Rev. Mandy Sloan Flemming
Laguna Beach UMC
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Laguna Beach UMC
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Psalm 139
1O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
2You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you
discern my thoughts from far away.
3You search out my path and my lying down, and are
acquainted with all my ways.
4Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you
know it completely.
5You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your
hand upon me.
6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so
high that I cannot attain it.
7Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I
flee from your presence?
8If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make
my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9If I take the wings of the morning and settle at
the farthest limits of the sea,
10even there your hand shall lead me, and your
right hand shall hold me fast.
11If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,” 12even the darkness is not
dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to
you.
13For it was you who formed my inward parts; you
knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14I praise you, for I am fearfully and
wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.
15My frame was not hidden from you, when I was
being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16Your 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.
17How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How
vast is the sum of them!
18I try to count them—they are more than the
sand; I come to the end—I am still with you.
19O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and
that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—20those who speak of you
maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil!
21Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who
rise up against you? 22I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them
my enemies.
23Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
24See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
One: The Word of God, for us, the People of God.
ALL: Thanks be to God.
ALL: Thanks be to God.
Let us pray: May the
words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O
Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.
There
are no more radical words in the Bible than the opening lines of this Psalm, “O
Lord, you have searched me and known me.” This Psalm is intimate in ways that
are almost unnerving, “You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you
discern my thoughts from far away.” On first read, this Psalm paints God to be
the most invasive sort of Big Brother, and we are merely characters in the
Orwellian dystopia in which we have no privacy or freedom. A text that appears to be
intimately personal becomes deeply political without much effort, because it
addresses quietly and quickly some complicated aspects of our relationship with
God.
If ever there was a week in which we
could use some comforting words on Sunday, it was this one. From local news –
the death of our brother Don Beaver, to national news – the call to prayer for unattended
migrant children, to international news – the awful news of Malaysian Flight 17
that was shot down over the Ukraine and the continued horrors in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict – we needed some comfort. It was a week in which almost nothing seemed
to be at peace, a week when unrest ruled. This Psalm reads, initially, like a
word of comfort. I most desperately want to hear it this way. But the problem
is that the demands of the world shout louder than the resolute whispers of the
Psalmist. So we must listen harder.
What do we make of the opening lines, then? “O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.” Something new strikes me in this reading. God is a very active participant in the life of the Psalmist, God is the one who knows and discerns and searches.
This week, the Bishop in the California-Pacific Annual Conference, Minerva Carcaño, has urged all of the pastors and congregations to join in an interfaith call to prayer for unaccompanied migrant children. This topic has been gaining attention on all sides. Her urging caught my attention, because she sought to engage us in prayer by “helping us to move away from a polarized and hostile narrative to a narrative of compassion and justice that reflects our faith values.” This topic was no longer an “issue.” Our Bishop reminds us, “These are children, and as people of faith and justice, we cannot just turn a blind eye or turn them away. These migrant children are God’s children and therefore our youngest and most vulnerable brothers and sisters for whom we must care.”[1] We must care, because God has cared first. The Lord searches out our paths, who knows when we…. when they, the unaccompanied children of Central America – lie down and when they rise up. There is one who watches, one who waits, one who hopes that we – the people with tender hearts and political influence – will guide these children on a path to safety and rest. (For more information and guides on how we can help, see http://www.theyarechildren.com.)
The next stanza of this Psalm underscores our knowledge of God’s omnipresence in the world, “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.” It is easy to see how this soothes the soul of the lost and wandering. The Psalmist who confesses many times to feeling targeted and alone, writes this with a calm assurance. But the comfort here extends beyond a personal conviction of God’s presence – it is an invitation for us to see and know God even in the most unreachable places. For 4 months, we have been waiting for news about Malaysia Flight 370, which disappeared without a trace into the Indian Ocean in March, carrying the lives of 239 passengers with it. This week, we heard the devastating news of Malaysia Flight 17, which was shot down by a surface-to-air missile over the Ukraine on Thursday. All 295 passengers died in the incident, and in such stories as these, it seems as though there is no hope. These 534 people have died an innocent and tragic death. And yet, we hear this strange –almost eerie- word of comfort, “If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.” None of us can know the horrors of these incidents, but we can know that God was present, holding them fast. There is something redemptive about God’s willingness to be present even in the most perilous of times. This knowledge permits us the freedom to be more courageous, more bold. The promise that God’s hand shall lead us and hold us fast is universal, even in the farthest reaches of our journeys. This word is redemptive for those who “Make their beds in Sheol,” and those who ascend to heaven. We don’t always intend to make our beds in the darkest of places, but when we do, we are promised that God abides with us.
What do we make of the opening lines, then? “O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.” Something new strikes me in this reading. God is a very active participant in the life of the Psalmist, God is the one who knows and discerns and searches.
This week, the Bishop in the California-Pacific Annual Conference, Minerva Carcaño, has urged all of the pastors and congregations to join in an interfaith call to prayer for unaccompanied migrant children. This topic has been gaining attention on all sides. Her urging caught my attention, because she sought to engage us in prayer by “helping us to move away from a polarized and hostile narrative to a narrative of compassion and justice that reflects our faith values.” This topic was no longer an “issue.” Our Bishop reminds us, “These are children, and as people of faith and justice, we cannot just turn a blind eye or turn them away. These migrant children are God’s children and therefore our youngest and most vulnerable brothers and sisters for whom we must care.”[1] We must care, because God has cared first. The Lord searches out our paths, who knows when we…. when they, the unaccompanied children of Central America – lie down and when they rise up. There is one who watches, one who waits, one who hopes that we – the people with tender hearts and political influence – will guide these children on a path to safety and rest. (For more information and guides on how we can help, see http://www.theyarechildren.com.)
The next stanza of this Psalm underscores our knowledge of God’s omnipresence in the world, “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.” It is easy to see how this soothes the soul of the lost and wandering. The Psalmist who confesses many times to feeling targeted and alone, writes this with a calm assurance. But the comfort here extends beyond a personal conviction of God’s presence – it is an invitation for us to see and know God even in the most unreachable places. For 4 months, we have been waiting for news about Malaysia Flight 370, which disappeared without a trace into the Indian Ocean in March, carrying the lives of 239 passengers with it. This week, we heard the devastating news of Malaysia Flight 17, which was shot down by a surface-to-air missile over the Ukraine on Thursday. All 295 passengers died in the incident, and in such stories as these, it seems as though there is no hope. These 534 people have died an innocent and tragic death. And yet, we hear this strange –almost eerie- word of comfort, “If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.” None of us can know the horrors of these incidents, but we can know that God was present, holding them fast. There is something redemptive about God’s willingness to be present even in the most perilous of times. This knowledge permits us the freedom to be more courageous, more bold. The promise that God’s hand shall lead us and hold us fast is universal, even in the farthest reaches of our journeys. This word is redemptive for those who “Make their beds in Sheol,” and those who ascend to heaven. We don’t always intend to make our beds in the darkest of places, but when we do, we are promised that God abides with us.
Ultimately, this Psalm offers an
assurance for who we are as individuals. “For it was you who formed my inward
parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am
fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very
well.” I love this passage because it holds significant pastoral care
ramifications for who we are as God’s children. We are trapped in a linear
chronology, who live in a timeline defined by past, present and future. We can
only wait and see what God has intended for us, but this Psalm reminds us that
though we may be people bound by time, God is not. God knows us in our
fullness. Not only as infants, knit together in our mother’s wombs, but as
souls who are beloved and sought after by a God of relentless love and grace. The
Psalmist writes, “My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in
secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 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.”
What does this say about our
relationship with God, that God knows us more intimately, fully and graciously
than we could imagine? In this Psalm there is no consequence for who we are as
“known” people. By this, I mean that God is not seeking after our paths and
learning our innermost thoughts as a means to punitive action. Rather, God
seeks to know us so as to give us comfort. Just as we are known by God, so is
God carefully revealing God’s own self to us. In this Psalm, the “I” and “Thou”
are in relationship with one another. “Walter Brueggemann describes this
relationship by saying, ‘The Psalms are prayers addressed to a known, named,
identifiable You," not an anonymous higher power. What begins as a
revelation of God’s knowledge of us ends as a promise of what we can know of
God. Just as we are known, we are invited to know. Martin Buber, an early twentieth-century
Jewish philosopher, offered this insight concerning the relationship between God
and humankind. God is the instigator of the “I” and “Thou,” and God invites the
intersection of the Sacred and the Profane.
Buber’s paraphrase of this Psalm is
simply, “Where I wander - You!
Where I ponder - You!
Only You, You again,
always You!
You! You! You!
When I am gladdened - You!
When I am saddened -
You!
Only You, You again, always You!
You! You! You!
Sky is You, Earth is
You!
You above! You below!
In every trend, at every end,
Only You, You again,
always You!
You! You! You!”[2]
This Psalm is personal, it is
universal and it is political. It offers us comfort, just as it has comforted
many through all generations. Even before the Psalmist wrote these words, we
hear God’s promise to Jacob in his dream, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham
your father and the God of Isaac; … Know that I am with you and will
keep you wherever you go; for I will not leave you until I have done what I
have promised you.” (Genesis 28: 10-15) What God has promised to Jacob, God has
promised to us: that we may be relentlessly comforted, searched for, guided,
and formed in the love and grace of our creator, who knits us together and
knows all of our days.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit we pray.
Amen.
Pastoral Prayer:
Let us remember that it is most noble to give before we
are asked for it ...
Let us remember that our gratefulness to God’s awesome gifts
is to protect them ..
Let us remember that children are a mighty & priceless blessing to us and not a curse ..
Let us remember as parents & guardians of our imperative to be a source of comfort to them ..
Let us remember that we’ll be remembered by our care & concern for the voiceless
Let us remember that our joy is in giving rather than in receiving!
Let us remember that in God, we seek refuge and find strength in reclaiming and restoring the lost rights of His most awesome creation and gift to us - our children.
Let us remember that children are a mighty & priceless blessing to us and not a curse ..
Let us remember as parents & guardians of our imperative to be a source of comfort to them ..
Let us remember that we’ll be remembered by our care & concern for the voiceless
Let us remember that our joy is in giving rather than in receiving!
Let us remember that in God, we seek refuge and find strength in reclaiming and restoring the lost rights of His most awesome creation and gift to us - our children.
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