Philippians 4:6-7 (Version: The Message)
Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.
Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Psalm 139:1-12
1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me. 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. 3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. 5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. 7 Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. 9 If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” 12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.
Well, it's been quite a whirlwind since we got the email and the call from the Denomination that they were really interested and really excited about what the Deacons had (and have) been doing for peacemaking the last few years, especially the commitment to funding and sending money off to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. This is the third year that we'll be doing this and so today I designed a service that was, hopefully, a little more contemplative and to help us really think through how special and important life is and where God is in the middle of that. Natalie will be speaking more specifically to that in a few more minutes. But I want to give you a background on the three texts that I chose for today.
The Philippians text I chose from the version “The Message” because it's just easier on the ears. Paul talks to us in Philippians and is trying to remind us and everyone who was struggling, that the Lord's constant nearness is a comfort and a reassurance to everyone who is brokenhearted. The presence of Christ is a promise and, therefore, it is a reason to rejoice and to find peace and an ability to live a life especially unburdened by anxiety. The text doesn't promise that we will have a life free of difficulty (although I'm dying to have that for myself and for all of you) or that we're not going to have a life filled without pressure-filled moments. The text doesn't minimize hardships by any means, but it does strongly encourage us to recognize the Lord's nearness, so that we're not overwhelmed by anxiety. And that things are really not out of control even though they really feel like they are; that the outcome is not in doubt or ‘hanging in the balance’, because God is there to catch us.
The reason why it's important for us to know that the Lord is near is to be reminded again that our prayers, no matter how large, how repetitive or how small, none of them go unheard. The peace of God wants to replace paralyzing anxiety, especially in the midst of hard times and it's actually so powerful that it's beyond even human comprehension. It's just there. Our lives are covered by a blanket or a prayer shawl of peace, but we ignore it. We forget it. We disregard it. We don't trust it. Sometimes, because we are so whipped up, we can't feel it. And sometimes we're just out of faith and trust. But still, as close as your clothes are to you now, is God's presence to each of us.
Psalm 139, which is a favorite of so many of ours, is a text that explores God's presence in a way that's far different than so much of scripture. It implores us to pray and to seek to understand. But it's not so that we can emulate the characteristics of God or God's law or God's commandments, like many other texts do. In Ps 139, the psalmist is reminding us is that no matter where we go, what we do, what we experience, or what we endure, we are fully known and understood. For some, including the psalmist, sometimes that can be a little unnerving. Do we really want God to know everything that we're thinking? No. Do we really want God to see everything that we're doing? No. Do we want God to hear everything that we're saying? No. But God does.
It's not a threat. The problem is our humanity. Our humanity drives insecurity. It drives our fears that our histories, our habits, our actions, our thoughts may not really even be good enough and secretly then, we decide that somewhere deep down inside, we are actually unlovable. The psalmist however, wants us to have comfort and reassurance that God is with us every step, every experience, every thought, every word, every action.
I have a friend who has some grandchildren and they thought it'd be a really good idea to help the family calm down a little bit, was to get a dog. Now those of you who've ever had dogs you know that that's a mixed blessing, right? Because they are calming and they're delightful, but they're also an awful lot of work. Ginger is her name. She's a golden retriever and Ginger has brought so much calm and peace to this family that every time they'd start to get in fights--you know how teenagers can fight, right? Every time the teenagers (two boys) would start to fight, she'd get in the middle of them and start barking until they'd calm down. Ginger got so attached to the eldest child, (who's a very tender-hearted young man) that she actually started to sleep in his room. Well, Nick went off to college this fall. Ginger is now hiding and sleeping under his bed. She doesn't know where to bring (or find) the peace.
A couple of weeks ago, the family face-timed Nick at college and you know what Ginger did? Started licking the phone! That is the kind of peace that God wants for us, but sometimes we're just not paying attention or, quite truthfully, we don't think we deserve it. And those who struggle with mental illness and suicide, they don't think they're lovable. They don't think their life is worth it. They don't think they're good enough to hold on. They think they're invisible. They think they're unlovable and, sadly, even forgotten.
Psalm 139 says, I don't care where you go or what you do, I am with you in this. I have got your back. The perfectness in us is actually God. We don't have to do anything about it. It's there. It's painful to be separated from family, to be misunderstood and judged by others, but God is the constant even in those places where our heart is literally breaking. God wants us to know that in the ups and downs of life, there's no place we can go where God is not already there saying, “I hear you. I see you and you matter to me and all of your peccadillos and all of your foibles and all of your missteps, I still love you just the same.” And that leads us to Romans 8.
Romans 8 is probably the most crucial text in the New Testament, if not in all of the bible, and it's crucial that we look at life and hardship and suffering. But ultimately no matter what we're feeling or what we're enduring, we're never separated from God or God's love, because God is our creator and we… are God's creatures. Therefore, God's love extends and covers and precedes us no matter what. In this text we can take hope and we can draw strength. We can even see light in the darkness. This text assures us, as the scholar Paul Achtemeier says, “suffering and affliction may come, but it does not mean that God has abandoned us. These life experiences are not God's last word. God raised Christ even from death and that shows us that God is in our lives and that our future lies completely in His hands”, as does our past and our present.
I reconnected recently with a friend from high school and he shared a story with me that has stuck with me since he shared it. Jack was on vacation with his family up in Maine. He's the youngest of four and, because he wasn't old enough to play with his siblings, they took him off to sort of a day camp within the community. And he was in this day camp with other kids of his age at a recreation center. And along with some daily activities and some arts and crafts, they decide to play the game “hide and seek”.
Jack didn't want to get caught. As the youngest, he wanted to be the most clever and so he found a cabinet at the bottom of a bookshelf. He was small enough to fit in the bottom, but he couldn't lock it from the inside. So, he said to one of the other kids close the latch from the outside. And then he stayed silent and then everybody else hid and, about 30 minutes later, the game was over and the camp counselors brought everybody back together and sent them on their way. “Everybody have a great day. See you tomorrow.” And Jack was still in the other room and stuck in the lower cabinet. He's banging on the door, saying, “Hey! Help! Help! Help!” But they can't hear, because the kids are screaming; the parents are picking up their own kids.
He wasn't afraid of the dark. He wasn't claustrophobic, (although I certainly would be) because he knew that God would find him and save him. And eventually all the other kids left and his mother came to look for him and said, “Where's Jack? Where's Jack?”
“I don't know. Jack, I think went home, ” said the counselors.
His mother said, “No. No, Jack didn't go home. I'm here to pick him up.”
And Jack's banging on the inside of the door and finally the camp counselor hears Jack's voice, runs in the other room and unlocks the door. Now that's cause, (and I'm not joking), for therapy! That could be traumatizing to a little kid, but he said, “It didn't bother me. I knew eventually I would be safe, because God has already saved me and loves me no matter what.”
Friends, we all find ourselves locked away in the dark, trapped, forgotten even by our own parents or a trusting teacher or counselor or pastor. But God never does, because nothing can ever separate us from the love of God. Thanks be to God.
Amen.