, but even we don’t expect perfection. How can I possibly measure up to God’s standard of perfection?

I can’t, and I never will.

That’s one of the biggest misconceptions about God’s Message. It’s not about what we do. It’s about what God did when He sent Jesus to bear the penalty for our shortcomings, to forgive us, and to pay the way for our entrance to God’s Holy Hill. My daily striving to live up to God’s standard continues, not because I’ve got to earn my entrance to heaven, but because I want to please the One who paid the ultimate price for my entry fee with His own blood.