Awesomely & Wonderfully Made

Psalm 139 has long been one of my favorite passages in all of scripture.  So, when it was the text selected as the subject of my Senior Ordination Exam in Exegesis (text study), I was a mixture of excited and nervous.  I was looking forward to working on a familiar text, but was worried that I might grown to dislike it over the course of almost a week of intense study.  However, I didn't need to worry.  Over the days of study, I grew to love the passage even more.  The following sermon was prepared based on my study of the psalm, and was delivered to the Commission on Preparation for Ministry of Heartland Presbytery.

Psalm 139 (NRSV)

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.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
    O Lord, you know it completely.
You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is so high that I cannot attain it.
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.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light around me become night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is as bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.
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.
    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.
How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
    I come to the end—I am still with you.
O that you would kill the wicked, O God,
    and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—
those who speak of you maliciously,
    and lift themselves up against you for evil!
Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
    And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with perfect hatred;
    I count them my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is any wicked way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting.

--

    The 139th Psalm has long been my favorite psalm; maybe even my favorite passage in all of scripture.  I distinctly remember the first time I heard it read aloud.  It was my first summer working on staff at Heartland Presbyterian Center, and one weekend, in-between sessions of campers, a group of us decided to go make a campfire and roast marshmallows.  After we had eaten way more marshmallows than is ever a good idea, someone pulled out a guitar and we started singing camp songs.  Like always, they started out loud and raucous, but as the evening grew longer and the stars began to shine, the songs slowed.  At one point, someone asked about favorite verses from scripture, and we started going around the circle.  I don’t remember what I said.  What I do remember, as clear as if it was yesterday, one of the shier members of the group saying they had always liked Psalm 139.  Then, as Mike slowly strummed his guitar, our friend read the Psalm.  It was like time slowed as I listened to the words of the psalmist, and I felt a sense of loving embrace that etched itself onto my soul and has never left.

    For years I thought of Psalm 139 as my scriptural best friend, albeit a strange best friend.  One that you don’t tell very many people about, because you don’t want them to think you are weird or something.  You see, over my college years, as I worked at camp and did campus ministry, I heard lots of people talk about their favorite passages of scripture.  It was never Psalm 139.  There would be lots of the 23rd Psalm for sure, the ever-present Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me,” and a smattering of verses from Romans from folks who were way better at quoting scripture than me.  But never Psalm 139.  I started to think that maybe I didn’t have a very good favorite.  But, as I’ve gotten older, and especially since beginning my studies at seminary, I have found more and more people who feel like I do, that there is something really special about Psalm 139.  I’ve even found a few kindred souls that call it their favorite.

    However, even for those of us who love Psalm 139, there is something about it that can make us uneasy.  Maybe it’s why 139 isn’t a favorite psalm for more people.  For a lot of us, we don’t know what to make of a God who knows our most hidden thoughts and desires, a God we cannot escape.  Because, if I’m honest with myself, there times that I wish I could go unseen by God.  The psalmist’s God is a God who knows the deepest parts of my soul, and that means a God who sees my sin.  That can be a terrifying thought; being known that deeply.  However, maybe by taking a closer look at just what the psalmist is doing, we can see how this is good news that can help us understand who and whose we are

    Psalm 139 is composed in four movements of six verses each.  In each of these movements, the psalmist proclaims a central truth about God’s relationship with us:  We are created by God, we are known by God, God is present with us, even when we stray from God’s path.

    While the psalmist may not begin with the creative act, from an interpretive perspective it precedes all other movements. It is through the act of creation that God accomplishes everything that follows. It is the act of creation, according to Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann, that makes the first move to covenant.  For, as the psalmist proclaims, this is no distant creation. No, in this act God is intimately involved in forming each fiber of our being; weaving us together with a profound knowledge not just of our physical being, but of who we shall become.  This is a creation that “attests to a lively, generative, demanding, hope-filled, and dynamic interaction of God and world.”  Through this creative act, God creates humanity to live in relationship with the one who formed them; the only one who truly knows them. 

    It is that act of knowing that first draws the psalmist’s focus. The first six verses of Psalm 139 contain some of the strongest images of God’s knowing found in scripture. However, it is not due to any philosophical conviction of omniscience that the psalmist is able to proclaim that God knows words before they are spoken or the precise timing of standing or sitting.  Rather, it is due to the active role God has taken in the psalmist’s life, namely because God has “searched...and known” the psalmist.  As we have already seen, the psalmist will proclaim that this active knowing began long before birth; creation in this psalm is paired with knowledge, God knows as God creates.

    For the psalmist, though, it is not enough that God simply knows us. This is not merely a proclamation of God’s deep knowledge; although it is surely nothing less. Rather, as the psalmist moves into the second movement, knowledge of the psalmist becomes the basis for presence with the psalmist. Importantly, this awareness of God’s presence is centered in the fact that God’s presence in not dependent upon the good intentions of the psalmist. Quite the opposite in fact! No matter how far the psalmist runs, either physically or spiritually, from God, the psalmist affirms that God will remain as guide and protector.  The psalmist certainly seems to have little doubt that God is an active presence in life, and this leads to this intimate meditation on the relationship the psalmist feels with God. 
    
    Importantly, this intimate, covenantal relationship is not only to be enjoyed in times of blessing. While the exact context is beyond knowing, it seems clear that the psalmist refers to some trial of life in the fourth and final movement.  The vital thing to note is that the psalmist makes no claims of innocence (or guilt), and asks for no redemption in the eyes of others. Rather, the psalmist who has already proclaimed a God who creates, knows, and will not abandon, places their whole being in the hands and will of God. The psalmist is confident that even if there are “wicked ways” in them, that God will, even then, not abandon them, but rather continue to do as God has already done: guide the psalmist in “ways everlasting.”

    While it is tempting to explain the psalmist’s trust of God based wholly on a lifetime of experiences of God’s goodness, the text does not make this point clear, and certainly not in such a way as to be the center point of the text. In the text, the only actions of God that are spoken of as completed or ongoing actions are those centered in creation and knowledge; God has already searched and known the psalmist, God continues to observe and go before and behind the psalmist, God has already created and formed the psalmist. It is only in the movement centered on God’s presence that the conditional “if” appears. The psalmist affirms that if they were to flee, or if they were to ascend to heaven or descend to Sheol, or if they were to take wing with the dawn, then God would continue to be present. The psalmist does not claim to have done any of these things, even in the most metaphorical sense. Yet, the psalmist seems sure, confident beyond any doubt, that God is, and will continue to be, a constant presence. 
    
    Where then, if not from a lifetime of lived experiences, does this deep confidence come from? It can only come from a conviction based in an understanding of who God is.  All of this brings us back to the interpretive center found in verse 14: “I praise you, for I am awesomely and wonderfully made. Your work is wonderful; I know it very well.”  The psalmist’s confidence is based not in prior acts of God, nor in good works of the self. No, confidence is centered in the knowledge that we are all created by God, made awesome and wonderful beyond our comprehension. As we are a work of God, we are wonderful. We cannot understand who we are outside of who God is, has been, and will continue to be.

    For me, the confidence that comes from this leads to what might seem, at first, a strange place.  You see, one of my favorite parts of our worship service every week is our confession of sin, followed by the assurance that we are pardoned by God.  Every week I am reminded that even though I continually fall short of God’s will for my life, even when I walk in what the psalmist calls “wicked ways,” that God will always hear and accept my confession.  I am reminded every week that there is no sin too great, no wait too long, no grudge too deeply held, that God will not welcome us with open arms and guide us back to God’s ways everlasting.

    In worship, like the psalmist we express our faith in a God who walks before, behind us, and beside us.  Know that you, no matter where you find yourself today, are held in the care and love of the one who created you, the one who knows you better than you know yourself, and the one who will always welcome you with open arms.

    Thanks be to God