I want to talk about our Psalm today
We prayed together portions of Psalm 139 this morning. Most of this psalm is quite beautiful (though the ending is a bit challenging).
I’m going to read about 2/3rds of it, filling in some of verses we left out.
I want to invite you to listen with intention and prayer. Take a moment now to breathe, and open your heart and mind to what God’s spirit may be saying to you in this Psalm.
This is Psalm 139 verses 1 – 17
O God, you have searched me out and known me; *
you know my sitting down and my rising up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You trace my journeys and my resting-places *
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, *
but you, O God, know it altogether.
You press upon me behind and before *
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; *
it is so high that I cannot attain to it.
Where can I go then from your Spirit; *
where can I flee from your presence?
If I climb up to heaven, you are there; *
if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.
If I take the wings of the morning *
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there your hand will lead me *
and your right hand hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will cover me, *
and the light around me turn to night,”
Darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day; *
darkness and light to you are both alike.
For you yourself created my inmost parts; *
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I will thank you because I am marvelously made; *
your works are wonderful, and I know it well.
My body was not hidden from you, *
while I was being made in secret
and woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld my limbs, yet unfinished in the womb;
all of them were written in your book; *
they were fashioned day by day,
when as yet there was none of them.
How deep I find your thoughts, O God; *
how great is the sum of them!
If I were to count them, they would be more in number than the sand; *
to count them all, my life span would need to be like yours.
When I read this poem, I am reminded of something a very wise seminary professor, Dr. Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook, said:
“God loves you…in all your particularities.”
Let that sink in.
I think most of us believe that God loves us despite many of our particularities.
We think something along the lines of:
“Sure, God loves me…but that’s because God is so good at forgiving all my faults.”
Or we believe in some kind of generic love…love of humanity…that applies to us in some generic sense. God loves us generically as a human being, as a fellow child of God.
But that love isn’t very personal.
But this psalm says something very different.
The poet acknowledges that God knows every part of them.
God knows the words we want to say before we open our mouths…
God is familiar with all our habits and patterns…
And in light of all that, good and bad, God lays God’s hand upon us.
The poet doesn’t say God surrounds us with God’s self (which is love) despite knowing all these things.
It’s rather that God knows these things AND God surrounds us with love and lays God’s own hands upon us.
Sit with this longer. It’s pretty radical. What the poet is saying is:
God knows your tendency to be anxious and fearful, of doubt and lack of trust…
God knows your tendency to despise, ridicule, and put down the neighbor whom you disagree with politically and socially…
God knows the ways in which you close your heart off when you’re in pain…
God knows the suffering you cause yourself and others…
Knows your jealousy and envy of others…
knows your lust…
Knows your worship of money, accomplishments, and the esteem of others…
Knows your patterns of hoarding and insecurities…
And
“God loves you…in all your particularities.”
God does not love you despite these things…God loves you with all these particularities in mind.
And what do I mean by that? Am I suggesting that God approves of all these things?
No. Love and approval are not the same.
Most parents should be able to tell you that they do not approve of their child pushing a boundary or breaking a rule.
But they also, hopefully, will say that they don’t love their child despite their child’s misbehavior.
Loving one’s child despite their misbehavior, is to love only a part of the child…to only love the “good” child.
Rather, when a child misbehaves, and the parent isn’t completely drowning amidst the current stressors and pressures of COVID parenting, there is love there.
Love for the child’s willfulness and growing independence.
Love in terms of deep acceptance, seeing the child deeply and with compassion.
The parent sees the child acting out, and sees what is behind that…the child’s longing for attention, closeness, learning, growth…and the parent has compassion for that even while imposing a boundary or consequence…..or even while collapsing into a heap from sheer exhaustion.
It’s not that God approves of our patterns of suffering and alienation.
But rather God sees how that plays out in your life…truly sees…sees below the surface.
God sees where those behaviors comes from in you…sees what journeys and wounds have created them…and what deep needs you are trying to care for with some misguided strategy…and has compassion for you.
“God loves you…in all your particularities.”
This is a pretty intense kind of love. It is truly unconditional love. It is a kind a love most of us never experience anywhere else in our lives.
And so it can be hard to believe that this kind of love is really available. We might laugh it off as an ideal fairy tale.
It can be overwhelming and put us off. We dismiss it not as fantasy but because it’s simply too painful to let in.
It can be kind of shocking…even offensive.
Certainly the poet who wrote Psalm 139 felt some of those ways.
After describing how God knows themselves completely… paraphrasing the psalm, the poet declares: “this is too much! How can I get away from this love?”
The poet obviously doesn’t actually go to the grave, or go to heaven.
But metaphorically…
Do we hear this unconditional love and float on the clouds with an artificial high joy that isn’t rooted in deep knowing? A kind of high joy that won’t last long when things get hard? Have you gone to heaven?
Or do we push it away? Reject it? Engage in self-doubt, self-attack, self-pity? Do we go to the grave?
In preparing for this sermon…I audibly laughed once when I read “surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me turn to night!”
Because I could just see myself in these words.
When I think I’ve screwed something up…done it wrong again…I do this…I cover myself in the darkness of self-attack, self-pity, withdrawing from others….
And then the very next line the poet writes: “Darkness is not dark to you…the night is as bright as the day.”
It hit me.
I can do this whole song of dance of covering myself in darkness…but God doesn’t care. This doesn’t appease God. It doesn’t make God forgive me. It isn’t repentance.
God is right there in that moment seeing me as bright as day. Still surrounding me with God’s self: which is LOVE.
It’s not the first time I realized that…it’s probably more like the 100th time…but it makes you laugh or smile or cry…it makes your heart open when you see again:
“God loves you…in all your particularities.”
And so,
If you are willing to give up running.
If you’re ready to stop trying to hide yourself or make yourself “acceptable.”
If you’re ready to let God simply love you…in all your particularities.
Then I want to offer you a prayer practice that you might try.
Consider spending 5 or 10 minutes each day, putting your hand on your heart. Maybe just mentally if you’re out in public or something.
And simply repeat this prayer to yourself:
God searches you out
God knows you
God never leaves you
God loves you
