Wonder and Wicked

Luke 14:25-33

Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, 26“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. 27Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me me cannot be my disciple. 28For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see wither he has enough to complete it? 29Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, 30saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32If he cannot, then, while the other is stall far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. 33So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God

Psalm 139

1To the leader. Of David. A Psalm.

O 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 you works;

15My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately women 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 not I hate those who hate you, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?

22 I 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.

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God.

God knows you. God loves you. No matter what.

Psalm 139, at least the first 18 verses, is one of the most beloved psalms in the book. “O LORD you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up.” The Presbyterian Hymnal has five separate hymns based on this psalm, a record exceeded only by Psalm 23. “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

God knows you. God loves you. No matter what.

But in our rush to reach our inescapable God, we sometimes skip the very beginning of the psalm. “To the leader. Of David. A Psalm.” While the subtitles in our pew bibles are added by the publisher, the little lines at the beginning are part of the scripture, and carry the same authority. This psalm is attributed to King David.

David was the shepherd boy who faced off against Goliath, a warrior giant, and won. He’s the musician who wrote dozens of psalms, and played in the court of King Saul to help calm Saul’s troubled spirit. David is the refugee who pretended to be crazy in front of the King of Gath to avoid imprisonment. He’s the mighty warrior who killed tens of thousands of his enemies, and brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. He’s the king who is remembered as leading the golden age of Israel. He founds the dynasty that eventually produces Jesus of Nazareth.

We know King David from the stories we read in scripture, but God knew him so much more intimately. “You know when I sit and and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.” The LORD knows more than the stories of David. God knows David. God loves David. No matter what. The same is true for us. God knows you. God loves you. No matter what.

After all of his travels, all of his struggles, David wants to know that God is with him always. “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.” David has left his home more than once, and has felt God’s presence around him in every place he has gone.

Many of us have similar stories. It’s increasingly unusual for families to have multiple generations in the same place. Kids grow up, go to college, and find jobs which are not always close to their parents and grandparents. For those of us who are blessed to have parents and grandparents, children and grandchildren all nearby to one another, the world has changed so rapidly in the past 30 years that it may feel like we cannot keep up any longer. Many of us have even had to deal with losing a church home, whether that Adam’s Memorial two generations ago or West Avenue only a year ago. “If I take the wings of the morning as settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.” God knows you. God loves you. No matter what. No matter how far from home we may wander, or how unrecognizable home may become, God is still with us. God knows you. God loves you. No matter what.

God knows David. God loves David. No matter what.

David takes the last six verses in a very different direction than the rest of the Psalm. Most readers end up just leaving them out, because they are so disparate from the rest of what David writes. When folks tell me that their favorite Bible Verse comes from Psalm 139, they never quote from this section. “O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me - those who speak of you maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil! Do not I hate those who hate you, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.”

But wait a moment, David. I know more than just the stories of your successes. I Samuel 21 and 22 tells of how David lied to a priest to get supplies and weapons as he fled from Saul under false pretenses. II Samuel 11 tells us the famous story of David and Bathsheba, which is at best adultery and at worst sexual assault, and then conspires to have her husband killed to cover up the resulting pregnancy. II Samuel 13 is a text of terror where David puts his daughter Tamar in terrible danger, and then neither protects her nor punishes the one who harmed her. David is celebrated for killing tens of thousands in battle, but I Chronicles tells us that he is forbidden from building the temple to the LORD because of all the blood on his hands. It’s not like he turned to the dark side for a chapter or two, this stuff has been ongoing his whole life.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me?” David, you don’t exactly have a spotless record buddy. Maybe don’t go throwing the “O that you would kill the wicked” stones around your glass house. Just saying.

But God knows David. God loves David. No matter what.

God knows you. God loves you. No matter what. All the flaws we see in ourselves? God sees them too, and still loves us no matter what. God’s love for you is greater than the wickedness of our hearts. God’s love for you is greater than greater than the maliciousness of our minds. God knows you. God loves you. No matter what. “In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.” God knew what loving David would cost. God knew that loving a sinner would mean enduring the heartbreak of David’s sinful actions. God kept loving David anyway. Even as God sent prophets to David’s court to cry out in anguish at the wickedness David had done, God kept loving him.

God knows you. God loves you. No matter what. God counted the cost of loving us, knew that it would lead to the cross, and keeps loving us anyway. God knows you. God loves you. No matter what.

David cries out at the end of this psalm. He knows that he is fearfully and wonderfully made, in the image of God, and that his wicked actions have obscured that image. So he cries out to be cleansed of his own hurtful wickedness. “See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” He did not live to see the promises fulfilled, or his wickedness returned to wonder.

But Christ surrounded him regardless. God’s love searched and kept him regardless. The way everlasting goes on without end, and David was joined to it by God’s love, regardless of David’s unworthiness. God knows you. God loves you. No matter what. Christ is at work through us, in us, and around us. Whether we feel lost, or worthless, or overwhelmed, or inadequate, God loves us regardless. We are the work of God’s own hands.

“Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.”

Thanks be to God.