3. Who is Acceptable to God?
A Meditation of Psalm 15
Whenever I think of psalm 15, I remember my grandmother (mother’s mother). She passed away recently at the age of 105. This was one of her favorite psalms. Even when I visited her a couple of years ago, she recited this psalm clearly and correctly without even a slip of tongue. It was as if it came from her heart. She enjoyed reciting psalms and hymns. I often think that not only did she recite this psalm, but also she lived it. That is what perhaps enabled her to live such a long life “without being shaken”.
This psalm consists of a question and its answer— a conversation between God and man. Man asks a question to God, and God answers.
Before Solomon built a temple, there used to be a tent for Yahweh, and the people of Israel believed that Yahweh dwelt in that tent. Mount Zion was also considered a dwelling place of Yahweh. The question asked to Yahweh is this: Who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell in your holy mountain? This is similar to a question people ask nowadays: Who will go to heaven? In other words, who is acceptable to God?
This is one of the most important questions we, human beings, have always been asking. It is natural for people to look for an ideal, a model, when they see different ways of life around. No one person’s life is exactly like that of another person. God is the one who knows everything, and if someone’s way of life is acceptable to God, that is the ideal life.
Although the question has been the same, the answer has not been the same. The answer varies from place to place, from time to time, from one culture to another culture, from one religious group to another religious group. Each religious group adheres to a set of beliefs and rituals, and they insist that those who follow them strictly will be acceptable to God. Each racial group holds somewhere in their mind a belief in the superiority of their race, and they can’t even imagine that someone out of their race will be acceptable to God. Our male-dominated culture has held the belief that masculinity is somehow more acceptable to God than femininity.
Into such a world of wrong-headed beliefs, occasionally comes a ray of light. Psalm 15 is such an enlightening piece of literature with lasting value. It gives a radically different answer to the question, “who is acceptable to God?” According to this psalm, it doesn’t matter what religious group one belongs to, or what race or nationality or gender one belongs to. It doesn’t matter what religious rituals one does or what religious beliefs someone holds. What matters is how someone lives his/her life, and how someone treats his/her fellow beings.
It is of primary importance that one has to speak truth from the heart. One has to be the same in and out. If someone is willing to present oneself to God as he/she is, God has no problem accepting that person. If a wolf-like person presents him/herself to God, God accepts that person gladly. Once someone becomes fully honest to oneself, to God and to others, then he/she gets transformed-- a wolf becomes a sheep; a sinner becomes a saint; a wicked person becomes a righteous person. But if a wolf-like person presents him/herself as a sheep, God cannot help him/her. That is dishonesty and hypocrisy.
The Pharisees at Jesus’ time believed that those who observed religious rules were acceptable to God. They presented themselves to God as sheep. It was in such a context that Jesus told them that a tax collector crying, “Lord, Have mercy on me” was acceptable to God, whereas, the Pharisee who presented to God as a righteous person was unacceptable. The prodigal son fully opened his heart to his father, while his older brother stayed outside justifying himself.
Let us ask that age-old question to ourselves: God, am I acceptable to you? I don’t need to become a saint for God to accept me. I only need to present myself as I am without any cover-up. It is up to God to make me a saint.
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