To Know or Be Known

That is the Question

Psalm 139:1-6,13-18, 1 Corinthians 13: 8-13                                        Nancy Willet

Bethany Presbyterian Church, Dallas                                                                 April 3, 2005

Seems like I have been a student for a long, long time now. Beginning in 1992, I began completing my undergraduate degree that I began just after graduating high school. I spent the next eight years working on a Bachelor's Degree in Spanish, then, a year and a half later; I began my four year seminary career. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I love being a student and learning. I love gaining knowledge about new things and discovering remote parts of my brain I never knew even existed!

Knowledge is also something the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. takes very seriously when it comes to their ministers. My Methodist peers at Perkins School of Theology were always in total amazement and awe at the educational requirements—specifically our requirement to know Greek and Hebrew—we Presbyterians had to fulfill.

 Knowledge is important—I agree. Knowledge is important to all of us—not just to seminary students, though. We need to know how to drive a car, we need to know how to read the labels on medicine bottles, and we need to know how to do our jobs so we can earn a living.

We all understand how important it is to know certain things in life. But what many don't understand is that it is also important to be known.

Think about a relationship you are in. It could be any relationship—a love relationship, a friendship, a business relationship, a relationship with the person sitting next to you in the pew. In any relationship, one of the first things that happens when the relationship begins is that the two of you get to know each other. Each of you discovers things about the other person that makes them tick—things that they like or don't like. It is a discovery process when who we are becomes known to the other person.

Have you noticed, though, that some people are just easier to get to know than others? Opening oneself to another is not always an easy thing for some people.  Perhaps it may involve some scrutinizing by the other person. The person that is hard to get to know might feel like they may have something to hide. Maybe they think there is something about them, that if the other person knew about—they just couldn't love them. They might have a fear of being rejected if they were fully known.

I'm wondering if that is what the psalmist was thinking and feeling in the beginning of Psalm 139? Perhaps he was feeling a bit scrutinized by God. Perhaps he was worried that if God knew everything about him—sins and all—God could not possibly love him. Maybe God would reject him. It could be.

It is clear from reading this psalm that God did seem to know every last detail about the poet. God knew when he sat down and when he got up. The psalmist says that God even knew what the psalmist was going to say before he even said it. Before a word was even on his tongue—God knew it.

         Back and front the psalmist says God enclosed him with God's knowledge of him. Then he goes on to write that God laid God's hand upon him. Back and front, and even upon him. Could it be that God's omniscience—God's all knowing, and omnipresence—God's presence everywhere, was a bit suffocating to the psalmist?

         Could it be this is how we are sometimes in our human relationships? Are there times when we feel others know us too well, that they know way too much about us? Do you sometimes feel hemmed in or enclosed by someone you are in relationship with? That doesn't feel too good, does it?

         There is a positive flip side to this, however. Have  you ever really felt known by another? Have you been in a relationship where you felt like you didn't always have to explain yourself because the other person knew you so well they knew where you were coming from? They seemed to know what you were going to say before you even said it? That can feel good.

In Psalm 139, an explanation of the verb used in verse 5 for enclose shows us how the psalmist used this verb to describe the way he was feeling about God's knowledge of him.

It is the same verb that is used in the Exodus story when God covered Moses with God's hand while God's glory passed by. In that passage, God had just told Moses that no one could look at God's face and live—the sight was just too powerful, too holy for human eyes to behold. God was protecting Moses from seeing God's face—from death. God surrounded, God enclosed Moses in safety and security so he would not be harmed.

 Instead of seeing God surrounding us from all sides—hemming us in from back to front and even on top, covering us with God's hand—What if we saw God's knowledge of us as Moses did—as a sign of  protection, as a sense of security. This can give us confidence and the ability to bounce back from difficult situations in our lives.

"Oh God you have searched me and know."

When we address God as Creator, like we often do here at Bethany —I know many times I only think about how God created the amazing world we live in. I think about creation as a whole.  But have you ever thought about just how involved God was in your own personal creation—the creation of the unique you?  The psalmist says that God wove him in his mother's womb—that he was intricately woven.

 Think about how intricately woven our strands of DNA are that each of us have to make up our genetic identity. Can you picture God as a master weaver, an artist that takes both our good and our bad traits and creates us to be exactly who we are?

During the times we may question our worthiness in life, it helps when we realize that God made us exactly to be who and what we are.* You are no mistake!  As the psalmist said in verse 14, "God's work is extraordinary." That means you are extraordinary!

 In the last part of the psalm, the poet moves from being overwhelmed and just a little paranoid about God's total knowledge of him, to an attitude of exceeding thankfulness for the intimate way in which he is known, for the wonderful way in which he was created.

"How weighty are your thoughts to me, O God," says the psalmist when he realized the amazing, the awesome feat that God has accomplished through the act of creation.

 The word weighty in Hebrew is translated in much the same manner as it could be in English. It can either be translated difficult/hard—as a weight to bear, or precious/valued—as in the weight of a diamond or gemstone.

 I think maybe the psalmist was feeling a little of both. It was so hard for the psalmist, as well as for us today to fully comprehend the knowledge of just how much God loves us. God's complete knowledge of us is a mystery—we don't understand how any being could know that much! The weight of an unsolved mystery can be quite a great burden for some.

 At the same time, God's love is  the most precious and valued thing we have in our lives.  Sometimes, some of the most difficult, hard to manage tasks in life are the very things that become most precious and valued once they are understood and undertaken.

You see, what the psalmist discovered and what we too can discover is that we can grasp the glorious truth of God's love for us—of God's complete knowledge of us, without completely understanding it. We can be certain God wants the best for us, for all our lives that God intricately wove into being.

I'm sure you have all heard that at times that Presbyterians are way too "in the head," and not enough "in the heart." We Presbyterians do appreciate and value knowledge—it is a weighty notion to most of us. But folks, as you know, there are just some things about God which we will never be able to comprehend, no matter how much education or knowledge we attain.

I think the Apostle Paul understood this notion pretty well in the 1Corinthians passage that we read for our Epistle lesson today. "For now we see in a mirror dimly—or in riddles, as it can also be translated. But then—in our final day—we will see face to face. Now we know only in part; then we will know fully, even as we have been fully known" (1 Cor. 13:12). 

God knows each of us with a particular knowledge that is unique to each one of us. This knowledge is a thing to be treasured. So many times people struggle, and stretch, and yearn to be understood and be known by another. To be known as completely as God knows us—even without having to utter a word, my friends, is a gift.

The gift of being known, like most things of value, though, does not come without responsibility. We are called to live according to the way God created us. For as Psalm 139 boasts: God's work—humanity/you and I, is extraordinary. It is with this knowledge that we can live in confidence, that we can live extraordinary lives. God does search our hearts and knows us. God knows us better than we know ourselves. This, my Christian family is the Good News for the day—God's complete knowledge and love of our deepest beings frees us to accept ourselves, to accept others, and to live this extraordinary life we were created to live.

Amen.

* Gary Sims, Getting Personal With God, First United Methodist Church, Albuquerque, NM. Reflections of the Spirit—Lectionary Based Study. < http://www.InJesus.com> September 01, 2004. Accessed March 23, 2005.