"Enclosed in Divine Reality" - Psalm 139: 1 - 18
A Sermon by Alex Evans, Pastor
Second Presbyterian Church, Richmond, VA
Sunday, January 17, 2021
Text: Psalm 139: 1-18
“Enclosed in Divine Reality”
Many of you may be familiar with the Revised Common Lectionary. The lectionary is used by Catholic and Protestant communities around the world and suggests four different readings from the Bible for each Sunday: from the Old Testament, the Psalms, a Gospel reading, and one from the letters of the New Testament. These readings relate to the church calendar, the unfolding of the Christian story through each year; and these readings follow a three-year cycle. In our tradition, both as Presbyterians and here at Second, we follow this lectionary for much of the year - but not always. Sometimes we feel led to other Scripture texts or themes that might be more appropriate for the day, or for a series, or for a season.
Today’s lectionary offering feels like an absolute gift from God to me, especially one text, the Psalm for today - the third Sunday of January, 2021, and the second Sunday of Epiphany in this year.
Listen now to sacred words. In what might feel like scary days, we invite the words of this psalm to be a gracious word from God. Psalm 139:1-18:
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.
7Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?
8If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. 9If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, 10even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. 11If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” 12even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.
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 works; 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.
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Friends, this is a critical and important expression of faithful life in God’s care. Psalm 139 conveys a sincere confidence and devotion from one who is known and loved and dwells in God’s abiding presence.
Here is my former seminary professor, Dr James L. Mays, who was also a great participant in the life and work of this congregation before he died: maybe like no other piece of Scripture, this psalm “portrays human existence in all its dimensions in terms of God’s knowledge, presence, and power. It reflects an understanding of the human as enclosed in divine reality.” (J. Mays, Psalms, Interpretation Commentary, p. 425)
Let that sink in, especially in these days! “Human existence in all its dimensions in terms of God’s knowledge, presence, and power,” and human life “enclosed in the divine reality.” This psalm bestows and nurtures an awareness of God as the total environment of life.
This is something that I strongly need to hear and affirm in recent days. Probably like many of you, life has felt increasingly heavy, with doubts and darkness about our society, our divisions, our democracy, our future. I will not go into the details; we all know the heartaches and disappointments and confusion that haunt us.
The first thing to note about this psalm, especially in these days, is how deeply and prominently this psalm speaks PRAISE for God. This is what the psalmist says: “I praise you, . . . wonderful are your works, that I know so well.”
This praise comes so strongly because of three main things:
1) The Lord knows whatever the psalmist thinks and does.
2) The Lord is present, finds him, is with him, wherever he is. The Lord was even present before he began to be.
And 3) Nothing about life can outrun and out-distance the truth, even to the end - God is still there, or as the psalmist says, “I am still with you.”
Do you catch the essence now? “Human existence in all its dimensions in terms of God’s knowledge, presence, and power,” and human life “enclosed in the divine reality.”
These words are worth memorizing and repeating: “O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and rise up. You know my path. You know all things. . . . Where can I go from your presence? You are there. Even darkness is light to you!”
Memorize and repeat them - morning, noon, and evening - and we will keep our lives in God’s knowledge, presence, and power. God knows; God is present; we cannot outrun God. God’s power prevails.
Good words for difficult days.
Here is something else to think about regarding this psalm. All the way through these verses, every line’s syntax jumps from “you” and “your” to “I” or “me” and “my.” God is “thou” to the psalmist’s “I.” The psalmist speaks about the self by speaking to God and speaks about God by speaking as a self. God and self are intrinsically linked. Life is enclosed in divine reality. So, what is said about God is not abstract or theoretical. It is all relational - God and human life. Everything is deeply related to God. The psalmist affirms that what he does, where he goes, that he is, are all comprehended by the knowledge, presence, and power of God.
This is another way of saying what the apostle Paul says so well - 7We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. 8If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.
Our life, our life with God, our daily life, our good days and bad days life, our going and coming life - life is always lived related to God. God is the environment in which we live.
And if God is the environment in which we live, the struggles and heartaches that come our way, the limitations and failings, all can be seen in a different light. If we are always enclosed in the divine reality, if our lives really belong to God, then the mistakes we carry, the worries about the nation and world, the shame and loss that may be ours, the burdens that we know, all fall away as less important and can be less consuming for us.
And that is why we keep on with praise. The Lord’s ways shape everything about us. The Lord’s ways are wonderful. The Lord’s knowing us, presence with us, power to care for us, all generate praise from us.
The great hymn - which we will sing in a moment - puts it so well:
“O Love that wilt not let me go, . . . I rest my weary soul in thee; . . . I give thee back the life I owe, . . . that in thine oceans depths its flow, may richer, fuller be.”
The Lord knows us. The Lord knows all things about us. The Lord goes with us. Indeed, there is nowhere we go where God cannot find us. We belong to God.
8If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. 9If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, 10even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.
All of human life is enclosed in divine reality.
If you were hoping to hear the gospel message today - that is it.
Then, and it always follows, this truth also inspires us in the way we live - not just with confidence in God’s presence but courage toward God’s purposes.
This weekend we celebrate again the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In light of everything going on in our hearts and in our nation, in light of the beautiful words of Psalm 139, we hear again these words from King:
- If you want to be important—wonderful. If you want to be recognized—wonderful. If you want to be great—wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. Jesus gives us a new definition of greatness.
- And King goes on: (with this new) definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, (Everybody) because everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant. (“drum Major Instinct” sermon, Ebenezer, Feb 4, 1968.)
May God help us all with servanthood.
- King also said - “everyone person has to decide whether he/she will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.” (see Quotations of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr)
May God help us all with selfishness.
- King also said: “hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life, love illuminates it.”
- And you know this one: “darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
May God help us be people of, not hatred, . . . but love.
Friends, we have many challenges that burden us. We have lots of concerns that perplex and challenge us. Let us hear Psalm 139 and affirm that God’s knowledge, presence and power shape everything about us. That is the real environment in which we live.
And then, let us live - in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr - as people of sincere love and light, striving for greatness in the ways of Jesus. May it be so. Amen
Prayer of Commitment - Holy God, to turn from you is to fall; to turn to you is to rise; to trust you, to live in the ways of love and light, enclosed in divine reality, well, that is to abide forever. We seek that way following Jesus. AMEN
Alex W. Evans, Pastor, Second Presbyterian Church, Richmond, VA preached this sermon during Sunday morning worship on January 17, 2021. This is a rough manuscript.