Well, today's readings are a slightly odd mixture:

Psalm 19
Exodus 19:9b-15
Acts 7:30-40

I know it's rather irreverent, but the Exodus reading left me bemused and feeling more than a little mischievous.

The LORD said to Moses, "I will come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will believe you from now on." Moses told the LORD what the people had answered, and the LORD said to him, "Go to the people and tell them to spend today and tomorrow purifying themselves for worship. They must wash their clothes and be ready the day after tomorrow. On that day I will come down on Mount Sinai, where all the people can see me.  Mark a boundary around the mountain that the people must not cross, and tell them not to go up the mountain or even get near it. If any of you set foot on it, you are to be put to death; you must either be stoned or shot with arrows, without anyone touching you. This applies to both people and animals; they must be put to death. But when the trumpet is blown, then the people are to go up to the mountain."  Then Moses came down the mountain and told the people to get ready for worship. So they washed their clothes, and Moses told them, "Be ready by the day after tomorrow and don't have sexual intercourse in the meantime."

Exodus 19: 9b-15 GNB

It is the closing sentence that struck me: "Be ready by the day after tomorrow and don't have sexual intercourse in the meantime."

The NRSV renders it thus:  ‘Prepare for the third day; do not go near a woman.’

The KJV thus: 'Be ready against the third day: come not at your wives.'

The NIV thus:'Prepare yourselves for the third day. Abstain from sexual relations.'

It appealed to my sense of mischief, because I could envisage some old-style hell-fire preacher choosing this as his text.  In the GNB choice of words, no sex in 'the meantime' carries a whole heap of potential misappropriation following on from my recent sermon series on 'active waiting' as 'life in the meantime'.  As you can, those readers who've known me longest, I am still sat firmly on the 'silly settee'

But actually, when I be a teeny bit more serious, I am left with the fact that actually, there was no way Moses or anyone else could prove categorically that anyone other than themselves had obeyed this command, short of some extremely dodgy behaviour.  There had to be some kind of trust exercises, some kind of acceptance that we have no right to be privy to every part of people's lives, no right to ask certain questions of them.  We have to leave it between them and God.

All of which leads me into the verse or two from the psalm which struck me as I read them this morning:

But who can detect their errors?
Clear me from hidden faults.

Psalm 19:12

This is not talking about wilful disobedience to some (arbitrary) set of rules, it is about self-awareness and its limits.  This is not about me concealing my misdeeds from other people, but about being unaware of my shortcomings.  It reminds me that, no matter how obedient I am to the rules I have chosen to live by, I am not thereby made perfect or free from sin.  It reminds me that the transforming work of Christ in me is, temporally, if not theologically, incomplete.  It reminds me that I am, at best, 'work in progress'.

God of Sinai

Unapproachable

Untouchable

Issuing frightening words

Who can ever measure up?

Who can be truly clean?

Who can be properly free of the taint of sin?

If I confess the sins I know of,

The things I have done or failed to do

The attitudes I have cultivated or failed to cultivate,

I still fall short

Because my self knowledge in partial

I may think to lowly or too highly of myself

I may be unaware (blissfully?) of the way others see me

I may be ignorant of the consequences of this word or that action

My hidden faults

The 'unknown unknowns' of my imperfection

How can I confess what I do not know?

How can I be forgiven for what I cannot name?

Yet you forgive

You make me shiny and new

You give me umptieth chances

Not merely to do right and eschew wrong

Not simply to be good and avoid evil

But to grow

To grow -

In knowledge of who I am

In Christ

And what I called to be

With Christ

As your Spirit breathes life,

Abundant life,

Fulfilled and fulfilling life

Into my lungs.