A Sermon by Pastor Matt Schmidt, preached on Sunday Jan. 17, 2021.
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 (NRSV)
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…
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 woks;
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.
God is not aloof, God is paying close attention.
God is not hard of hearing, God listens actively and well.
God is not in a galaxy far, far away, although God is there too.
God is not separate from us, God is like a grandma who knit you like a scarf, her fingers knew exactly how to make you…you.
God is like an author, and you are a beloved character in a book already written. I really like this image, because I love books and the idea that my story is unfolding already written is both comforting and exhilarating. “I come to the end—I am still with you.”
One of my prayers is that you know whatever you’re going through, whatever difficulties or burdens or anxieties you’re struggling with, those things are not outside God’s intimate knowledge. God knows you, God sees you, God is paying close attention to you, whether you know it or not. Think of the things you think about that you don’t share with anyone. The secrets. The worries. The shame. Before your inner monologue can even name what’s going on inside you, God already knows, and God loves you through it all.
Depending on what you think about, this can be a wonderful, comforting truth, or an exposing, vulnerable, unveiling of sorts.
So…God knows how I feel when I see that person? Yea…
So…God knows what happened to me? Yes…
So…God knows how and when I’ll die? Well, yes…
So…God knows what I really think about my mother-in-law? Of course, but we don’t we all?
This psalm is doing more than just mess with your imagination, it’s also making a huge claim about self-hood and our dependency on God.
One of the greatest illusions of modernity is the “conviction that human beings are autonomous, self-determining individuals.” (Beach-Verhey, Feasting, 252). This is an illusion, a lie of pride. “Human destiny is in the hands of a gracious God.” (252).
H. Richard Niebuhr says it this way:
In religious language, the soul and God belong together; or otherwise stated, I am one within myself as I encounter the One in all actions upon me…And my response to every particular action takes the form of a response to the One that is active in it.
What he’s saying is what the psalmist is saying; we can’t be separated from God and instead of longing for separation, we should practice a trusting dependence on God.
How does the Heidelberg Catechism say it?
Question & Answer 1 - What is your only comfort in life and in death?
That I belong—body and soul, in life and in death—not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his blood has fully paid for all my sins and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil; that he protects me so well that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.
Now, let’s talk about Jesus. And what I hope you hear in our Gospel lesson today, is a collective invitation to see the One with whom your life should be inextricably linked.
John 1:43-51 (NRSV)
43The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” 44Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45Philip found Nathanael and said to him “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” 46Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
Jesus found Philip then Philip found Nathanael. God sees us, and then we see what to do next.
On the one hand, this is a story about Jesus calling disciples. But it’s also a story about the relationship between the self and its dependency on God.
Why does Philip follow Jesus?
All we know is that he was found by Jesus. It’s a bit of a mystery why some of us respond to God’s calling in this life, and why some of us ignore it. I’m starting to wonder if many people simply don’t know that God knows what they don’t know God knows. We must encounter Christ and realize that he knows us.
Why do people follow Jesus?
Here, Philip and Nathanael seem to quite spontaneously follow. Without too much prompting, they come and see. Karl Barth calls this “the attractive power of a preexisting bond established by God’s incarnation in Jesus.” Psalm 139 would say, yea, there’s a bond between the self and God if only we’d realize it. I would say,
to be seen is to see,
to be known is to know.
And God sees and knows you.
47When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” 48Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” 49Nathanael answered, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
I wonder how it felt for Nathanael to be known by Jesus so intimately.
Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit
Have you ever been recognized for your goodness, for your striving to tell the truth? So on one level perhaps Nathanael has some goodness that God is recognizing. But then on another level, this verse is juxtaposed with the verse before where Nathanael speaks ill of Nazareth. “Can anything good come from that town, that rotten place, that poor little meaningless place”. Not a very nice thing to say, but Jesus knows that he knows no better and greets him with the smile of grace. And then on another level, this is an ode to the ancient story of Jacob—whose name in Genesis becomes Israel.
Jacob was known as a deceitful little brother who stole his older brother’s inheritance and blessing. Do you remember that story? Their father Isaac is old and the little brother Jacob dresses up like the big brother Esau and steals the older brother’s blessing. Quite deceitful. And rightfully so, the older brother wants to kill him. So Jacob flees, he leaves town for awhile because Esau is big and strong and angry and he wants to kill his little brother. We’ll come back to that story in a few seconds.
So Jesus is talking with Nathanael, who is “an Israelite in whom their is no deceit”, and Nathaniel is struct by the fact that Jesus saw him in a different place and different time and knew him while he was under the fig tree (which basically means when he was a student of a different rabbi, off at school because in the ancient world the fruit of a fig tree was like the teachings of a rabbi).
It’s like if Jesus said, yea I saw you in Mr. Bufford’s histroy class back in ’78, when you used to wear that ratty green tshirt and doodle those cartoons in your notebook.
Whoa. You saw that? So…you know what I was writing in my diary? What about after prom…do you know about that too?
50Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” 51And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
To been seen by God, and known, opens the pathway for you to see greater things. And the greater things will be…drumroll please…
Heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.
Come back with me to Jacob, the one who will be named Israel, the deceitful little brother. His older brother wants to kill him, so he has to flee, to leave his family and his friends and his home. Basically needs to enter a kind of ancient world witness protection program because Esau is gonna kill him. Can you imagine how scary that would be? To have violence knocking on your door. Can you imagine how isolating that would be? To have to go it alone for awhile, not knowing how long it would be before you could return home? Jacob is traveling, far away from home, and the sun begins to set, so he decides to stay there for the night, wherever he is. He has no pillow so he finds a stone to put under his head. He’s nowhere and without home. Homeless. And that night he dreams a very strange dream. He sees a ladder, or maybe it was a stairway set up on the earth and the top of it reached to heaven; and there were angels of God ascending and descending on it. And then, the LORD stood there and spoke “I am the LORD…Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.”
Know that I am with you
and will keep you
wherever you go.
Jacob is alone, afraid, and a big hairy monster wants to kill him….and yet in a dream, God says to know that I am with you. And you could argue about whether this is good news, and say what kind of God would even let this happen in the first place, or you could just know that God is with you and your story is not over yet, and God isn’t done with you yet, and someday things will be different and God will still be with you.
It’s obvious that Jacob’s ladder is the image behind what Jesus is telling Nathanael. Cue the drumroll again…but listen closer, to what exactly Jesus says,
You will see greater things than these … Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.
Instead of a ladder or stairway to heaven, that angels can use to climb up and down upon, the “upon” here is Jesus, the Son of Man.
the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.
What? Is Jesus also an extendable fiberglass object that I keep in my garage?
It's more like, Jesus is the established connection between heaven and earth. Jesus is the pathway to the good life. Jesus is the ladder, Jesus is the bridge, Jesus is the stairway to heaven, that’s a big part of what the incarnation is doing in our world. Connected us with heaven.
But there’s another strange detail: the stairway leads in both directions. It is a mutual connection. Angels ascending and descending. This isn’t an image of everyone flowing in one direction away from this place, as if a rocket ship is launching and you better get one board or you’ll be left behind. The image is an image of mutual connection. A highway that leads in and out, up and down.
Why?
Because the only way to see the way is to trust that God finds you first and in being found, you trust that you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be, and you’re going where you’re supposed to go. God meets you and walks the road with you.
From Christmas (Emmanuel God-with-us Incarnation) to Epiphany, the message is the same: God is here. You are not alone. God is in this place. And God is with you wherever you go. And God knows who you used to be, and what happened to you back there, and God knows who you are becoming, and will guide you on your journey if you’ll do your part to have faith that God sees and hears and knows you.
Why does this matter?
I’m convinced that most conflict in our world comes about when an individual or a group of people don’t feel heard or understood.
I remember when my future wife Hillary and I were first learning how to have a good marriage, and we went to counseling while we were engaged. We learned the tools of non-violent communication, which is a way of sharing with your partner how you feel, and what you need and what you want. And your partner listens actively, to seek to understand what you need and what you want, because if you don’t listen and don’t understand, there will be conflict. Not just about the potato salad you forgot to pick up after work, but also about bigger stuff, because the potato salad is about more than just forgetting, it’s about not feeling helped. But then you learn how to listen actively and share what you need and want and feel heard. I can’t explain how wonderful it feels to have Hillary seek to see and understand me. If I’m frustrated or bothered about something and we really practice non-violent communication, it gives oxygen to the room, it slows our breathing, we find reconciliation.
Every time.
Like magic.
Because to be known is to know,
and to be seen is to see.
Now imagine entire people groups who don’t feel seen or heard or understood and you can see why there’s so much shouting and why violence breaks out. People scream into social media because social media doesn’t listen well, Facebook doesn’t listen, it’s just a one-way shouting match. We’re like monkey throwing feces at each other and we think this is free speech. The only free speech is heard need and God hears you and knows what you truly need.
The stairway to heaven is Jesus Christ. And this is a mutual, reciprocal descending and ascending, a multi-lane highway that leads from your heart, from your soul, to God himself. The ladder is Christ, the destination is God.
Why do some people follow Jesus?
Because they know that they are known.
And where is my life going?
The psalmist declares: I come to the end—and I am still with you.
What is your only comfort in life and in death?
That I belong—body and soul, in life and in death—not to myself, but to my faithful savior, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
