Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
“Who Am I?”
Recently, I was speaking with a man who is now reaching his late 80’s.
He said an interesting thing, “When I was young, I didn’t know much about life or the meaning of life.
And now that my life is coming to an end I really don’t know any more than I ever did.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a poem shortly before his execution by the Nazis.
It is entitled, “Who Am I?”
“Who am I?” Bonhoeffer writes, “They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest, O [God], I am thine.”
At the opposite end of the spectrum, some of the saddest words were spoken by a man at his father’s grave, “He had all the wrong dreams, all wrong. He never knew who he was.”
The question of identity…of “Who am I?” is one of the urgent questions of our time.
And it’s not only teenagers who struggle with a sense of identity.
It’s also the parent whose children are all away from the home for the first time.
And it’s the retiree who has nowhere to go in the morning.
It is also the wife or husband whose spouse has died.
One way or another, at one time or another, we all ask: “Who am I? What is the meaning of my life?”
Psalm 139 informs us that even we, who don’t know who we are, are nevertheless fully known and eternally loved by the Lord Who has “created [our] innermost parts…"
…knitted us “together while [we were] still in [our] mother’s womb…
…and Whose “eyes saw [our] embryo [s}”!
We belong to God, “body and soul, in life and death.”
Psalm 139 invites us to receive an identity rooted not in the things we might say about ourselves or the labels that others assign us, but in the God Who knows us more deeply and more lovingly than we could ever know ourselves!!!
How awesome is that?
The Psalmist insists that whether we are aware of God or not, we are known completely by God, and that before we know or name God, God knows and names us!!!
In Jeremiah 1:5 the Lord proclaims, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.”
Our knowledge of God comes from God’s knowledge and self-revelation to us.
And we are invited to trust the God Whose grace encompasses us in ways that are beyond our ability to fully understand.
I was having a conversation with my mom over the Christmas holidays.
You see, my mom’s mom died when my mother was just 5 or 6 years old.
And my mom’s dad died a year later.
I said to my mother, “I know you had a very difficult childhood. How did you cope?”
Her answer was one of surprise.
She said, “I don’t think my childhood was difficult. I always felt that we were in the hands of grace.”
And aren’t we all?
The Psalmist writes: “Lord, you have examined me.
You know me…
…You are thoroughly familiar with all my ways.”
For some, this kind of inside knowledge may be a bit threatening.
After-all, as Americans we revere our privacy, do we not?
If we decide to build a patio in our backyard, we make sure and plant trees that will protect us from the “spying eyes” of our neighbors.
We don’t want others to know what we are up to.
We want our privacy protected at all costs!
And when someone infringes on our privacy, we are enraged!!!
If we fall victim to identity theft, we feel that our privacy has been deeply violated.
We guard the information about ourselves, and share only what we must.
We go to great lengths not to reveal to others who we really are, sometimes even to our closest friends and family members.
And if something that was meant to stay hidden is disclosed, our entire world can come crumbling down!!!
Think of the scrutiny that politicians undergo, and how fast and hard they fall when something “unacceptable” about them is revealed.
Or how about Christian ministers?
Not long ago, a colleague of mine invited a minister who had lost his credentials over some scandal to come and fill-in for him.
To preach on a Sunday morning.
I asked my colleague how things went and he answered, “Really good. I think it was good for him, it was a chance for him to regain some of the dignity he has lost.
It was an opportunity for us to show him grace.
Because he is in a place where so many of us are.”
And isn’t that what the world needs so much more of?...GRACE!
One reason people try and hide parts of themselves is because they fear un-grace!!!
They are afraid that persons won’t love and accept them if their innermost thoughts and secrets were to be made known.
We are all there, in one way or another, are we not?
It is a silly life in so many ways.
The writer of Psalm 139 admits to God, “You are thoroughly familiar with all my ways.
There isn’t a word on my tongue, Lord, that you don’t already know completely.
You surround me—front and back.
You put your hand on me.”
As Jonah found out, to his dismay, it is easier to delude ourselves than to elude God.
But the spirit in which this Psalm is written is not fear but trust, not guilt but praise, not judgment but grace!!!
How can that be?
God knows everything about us, and that is fine…
…no more than fine…
…that is a reason to rejoice!!!
God “knit” and “wove” us together.
God’s intimate loving attention to us; God’s personal care makes even a mother’s loving nurture seem distant.
In a time when the worth of human life has been vastly cheapened, Psalm 139 affirms God’s supreme valuing of us.
We are an expression of the worth that God gives to the work of God’s own hands!!!
Is that not affirming?
Does that not give us a reason to stand up and cheer?
We are not cheap!
We are not dung!
We are not worthless and weak!
We are created in love by the love of God!!!
And so, with the Psalmist, we can rejoice, “You are the one who created my innermost parts; you knit me together while I was still in the womb.
I give thanks to you that I was marvelously set apart.
Your works are wonderful…”
Take that hatred of self and throw it out the window!!!
Brothers and sisters, no matter who you are, no matter where you come from, no matter what other people have told you—you are of infinite worth—you are great because the One Who created you is Great!!!
You are important because the One Who created You has “incomprehensible” plans for you!!!
You need not be afraid, because the God Who knows you even better than you know yourself loves you with a love that will never fail, never fade away!!!
God knows us before birth and after death…
…as it says in verse 18, “If I came to the very end—I’d still be with you.”
Yes, we Americans treasure our privacy, but perhaps paradoxically…
…at the same time, we yearn to be understood, accepted, loved and known.
Just think of the theme of so many books and movies that are devoted to people who attempt to trade places or spaces or bodies with another person.
We want to be known and to know others.
Why else would this be a reoccurring theme?
In a recent movie, a wife switches bodies with her husband; she becomes a professional football player, and he becomes a housewife.
In the movie Freaky Friday, a mother and a daughter who simply cannot understand each other switch bodies.
It happens on a Thursday night when they have a big argument in a Chinese restaurant.
Both of them receive a fortune cookie from the restaurant owner’s mother which causes them to switch bodies the next day.
And as they adjust to their new personalities, they begin to understand each other more and more…
…until, eventually, they come to have a great “mutual respect” for one another!
Would that not happen with all relationships if we could only get past the façade, if we could only be understood and experience empathy for and with the other person?
Sadly, because of our limitations, we can’t fully understand another person, nor can they fully understand us.
But this is where we are to derive comfort!
Knowing that God knows us better than we know ourselves is the greatest of all comforts!!!
As it is comfortingly and confidently prayed in John Wesley’s “Covenant Prayer”…
… “I am no longer my own, by thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt…
…let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal…
…thou art mine, and I am thine.
So be it.”
That is the prayer of perfect freedom.
That is strength when facing what could be despair!
That is truth shining in the darkness that threatens to overtake us!!!
We are God’s.
And no one can snatch us out of God’s hands!!!
And nothing else matters!!!
So be it!!!
I mean, think about the role that the incarnation plays in God’s wonderful knowledge of us!
God didn’t become a human being in order to find out what it’s like to be a human being.
God already knows all there is to know about being a human being!!!
Jesus came to this earth for our benefit, not God’s!!!
That is love!!!
What a comfort for those of us suffering the loss of a loved one or experiencing pain or persecution or battling a terminal illness!!!
When we are dealing with these kinds of things we often struggle with the feeling of “aloneness” even in the midst of strong family support!
And that’s partly because no one can fully understand what we are going through.
And yet God understands.
Jesus struggled with the feeling of aloneness when He suffered on the Cross as He carried the sins of the world on His shoulders.
Verse 12 of Psalm 139 declares, “even…the darkness isn’t too dark for you!”
There are no moments, distant and dark as they might be, in which God is absent!!!
Others may not understand the pain, the hurt, the abandonment, the rejection, and the loneliness we sometimes feel, but God does!!!
God’s intimate involvement in our lives is not a threat, but an act of grace!!!
God is with us because God loves us and God wouldn’t have it any other way!!!
We may ask “Who am I?”
And through Christ the answer comes back as “I am God’s. I am the child of the One Who knows me intimately and knitted me together before I was born. I am the beloved child of the One who says ‘I am still with you.’”
And by the grace of God, one day we can proclaim with Paul, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.
Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
That’s something to look forward to!!!
Praise God!
Amen.
