Past Sermon

Lesson:  Psalm 139:1-18

One day last week, a church member called to update the credit card number to use for her church pledge each month.  When I told her our secretary Maureen was at the post office, she asked if she could leave the credit card number with me.  I said, “If you trust me.”  “If I can’t trust you, Charlie, who can I trust?” she asked.

You know I went to the L.A. Auto Show on my day off last week.  After I paid my $7 admission with a $20 bill and was walking away from the window, I realized the ticket-seller had given me three fives and three ones in change, instead of just two fives.  When I returned the extra five-dollar bill to him, he thanked me for being honest.  Later that day, when I paid the $4.17 bill for a bottle of water and a cookie with four ones and a quarter, the cashier tried to give me a one and eight cents.  Twice I told her I was only due eight cents before she believed me.

Now this is not an illustration to impress you with what an honest minister Charlie Ensley is.  Frankly, I believe my honesty came long before I was ordained, even before I became an Eagle Scout.  It was the lessons instilled at a young age by my parents and, I’m sure, Sunday School teachers along the way.

I believe in the concept of integrity, or perhaps it is better called transparency.  It is knowing that the person you see here in this pulpit is pretty much the same all the time.  I’m not just honest, trustworthy and caring when I’m here at church.  I try to be that way in all the rest of my life as well.

That is not to say that all ministers, or even Eagle Scouts, are pure and blameless.  I know a number of clergy who have messed up pretty bad.  On a newscast last Friday of 49 persons arrested in Riverside County as child predators in an Internet sex-for-hire sting, among those arrested were a rabbi, a teacher, and a federal drug enforcement officer.  Perhaps integrity and transparency were not as much a part of their lives as they ought to be.  Perhaps others did not know what they were really like in the other times of their lives.

Who knows you?  I mean, really knows you.  Your family?  The persons with whom you live?  How about those around you at work or school?  How well do you know yourself?  Are there parts of your life that are such deep dark little secrets that you wouldn’t want another living creature to know?

Of course, given the fact that you are hearing me ask from the pulpit in a church on a Sunday morning, “Who really knows you?”, I’m sure you’ve suspected by now that I am about to assert that it is God who knows us best.

And that’s why we’re at Psalm 139 today — a beautiful prayer in which the writer revels in the pervasive presence of God in his life, both now and forever.  “You have searched me and known me,” he declares.  “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.” (139:1-5)

In other words, there is no place the psalmist can hide from God, nor would he want to, because “such knowledge is too wonderful” even to comprehend.  God’s presence with him at all times and in every circumstance and in every place—from his creation in his mother’s womb to the heights of heaven to the depths of hell, is enough to bring him a sense of inner security and comfort.

Isn’t it enough for us, too?  Resting securely on the “wonderful” knowledge of God’s presence is the very truth that enables us to know that our fears and doubts and questions—even about our faith, our struggles to overcome addictions and temptations of every sort, none of these have any effect on God’s acceptance of us—not as perfect, sinless people, but as people struggling to be faithful in the midst of some very complicated life challenges.  The God who truly knows us is there for us at all times, even when we feel abandoned by God.  I am reminded of a bumper sticker that I used as a bulletin board quotation some years ago:  “If you don’t feel close to God anymore, who do you think moved?”

The late Lewis Smedes, professor at Fuller Seminary participated in a PBS television series in which one pastor spoke about spending most of his life ministering in ghetto situations.  As the discussion moved to the story of Jacob wrestling with an angel, Smedes broke in to tell his own story:  “You don’t have to be in the ghetto to feel abandoned,” he said.  “You can feel abandoned in Bel Air.  There I was a few years ago, undergoing a pretty tough experience of depression.  That’s a feeling of abandonment.  I went to an island in Puget Sound alone for three weeks — no newspapers, no books, no telephone, no TV, no radio.  Nothing.

“About a week and a half later, I had an experience as real as being with you here.  I was feeling the deepest sense of abandonment when I heard my mother say, ‘I can’t help you.’  I heard good friends say, ‘I can’t help you.’  I felt utterly lost.  Then at some miraculous moment, I felt a powerful sense:  ‘No, you are not lost.  I am here, underneath you.  I am holding you up.’

“I arose, and I thought for the first time in my life, ‘I know the meaning of joy.’  It felt so marvelous.  I said to myself, ‘Now I know what the psalmist means.  Even when you make your bed in hell, I will be there, and I will hold you up.’”

This weekend we remember the legacy of one of the most prominent Civil Rights advocates of the last century.  Like many such personages, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life ended at the early age of 39 from an assassin’s bullet.  He remarked in his final speech, given the night before his death in Memphis, of an earlier attempt on his life, a stabbing while he was at a book signing.  He gave all the glory for his survival and recovery to God. 

In his autobiography he wrote, “If I demonstrated unusual calm during the attempt on my life, it was certainly not due to any extraordinary powers that I possess.  Rather, it was due to the power of God working through me.  Throughout this struggle for racial justice I have constantly asked God to remove all bitterness from my heart and to give me the strength and courage to face any disaster that came my way.  This constant prayer life and feeling of dependence on God have given me the feeling that I have divine companionship in the struggle.  I know no other way to explain it.  It is the fact that in the midst of external tension, God can give an inner peace.”

In the course of his life, Martin Luther King walked through many dangers, toils and snares, but through it all he knew that God was walking with him.  The Lord was his divine companion in the Civil Rights struggle, giving him the strength and the courage to face any disaster that came his way.  He had the very same faith as the writer of Psalm 139 when the ancient poet said to the Lord, “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.” (vv. 5-6)

Although life is fragile and full of danger, we can draw comfort from the knowledge that the God who knows us is with us, in all that we do.  In the midst of external tension, God can give an inner peace.  This peace gives us courage and confidence, inspiration and insight, serenity and strength.

Not everybody claims to need this strength.  Someone I know very well says she regards religion as a crutch.  There are others who feel no need for God’s help or presence in their lives. 

In his book, “A Spiritual Guide for the Jewish Patient”, Dr. David R. Blumenthal, Professor of Judaic Studies at Emory University, writes:  “The Jewish patient should begin by realizing that, while his or her doctors are doing everything within their power to heal her or his illness – and it is a positive commandment from God for the doctor to heal – doctors do not control our ultimate destiny.  With that realization, the Jewish sick person should turn to God, the great Power that is beyond this universe, and seek help and solace.”

The Psalmist of old knew it, modern-day professors know it, maybe you already know it too:  God knows you.  God loves you.  God cares for you.  God seeks you.  God never abandons you.