You have given me an open ear

The season of Lent is upon us, and this year I have decided to approach it a little differently by adding instead of taking away: adding disciplines which I don't do regularly but wish I did, like memorize poetry and scripture, one poem or scripture passage every week of Lent.

This coming week's project is Psalm 40, which I have long counted among my favorites, but have never memorized. You may think it's a little ironic that my Lenten psalm of choice includes "Sacrifice and offering you have not desired," but the main reason this psalm pressed itself on me is the next phrase, "but you have given me an open ear." The note in the ESV says that the Hebrew is literally "ears you have dug for me." Commentators I have encountered recently do not believe this has anything to do with piercing a slave's ear with an awl as a mark of ownership, which was rather the popular explanation I grew up with, but they link it to the subsequent images in the psalm of allowing the word of God to penetrate deeply, into the ears and seeping right down into the dark and stubborn will. That sounds like a Lenten project tailor made for me this year.

Sacrifice and offering you have not desired,
but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.
Then I said, "Behold, I have come;
In the scroll of the book it is written of me:
I desire to do your will, O my God,
Your law is written within my heart.

This combines rather well with project number one, a wonderful penitential poem of John Donne. I've been imbibing this poem since Ash Wednesday, for which service my church choir sang a wonderful setting. We will sing it again tomorrow. As usual, I knew the tune before I knew the words, but now I know the words by heart too, and I'm so glad.

Wilt thou forgive the sin where I begun,
Which is my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sin through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

Wilt thou forgive the sin which I have won
others to sin, and made my sins their door?
Wilt thou forgive the sin that I did shun
a year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I've spun
my last thread, I shall perish on the shore.
Swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son
Shall shine, as He shines now and heretofore.
And having done that, thou hast done,
I fear no more.