Nota
Bene:
What does a preacher talk about on a week in which a killer hurricane has
threatened your state for 10 days running while decimating the nearby Bahamas, a place
where some of your parishioners’ have family and roots? Somehow, preaching about the
destruction of cities (Jeremiah) seemed completely unacceptable. And preaching
on the return of a slave to its master (Philemon) in a parish which has worked
hard on racial justice and coming to grips with our local Jim Crow history also
seemed like a poor choice.
Finally,
a Gospel lesson written in the era after the Fall of the Temple in 70 CE that
speaks of families splitting apart over the way of Jesus seemed terribly
insensitive in a parish where two unexpected, painful deaths had occurred within families in the parish the past
week.
Fortunately,
the Psalm provided a text that spoke to this occasion. It became the text for
the sermon I preached this morning at St. Richard’s Church, Winter Park, which
follows below:
The
G-d Who Knows Us, The G-d We Can Trust
Text:
Psalm 139, 13 Pentecost, Proper 18
St.
Richard’s Church, Winter Park, FL
It is somewhat
unusual for a preacher to choose the Psalm of the day for the text of their
sermon. But it is my sense that today’s psalm has an important message for us.
And after a week of collectively holding our breath as a killer hurricane
lurked right off our coastline, leaving the Bahamas in ruin, for a psalm that
reassures us of G-d’s unfailing presence with us, the timing that could not be
much better.
The
recitation of psalms in worship, the ancient literature often attributed to King
David of Judah, is a long venerated practice. Psalms are used in all of the services
in our prayer book including our blessings of marriages and the committal of
our dead back into the hands of G-d. In our Sunday worship, Anglican chant
provides a choral recitation of verses of our psalms to which the congregation
respond with an antiphonal verse. This is one of the great treasures of the
Anglican tradition.
If the
psalms are an essential part of our communal worship and daily devotions, Psalm
139 is one of the more stellar of the 150 psalms in the Hebrew Scripture.
Beginning with the line “LORD, you have searched me out and known me,” Psalm
139 provides one side of an intimate discussion between the writer of the psalm
and the G-d that he experiences, a G-d whom we hear a lot about but never hear
directly from. I believe it has much to say to us about our relationships with
G-d here and now.
The
psalmist begins: “LORD, you have searched me out and known me; you know my
sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar.”
Two aspects
immediately come into focus here: G-d is omnipresent, present everywhere all
the time, and G-d is omniscient, aware of all things happening including those
which occur within the recesses of our souls.
At the
same time, the psalmist readily conveys the intimacy with which the divine and the
human engage one another. The use of the verb “to know” is important here. It is
the same verb used to describe the sexual relationship between Adam and Eve in
the Genesis account and it occurs seven times in this psalm. This is a G-d who
is simultaneously present in every part of the universe as well as a G-d with
whom an individual human being is intimately related. It is this kind of intimate
relationship that Holocaust era ethicist Martin Buber would describe as an
I-thou relationship, a relationship built on a deep, abiding mutual trust.
The
psalmist continues with a sense of how pervasive G-d’s presence and knowledge
really are regarding all living beings: “You trace my journeys and my
resting-places and are acquainted with all my ways.” There is no need to try to
hide from this G_d who is ever present and ever aware. Indeed, there is no way
to do that. But not all of us have always believed that. And if we did, we
weren’t always happy about it.
Our church
is partly to blame for that. To the degree our theology has been shaped by the negative
anthropologies of Augustine of Hippo and his successors, we have bought into a construct
of original sin said to have begun in the Garden of Eden and inherited by every
human being since. As a result of that original sin, G-d and humanity are
separated from one another and unless one picks the right theological formula to
buy into – and there are a wide number to choose from – that separation becomes
permanent at death with a G-d in heaven and the sinner in Hell.
In all
honesty, I have never found that construct even remotely persuasive. Indeed, if
I could point to an original sin of any religious body, it would be any
theology that ever made anyone believe they could be separated from their Creator.
From a pragmatic perspective, fear-driven
theologies are useful tools for convincing people to buy into a religious
construct. Fear sells. But fear-driven theologies are also transparently
manipulative. A god who must frighten people into believing a given set of
ideas may be a lot of things, but I don’t think it’s the G-d who is the source
and ground of all Being. And it’s definitely not the G_d that the Psalmist is
describing in today’s lessons.
Our
Eucharistic Prayer C reflects this notion of separation begging G-d to “Have
mercy upon us…for we are sinners in your sight.” St. Augustine of Hippo would
certainly approve of that language. But that is not what the Psalmist sees.
From the very beginning, G_d has been intimately involved in producing the
human being the psalmist has become: “For you yourself created my inmost parts;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.”
The end
result is, indeed, wonderful: “I will thank you because I am marvelously made,”
the Psalmist says, continuing, “[Y]our works are wonderful, and I know it well.” The Psalmist recognizes that he is one of
G-d’s countless wonderful works - as are we all.
So why
talk about this Psalm this morning? What does the Psalmist have to say to us
that we need to hear today?
First,
the Psalmist is reminding us that no matter what happens in our world and in
our lives, G-d is present. At our births, at our deaths and at all points in
between, G-d is present with us. I cannot tell you how much comfort that realization
has provided me over the past week of nervously watching the shifting tracks of
a killer hurricane.
Second, we do not have to do anything to become
or remain connected to this G-d from whom we have our very being. The G-d of
all Creation is not a Santa Claus of manipulative behavioral control. And we
are not fearful children subject to his arbitrary largesse. Even when we
neglect or reject relationship with G-d, our fundamental connection with G-d remains.
One of the more quoted lines from Trappist
Monk Thomas Merton’s many works came from his book Conjectures of a Guilty
Bystander, where he wrote:
At the center of our
being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a
point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is
never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is
inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own
will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure
glory of God in us.
Merton
understood well that all being comes from G-d and find its existence in G_d.
The connection
of our souls to our Creator is eternal, constant and unconditional.
Third,
the Psalmist is reminding us that we are never reducible to the worst things we
ever did in the sight of G-d. As “marvelously created” beings, we have the
potential for the greatest nobility as well as the deepest depravity. Which
part does G-d love? G-d loves all of us in our complexity, Shadow and
all.
But that is precisely why it is essential to
cultivate the intimate I-Thou relationship that the Psalmist points toward
here. We need G-d’s guidance in our life and G-d’s strength and courage to become
all of who we were created to be. And we need G-d’s help in forgiving ourselves
for our many failings so that we can forgive others with whom we share our life
journeys. Guidance, strength, courage and forgiveness are all essential tools for
living our daily lives. And they are essential tools in our callings to live
into our various roles within the Beloved Community.
Finally,
and most importantly, the Psalmist is pointing to a G-d whom we can trust. This
is not a G-d who manipulates us through fear or deceitful behavioral control.
This is not a G-d whose constant presence and unfailing love for us is
conditioned upon anything, including getting the theological formula right.
This is not a G-d who sees us through the lens of our sinfulness but rather
sees all of who we are and who we are capable of becoming, “wonderful works” who
are “marvelously created.”
This is a G-d worth worshiping. Indeed, this is
a G-d we can trust.
Our
collect for today captures that trustworthiness quite well and so I conclude
with it:
Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for,
as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never
forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our
Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for
ever. Amen.
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Harry Scott
Coverston
Orlando,
Florida
frharry@cfl.rr.com
hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com
If the unexamined life is not worth
living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is
not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.
For what does G-d require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?
(Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures)
Do not be daunted by the enormity
of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are
not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami
Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)
© Harry Coverston 2019
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