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Psalm 139:1-24
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.
19O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—
20those who speak of you maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil!
21Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.
23Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts.
24See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
As we honor the mothers among us – as we honor the mothers distant – as we honor the mothers who have long since taken their final breaths, we pause to ponder motherhood. Three years ago when I visited my parents in Kentucky, my mother was afraid of me. I heard her asking my father: “Who is that man over there?” Deep grief filled my heart. My mother no longer knew who I was. That June, as I left there and travelled home, I had said my good-byes to my mother. I was the only one of her four sons to have received her brown eyes. I was the only of her four sons to spend time in the kitchen cooking, making my first full dinner for my family when I was five years old – Mom coaching me through every step, but allowing me to do everything. I was the son my mother confided in when she faced the trials which come with life. I was the son she would call and talk to for hours. I was the son my father resented because I was the son who was so close to her. My mother is still alive, but when my father puts her on the phone to speak with me, she asks how I am, says “God bless you” then hands the phone back to my father – I know she has no idea with whom she is speaking, even though each time I speak with her I remind her that I am her “favorite son Tim.” Maybe if I would identify myself as “Timbo” she would remember. Or not.
Five months after that sad June, I paid another visit to my parents. I was there for five days. When I arrived on a Monday, she did not recognize me. I had expected that. I had already said my good-bye five months earlier. Tuesday mornings are my Father’s time to volunteer at Berea Hospital. Usually Mom would go along and sit with him at the reception desk. But that day my father left Mom at home with me. That Tuesday morning, I was given a great blessing. For some mysterious reason, my mother “came to the surface.” My mother was back. I knew it when I greeted her in the morning and she smiled and said: “Hello handsome!” Whoa! My mother and I spent that Tuesday morning in long conversation. She shed deep tears – bitter tears – because she knew she was slipping away. I shed tears as well. She knew that she had a small window to connect with me. She kept looking directly into my eyes and saying : “Don’t ever forget that I love you.” By that Tuesday afternoon, Mom slipped back into her long and seemingly eternal fog – never to return – at least never to return when I was with her. A few months ago when Leisa and I spent some time with them in Hawaii, I noticed by the end of the week that Mom would occasionally look closely at me. Trying to figure out something. Who is that man? Hank and Noël were on vacation about an hour’s drive from where we were staying. They were both very gracious and kind to my mother on their several visits to our neck of the beach. It was a blessing for Leisa and me that they were nearby. They gave us strength to face the sadnesses of the week.
Psalm 139 is filled with words about blessing. It also has some words of curses. So tempting it is to read only the first eighteen verses of the Psalm and then wish verses nineteen to twenty-four had somehow broken off of the parchment manuscript. Blessings and curses. But maybe they both need to be there in order to bring a completeness to the Psalm. Maybe.
In the faith, we commonly think of blessings as coming from God. In prayers we utter, we often seek blessings. To be blessed by God is to know that one’s soul is in good health – that one’s soul is in good hands. The Bible is also full of another kind of blessing – the blessing of the generations. We read of one generation pronouncing blessing upon the next. In the early chapters of Genesis is the story of a Patriarch of the faith stealing the blessing from his father Isaac – the blessing which was intended for Jacob’s brother Esau. The blessing was so important that one even would try to steal a blessing because to receive a blessing was to receive a promise – to receive a blessing was to receive a heritage – to receive a blessing was to receive an identity.
With the Industrial Revolution came a great rift in the social structure of human society. Leaving the farms and rural areas of the world and pouring into the growing cities, sons no longer were raised by their fathers. No more working with the father on the farm or in the father’s trade. With the Industrial Revolution, the fathers went off to work early in the morning and returned home late in the evenings. Mothers had to take up the task of being both mother and father to their children. It then became the mother’s role to teach young boys how to become men. Mothers were given an impossible task. Generations of men have learned how to be men from their mothers. Generations of men have only known distance and resentment of their fathers. The generational blessings tripped and became immensely complicated. The fathers were the losers. But, so were the mothers with the impossible tasks they were burdened with. Children were the losers as well.
A nun working in a prison in New Mexico was stunned by the number of the inmates who asked her to get Mother’s Day cards for them to send to their mothers. She got them. She could hardly keep up with the requests. A month later, she decided she would be ready and bought lots of Father’s Day cards for the inmates. After Father’s Day had come and gone, she still had almost all of the cards. At least with their fathers, it seems that for many of the inmates in that prison in New Mexico, blessing was absent, perhaps replaced by a curse. The blessing of the generations had somehow derailed. Mothers who have been able to find a way to pass the generational blessing on to their sons without the help and presence of the fathers must be the true saints of this world.
A favorite mantra among some expressions of the Christian faith (and parroted by politicians seeking their votes) is the phrase: “family values.” The Old Testament is not very helpful in understanding what today we want to believe are “family values.” The Patriarch Jacob. Married two women. Sisters. Rachel and Leah. The sisters were in competition with each other and each wanted the most children, so they each gave their slave girls to Jacob to have children on their behalf. Jacob ended up with two wives and two mistresses. They did not “live happily ever after” because Jacob had a favorite. Rachel was his favorite. He loved her more than the others. Rachel had two sons. One was Joseph. Joseph was the one with the multi-colored coat who was sold into slavery to Egypt by his brothers. (Great “family values” there.) Then there was Benjamin. Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin. She died on the hill just south of Jerusalem, overlooking Bethlehem. When Benjamin was born, and as Rachel was dying, she named him “Ben-oni” which means “Son-of-my-sorrow.” But before she died, Jacob named him “Benjamin” which means “Son-of-my-right-hand.”
I know I am rambling. Pondering the concept of “blessing.” Maybe it is a concept that is not even important to you. If it isn’t, forgive me for my rambling. Recently it has become a bit of an obsession for me. Of course I hunger to be blessed by God. Perhaps we all do. But from ancient times, blessing had a very human dimension to it. Not sure anything magical happened to Jacob when he stole his father Isaac’s blessing which should have been for his elder brother Esau. The blessing, if anything, had something to do with his descendants. His children. Perhaps that is the aspect of blessing that has lately been consuming my mind.
The Psalm we heard a bit ago is filled with words of blessing. Of approval. Of acceptance: “O God. You know me. You know the deepest parts of me. You know all my successes and you know all my failures. You knew me before I was born and you are with me to the end. You know me – every part of me – nothing of me is hidden from you. And still you love me and accept me. Too wonderful for words. Even me. The phony. The sinful one. Even with all my failures. Even me. You know everything about me. And still you love and accept me. How can I grasp it? How can I believe it? I must be dreaming.”
I battle low self-esteem, low self-worth. I convince myself that if any of you knew the real me, you would brush me off like a pesky mosquito. My mind is haunted with thoughts that tell me that I am merely tolerated. I too readily listen to those words which whisper constantly to me that I do not measure up; that I am not holy; that I am more of a burden than a blessing. Every so often the imagined voices of disapproval scream loudly within me and I find myself believing the voices. Once in a while those overwhelming internal voices gang up on me on a Sunday morning. I apologize for last Sunday. I should have called in sick. I was having a bad day. I sincerely thank all of you for your concern and your love. On days like last Sunday, the portion of the Psalm I was too willing to hear were those words from verses nineteen and on. The curses:
19O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me— 20those who speak of you maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil! 21Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? 22I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.
Sometimes words like those seem directed directly at me. The words sometimes scream so loudly that I find myself unable to even hear or believe all of those other words which came before. Words of approval. Words of blessing:
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.
The “night demons” which whisper voices of inadequacy into our defenseless ears and visit us in our dreams can be so subtle and so powerful. The insecure among us too readily believe those voices of inadequacy. Too often they are the voices of our disapproving fathers. As we seek to make sense of life and faith, we hear over and over that God is like our father. Say what? That might have been a wonderfully comforting thought during the time of the Bible, but for all too many at this time in history, the image of father has been tarnished. Gone. Distant. A sense of abandonment. Some have watched their fathers beating up their mothers. Some have been beaten up by their fathers. Some have been abused by their fathers. So we approach God and call God “Father.” No wonder so many cannot believe that God can love them. Particularly among men, no wonder so many struggle with faith in God. Certainly there are many poor examples of mothers as well – abusive or distant, but quite often most of our sense of security and love has come from our mothers. God is like that as well. In Isaiah are the words: “But Zion said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.’ Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” (49:14-15)
Certainly we all try to be good fathers and good mothers. We do not intend to hurt our children with our own imperfections. We all want to pass blessings on to the next generation. We can try our best. But we all know that in spite of it all, it is difficult and too often we have come up short. Thank God that there is a deeper blessing which can also be passed on. God’s blessing. The ultimate.
“O God. You know me. You know the deepest parts of me. You know all my successes and you know all my failures. You knew me before I was born and you are with me to the end. You know me – every part of me – nothing of me is hidden from you. And still you love me and accept me. Too wonderful for words. Even me. The phony. The sinful one. Even with all my failures. Even me. You know everything about me. And still you love and accept me. How can I grasp it? How can I believe it? I must be dreaming.”
No. I’m not dreaming. Those are the words: “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.” We are not alone. Amen.