You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly!
I
remember once a number of years ago – back in the days of yellow, orange, and
red terrorist alerts - watching our daughter, Heather, go through airport
security in Portland. Now – I would not
be surprised if at that point of heightened security she was not on some sort
of watch list.
After
all, she had traveled a number of times to rather “un-American” destinations
like South and Central America (what with drug cartels in Columbia and the
Shining Star in Peru – not to mention clerics like Oscar Romero in El Salvador
and liberation theology all over the place) as well as Namibia, Botswana, and
South Africa (I mean, come on, Africa….).
In
addition, while in college, she once dropped her passport in a school parking
lot only to have it plowed that night – along with a foot of snow – into a huge
white icy pile that would not melt until spring. That might not have been all that bad except
for the fact that she was scheduled to leave for Peru in less than a week.
We
resolved the situation by my meeting her in Boston, armed with more
documentation of her identity than you could shake a stick at. Many hours later, as the Passport Officer
handed her a new passport, he told her very sternly to never – ever – lose her
passport again.
With
that bit of background then, let’s return to the Portland Jetport. While everyone else in line went merrily
through the various screening devices, Heather was pulled aside right from the
start. A big, frowning man in a TSA
uniform opened her carryon backpack and proceeded to rummage and ransack
through her most personal things.
Not
finding anything, he grunted a few times, slowly shook his head, and shuttled
her to Phase 2 of this particular interrogation. There she was instructed to turn her pockets
inside out and remove the belt holding up her pants – along with her
shoes.
A
uniformed woman with a badge strolled over and directed Heather to lean over
and stretch out her arms. She frisked
Heather with such intensity that I think she probably made it to second
base. She found nothing, of course, and
seemed a little disappointed - then grunted and waved Heather through.
As
her mother, even I felt disheveled, rattled, and a little violated. “You have searched me, and you know
me.” Imagine what a fearsome thing it could
be to be searched and known by God!
Here’s
part of a poem entitled “The Hound of Heaven” by Francis Thompson:
I fled Him, down the
nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the
arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the
labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in
the midst of tears
I hid from Him, and
under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I
sped;
And shot,
precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms
of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet
that followed, followed after.
You
can run – but you cannot hide. That seems to be at least part of what the
writer is telling us in this psalm we have heard read several times this
morning, this psalm that is at once a song and a deep felt prayer, comingled
somewhere between confession and thanksgiving.
In one of the most wonderful poetic passages in Scripture, we are
reminded in words that are achingly beautiful that God has hemmed us in and
fenced us in. God surrounds us. God is no stranger to us. As one translation reads:
I am like an open book to you
Scary
perhaps, but as the Psalmist also recognizes:
I look behind me and you’re there,
then up ahead and
you’re there, too—your reassuring presence, coming and going.
This is too much,
too wonderful—I can’t take it all in!
God
embraces you. Whichever way you turn,
there is the face of God. When the Psalmist
asks
Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?
To be
out of your sight?
The
response is always:
“You are there.
You are there. You are already
waiting there….With every step
you take. Every move you make. Every vow you break. Every smile you fake, every claim you stake. I'll be
watching you.
And
theologian Marcus Borg asks directly the question we are all silently posing:
“How is that possible?”
And
Borg supplies his own answer; “Because there is no place we can be outside of
God.” He goes on to say that: “God is like wind, like breath. (Ancient
people) experienced wind as a powerful, invisible force. Breath is similar. It
is an invisible life force within us. God is like the wind that moves outside
of us and the breath that moves inside of us. We are in God, even as God is
also within us.”
No
matter how comforting that thought may be, however, I think there is more to
this Psalm than simply God knowing all of our ins and outs and never leaving us
dangling. And it is Marcus Borg who prompts
me to raise a second question: If we
indeed have this amazingly intimate and wonderfully symbiotic relationship with
God, then what does that mean for how we live our lives?
If
we are that close to God such that God is indeed a part of us and not some far
off entity that used to break into the world, but that was only long ago in
Biblical times, what does that mean for us today?
If
God is powerfully at work in our lives, if God is still speaking – and speaking
to us – then how should we respond when we get up and leave these hard wooden
pews this morning and head to the Annual Meeting?
Here’s
an idea. According to the Psalmist, God
is surrounding us, fencing us in, hemming us in. That is a given. However, I think we still have a choice about
how to respond. After all, God blessed
humanity with free will, with the ability to make our own decisions, to choose
our own path. In this case, we can fight God’s
Way, resist God’s constant nudging, ignore the way we always seem to bump into
God, or we can go with the flow.
That
is, we can subvert – overtly or covertly - the way of Jesus, he whom we as
Christians have affirmed embodies all that God wants us to be in this world –
or we can go with the flow. What I mean
is that we can continue to live in a deep fear of scarcity, not generously
share what we have, and walk our own path, accepting the darkness that seems to
go along with it – or we can choose the Way God has illumined for us. We can come to worship on Sunday and feel
good about ourselves and then let someone else do the hard work of mission and
action and generous giving and collaboration and reconciliation and peace
making on the other six days – or we can journey with Jesus.
Clarence
Jordan – Baptist pastor, Biblical scholar, farmer, and unceasing advocate for
racial and economic justice - said once that as long as God was an idea, an
abstraction, a feeling, we were fine with God. Then Jesus showed up, in the
flesh, looking at us with those excavating eyes. God was suddenly as real and
tangible on earth as in heaven -- and we decided it wasn’t a good place for God
to be.
Jordan
says that it felt like there was a preacher at the barbershop. It felt like
there was a nun at the bar, or a monk at the bachelor party. So we said, “Jesus,
we have to watch ourselves too much around you. We feel hemmed in around you.
Now you go back home where you belong and be a good God, and maybe we’ll see
you of a Sunday morning.” (Jeremy Troxler)
We
can yield to the God that lives in each one of us – or we can battle the
essence of who we are meant to be. It seems
to me that it would be a lot easier for us and for the world if we just decided
to try a bit harder to go with the flow.
I mean, in the end, we can run but we cannot hide.
It
seems to me it would be a lot easier for us and for the world to follow the way
that Jesus has set out for us. When we
hear that whispered call or feel that nudge or sense that tug in our hearts to
respond to the one who has searched us and known us, it seems to me it would be
a lot easier for us and for the world to go with the flow, open ourselves to
the Spirit, and confidently respond:
“Here I am, sister. Here I am,
brother. Here I am, church. Here I am, Lord.”
by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church U.C.C., Raymond, Maine
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