Sermon-of-the-Month for February, 2006: No Escape From Love
Psalm 139:1--18
1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
O LORD, you know it completely.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
7 Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,"
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 I try to count them "”they are more than the sand;
I come to the end "”I am still with you.
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23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
24 See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Somehow, as I pondered Psalm 139 this week, some other thoughts and phrases kept intruding into the ancient text, and I found myself with a psalm something like this:
O Information Technology,
you have searched me and known me;
You probably know when I sit down and when I rise up.
You definitely know from my EZ Pass log where I have traveled and traversed;
And you are likely acquainted with my marketing predilections.
Even before I've completed typing my name into the first field on your website, you know me completely and have already filled out the remaining ones with my address, phone, and e-mail.
You hem me in, behind and before, electronically as well as by paper trail, not to mention that EZ Pass,
and you lay your cybernetic hand upon me, patting my back and saying, "You need this -- Go for it!"
Where can I go from your knowledge?
Or where can I flee from your database?
If I check my mailbox, you are there.
If I use my credit card, you are there.
If I take the wings of the DSL and log into your website - especially there you seem to have my number;
Even your password-protected, secure sign-in and your privacy policy do not comfort me....
Search me, O Information Technology, and know my consumer preferences,
Test me and see if there are any unrecognized and unmet desires in me.
And lead me in the way of everlasting transparency.
You get the point, I think. Now given the open book reality of so much of our lives, who would possibly want a God who knows even more about us than could be contained on many megabytes of disk space. We know that from the very beginning, we were uncomfortable with an all-seeing God. Adam and Eve, that would be you and me of course, were ashamed of what they had done - tried to be as all-knowing as God. And so they unsuccessfully attempted to hide from God among the trees and shrubbery of the Garden of Eden. Maybe he'll just forget about us and let us go on living in this delightful garden. "But the Lord God called and said, 'Where are you?'" Not that God had to ask; he just wanted to give Adam and Eve the small dignity of revealing themselves rather than being ferreted out. No hiding - it's all there for God to see: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Do we really want a God like that? A God for whom our privacy policies have no effect?
Even the Psalmist, in the one we call #139 seems to have a touch of ambivalence about such a God. He speaks of being "hemmed in" by God, and that sounds somewhat uncomfortable and restrictive; he speaks of "fleeing" from God's presence, and "fleeing" implies some degree of desire for escape. Was the Psalmist absolutely certain he wanted a God such as that...before whom our life is such an open book that the Lord knows even those things we keep secret from those we are most intimate with in life. And what may be even worse, God knows things about us that we keep hidden from ourselves; the truths about us that we bury deep because they are too painful to allow to surface. But God knows: the good...the bad...the ugly. No hiding place. We might as well fire our public relations department and save the money.
In the late 1800's a poet named Francis Thompson wrote a poem titled, "The Hound of Heaven." Hounds are noted for ferreting out things that try to hide.
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped...
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat"”and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet"”
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."
"If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
If I go down to hell, the underworld - by gosh you're there too; the very place we thought meant eternal separation from you.
If I take the wings of the morning and sail away to the ends of the sea - well, there are no ends for you; my boat of escape is also your home."
* * * * * *
I know...it's time for this sermon to turn the corner. So let's hang a left, or a right and head for the truth that lies behind this discomforting aspect of God: Only a God who knows us so completely...only a God from whom there is no hiding...only a God who is there with us in our little hells as well as our lush gardens. Only such a God as that can heal us...make us whole...save us from ourselves.
If I put out good money...or am fortunate enough to have good health insurance...and I go to a counselor, a psychologist, a psychotherapist to help me heal my broken parts, and share some deep things of my life but am not completely forthcoming and hold back some of hidden stuff - I will likely not be healed...because it is the very stuff I desire to keep under wraps that needs the cleansing power of daylight in the counselor's office.
Fortunately for us, God is a God who doesn't have to probe to know us well, certainly not a God who knows us better than we know ourselves. And further, fortunately - this all-knowing God is a God of love who wills for us to be healed, to overcome that deep dis-ease that lies at the heart and that plagues our life and burdens our soul.
Some people come to believe that yes, God, can heal them, if they present themselves as worthy to God...worthy to be healed. What a delusion! This view picks up on the familiar "salvation by works" scheme that can still hang on even when we speak about God's grace, and that can work within us subtly. It's the spiritual version of "God helps those who help themselves." But the problem is we can't help ourselves when it comes to healing our deepest wounds; if we could, we'd need only Coach God to give us that locker-room pep talk: "Come on - you can do it. Get out there and give it your best!" But that kind of God doesn't help much with a condition such as St. Paul described: "The good that I would I do not, and that which I would not I do; and there is no health in me." In other words, my best is not going to be enough for what I really long for. With God as Spiritual Coach, we're back in the old hiding mode, putting on our best face to try to please the God who knows our best and worst more than we do. So give it up.
And be grateful that this searching, discerning, all-knowing, ever-present God is a God of love, before whom we stand spiritually naked to be clothed with the garments of salvation...wholeness, healing...restoration to a right relationship to God, to others, and to our truest self.
The ultimate assurance we have that this all-knowing God is our only hope for healing lies in the reality we just celebrated at Christmas: Emmanuel...God-with-us. Despite knowing all there is to know about us - the good, the bad, and the ugly - God has chosen not to float above us in some kind of holy hovercraft, too glorified to mix it up with us. But rather to be with us and for us. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have beheld his glory" - right here on this messy, muddy earth amid all the things we would otherwise work hard to keep hidden.
"Search me, O God, and know my heart (you will anyway);
test me and know my thoughts (I couldn't prevent it if I tried).
See if there is any hurtful way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting."
Amen.
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