Psalm 139
Are you feeling foggy or disjointed? Having trouble concentrating or a terrible time sleeping? Are you irritable and edgy, or weepy and jittery? Perhaps you feel poised for disaster, ready for the other shoe to drop, but it already has, and now it feels like maybe pieces of the house are falling off too, so you’re guarded and alert and afraid a lot of the time?
If so, you may be living in January 2021.
Ten months ago we thought we all were making a temporary sacrifice, a momentary tweak, then we were told to hunker through the summer like it was a long winter, and then summer ended and fall ended and winter came. And here we are, still in a global pandemic.
And now, nearly a quarter of a million people in our country testing positive every day and one person is dying approximately every 21 seconds, and a new, far more contagious variant ripping across the world, is actually THE BACKDROP to the seismic upheaval, political turmoil, bubbling violence, overt racism, rampant, damaging conspiracy theories dividing us in unfathomable ways, our democracy battered and bruised as national guard surrounding capital buildings with fencing and razor wire and occupy the Capitol in preparation for a transition in government that may be less that peaceful, so much drama that a president’s impeachment—for the second time—registers as relatively minor news.
Oh Lord, we’d love a prescription to end our fatigue and anxiety! But there is actually nothing wrong with us. How we feel right now is just how human beings should feel in circumstances like these.
Perspective helps.
Last week we glimpsed who God is and what God is up to with the Magi visiting the baby Jesus and thwarting King Herod’s plans stamp out his supposed rival. By pulling way back to the cosmos, to see the God whose plan of salvation and hope for the whole world unfolds all over the place all the time, in the stars themselves and the small stories on the margins of things, even while the supposedly big stories are boiling right in front of us – we put ourselves, and this whole world, back in context. This is God’s story, we said. Oh yeah, remember? The world belongs to God. Be still and know this.
This week, we get reoriented again, but this time by zooming way in close, between a human heart and the Divine. Psalm 139 comes to us not as a remedy, treatment or lesson, not as answers or advice, but as a very intimate conversation between a person and God.
Oh, God – you know me completely! The parts of me I want known – which feels like a gift, but also the parts of me I wish I could hide, none of me is hidden from you. And there is nowhere I can go that you are not there, holding me, pursuing me, never giving up on me. Before the words are even on my lips, you know what I will say completely. And even so, you love me. You made me and delight in me – I can hardly take that in, it’s so overwhelming and inconceivable.
And there is a part of this Psalm that I bet really jumped out at you when Lisa read it; it wasn’t actually meant to be included in the lectionary reading for today, because 99% of the time we skip this part. It wrecks the vibe, so we censor it out. But I loved hearing this part today, because I feel it resonate in my body.
God, I wish you’d kill the wicked!
Those bad and terrible people who are against you, who undermine your ways,
with violence and evil—I wish they were destroyed!
Oh God, I hate them! I hate them so much! They are my enemies!
Anger makes us uncomfortable. When we feel angry, as many of us do right now, we try to channel it, or stuff it down, or explain it away. But anger is our inner being saying, “This is not right.” This is not right! It’s energy in our bodies announcing that things are not as they it should be! So we need to listen to our anger, to let it say what it needs to say.
But instead, whenever the church reads the Psalm about God knowing us completely and how we can’t hide anything from God, we skip over the part where the Psalmist tells God how angry he is!
Adorable!
God will never, ever let you go, will never turn away from you, will never give up on you or stop loving you, and already knows and sees the whole of you anyway. What if you came with the courage of the Psalmist, and let God know what you are really thinking and feeling right now? All of it, with no holding back? No checking to see if it's the right way to think or feel, just telling God?
When the Psalmist unleashes his anger to God, he’s not theologically solid. He talks to God like God needs defending, like God’s way is somehow at risk by the actions of humans, like God’s agenda of hope and redemption could be derailed were it not for his righteous rage, I hate those who hate you, God!
Nevertheless, our predecessors in the faith left this part in here, even though hatred gets us nowhere, and God doesn’t need defending, and God’s way is happening no matter what. This part is important because we get to say anything to God. We need to be able to say anything to God. Our bible has this in it because in this relationship with God, we are supposed to not hold back. This is the place where you get to say the unsuitable things and acknowledge all the difficult feelings and vent in ridiculous superlatives. This is where you even get to be wrong. God wants us to be angry with God instead of apart from God.
I imagine our Psalmist like a storming, tantruming child, ranting about bad people and the injustices they do while Mother God looks right into his face with tenderness and compassion, taking it all in. When the Psalmist is spent, and all the fury has leaked out, mama opens her arms. And having been seen and heard and unconditionally received, the Psalmist crawls into her lap and curl’s up against God’s shoulder. And he rests there.
This week, we get reoriented again, but this time by zooming way in close, between a human heart and the Divine. Psalm 139 comes to us not as a remedy, treatment or lesson, not as answers or advice, but as a very intimate conversation between a person and God.
Oh, God – you know me completely! The parts of me I want known – which feels like a gift, but also the parts of me I wish I could hide, none of me is hidden from you. And there is nowhere I can go that you are not there, holding me, pursuing me, never giving up on me. Before the words are even on my lips, you know what I will say completely. And even so, you love me. You made me and delight in me – I can hardly take that in, it’s so overwhelming and inconceivable.
And there is a part of this Psalm that I bet really jumped out at you when Lisa read it; it wasn’t actually meant to be included in the lectionary reading for today, because 99% of the time we skip this part. It wrecks the vibe, so we censor it out. But I loved hearing this part today, because I feel it resonate in my body.
God, I wish you’d kill the wicked!
Those bad and terrible people who are against you, who undermine your ways,
with violence and evil—I wish they were destroyed!
Oh God, I hate them! I hate them so much! They are my enemies!
Anger makes us uncomfortable. When we feel angry, as many of us do right now, we try to channel it, or stuff it down, or explain it away. But anger is our inner being saying, “This is not right.” This is not right! It’s energy in our bodies announcing that things are not as they it should be! So we need to listen to our anger, to let it say what it needs to say.
But instead, whenever the church reads the Psalm about God knowing us completely and how we can’t hide anything from God, we skip over the part where the Psalmist tells God how angry he is!
Adorable!
God will never, ever let you go, will never turn away from you, will never give up on you or stop loving you, and already knows and sees the whole of you anyway. What if you came with the courage of the Psalmist, and let God know what you are really thinking and feeling right now? All of it, with no holding back? No checking to see if it's the right way to think or feel, just telling God?
When the Psalmist unleashes his anger to God, he’s not theologically solid. He talks to God like God needs defending, like God’s way is somehow at risk by the actions of humans, like God’s agenda of hope and redemption could be derailed were it not for his righteous rage, I hate those who hate you, God!
Nevertheless, our predecessors in the faith left this part in here, even though hatred gets us nowhere, and God doesn’t need defending, and God’s way is happening no matter what. This part is important because we get to say anything to God. We need to be able to say anything to God. Our bible has this in it because in this relationship with God, we are supposed to not hold back. This is the place where you get to say the unsuitable things and acknowledge all the difficult feelings and vent in ridiculous superlatives. This is where you even get to be wrong. God wants us to be angry with God instead of apart from God.
I imagine our Psalmist like a storming, tantruming child, ranting about bad people and the injustices they do while Mother God looks right into his face with tenderness and compassion, taking it all in. When the Psalmist is spent, and all the fury has leaked out, mama opens her arms. And having been seen and heard and unconditionally received, the Psalmist crawls into her lap and curl’s up against God’s shoulder. And he rests there.
And then, there, in the safety of God’s love that will never waver, the shift happens, and inside his heart the space opens up to ask, most vulnerably of all, with absolute trust – Will you search me God? Look at my heart, please, see if there is any wickedness in me. Help me live in your way of love that cannot, will not end.
It’s ok to not be doing ok right now. It’s normal to be overwhelmed or exhausted. To be afraid or worried, edgy or weepy. To feel scattered and not up to the task – any task. And it’s ok to feel angry.
This is a moment to remember our humanity, our limitedness, and the fragility of the structures we build up to sustain and hold us. Underneath, and around, and through, and despite, and in the midst of all of it, God is holding us. That’s true about the whole big picture, but it’s also true about each and every one of us. God knows you completely. You cannot be lost; you will not be abandoned, there is space in God’s heart for all the things you are feeling.
I am going to drop some sabbath wisdom on us today: It’s ok to stop. Breathe. It’s ok to turn your attention to the basics. Breath. Food. Water. Sleep. Movement. One friend this week said he realized he doesn’t have energy right now for anything, so he figured out his top three things, family and two areas of work, and he’s paring back. He is taking a three month break from every other commitment and expectation. And when he’s told people this – on the committees he is on and the leadership roles he is in, while some people may be frustrated, many people are saying, I feel like I am barely hanging on too. Or, I was wondering if I should quit this committee, maybe I could take a 3-month break too.
Maybe we remember again that insight about living in a different culture, covid culture, and how exhausting it is to be navigating this all the time, and how it’s wise to only plan to do three things in a day.
We know that in scripture when God tells us to Be still, it’s not in the gentle moments of bubbling brooks and floating clouds and introspection and groundedness, but in the tumult and the fury, when the Israelites are trapped at the edge of the Red Sea and the entire Egyptian army is bearing down on them weapons drawn, and they’re facing sure and certain death, Be still! God says, I will fight for you!
And in Psalm 46, where the earth shakes and mountains crumble into the heart of the sea, Be still and know that I am God. When the nations are in an uproar and kingdoms totter, God’s voice raises and the earth melts.
This God is with us. The God who leads in the pillar of fire and parts the crashing Red Sea and guides the star-gazing Magi to the toddler savior on his mother’s lap in the house that nobody else is paying attention to at the moment – everywhere, always, right here, right now, this God is our refuge and strength.
The tumult is here. Now is a good time to Be Still.
Be gentle with your heart and let it speak freely to the One who knows you completely and loves you unendingly. And since God knows all of it anyway, don’t hold anything back. Tell it all to God. Let God hear and receive whatever you have inside. And find rest in the arms of the one who is already holding you close.
Amen
Amen
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