Search Me Out, O God

Psalm 139

Lord, you have searched me out and known me; *
you know my sitting down and my rising up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.

You trace my journeys and my resting-places *
and are acquainted with all my ways.

Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, *
but you, O Lord, know it altogether.

You press upon me behind and before *
and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; *
it is so high that I cannot attain to it.

Where can I go then from your Spirit? *
where can I flee from your presence?

If I climb up to heaven, you are there; *
if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.

If I take the wings of the morning *
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

Even there your hand will lead me *
and your right hand hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will cover me, *
and the light around me turn to night,”

Darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day; *
darkness and light to you are both alike.

For you yourself created my inmost parts; *
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I will thank you because I am marvelously made; *
your works are wonderful, and I know it well.

My body was not hidden from you, *
while I was being made in secret
and woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my limbs, yet unfinished in the womb;
all of them were written in your book; *
they were fashioned day by day,
when as yet there was none of them.

How deep I find your thoughts, O God! *
how great is the sum of them!

If I were to count them,
they would be more in number than the sand; *
to count them all, my life span would need to be like yours.

Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God! *
You that thirst for blood, depart from me.

They speak despitefully against you; *
your enemies take your Name in vain.

Do I not hate those, O Lord, who hate you? *
and do I not loathe those who rise up against you?

I hate them with a perfect hatred; *
they have become my own enemies.

Search me out, O God, and know my heart; *
try me and know my restless thoughts.

Look well whether there be any wickedness in me *
and lead me in the way that is everlasting.

A few years ago there was an Episcopal comedian making the rounds at diocesan councils throughout the church. Now, I admit, you after to be pretty hardcore into our denomination to appreciate Episcopal humor. One of his lines, which I am sure you won’t laugh at now, poked fun at assigned bible readings that skip over certain verses. “Are you like me,” he asked? “Do you want to pull out a bible and read the stuff they didn’t want you to see?”

We jumped over fives verses in today’s gospel reading because in it Jesus tells another parable before explaining the one we read. Not much drama there. The Psalm reading for today, however, called for verses 1-11 and 22-23. This focused the psalm more toward the Old Testament reading, highlighting God’s abiding presence with us as God was present with Jacob. But what was to be omitted is worth reading and thus we recited the entire 139th Psalm, not just a portion of it.

Appointed psalms often get chopped up. As I said, sometimes it is done to focus the poem more toward the theme of another appointed reading. Other times it is because the verses are just down-right embarrassing. Take Psalm 137 for instance. It begins with that beautiful, moving lament:

By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept,
when we remembered you, O Zion.

But we tend not to hear the last two verses in public worship:

O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy the one who pays you back
for what you have done to us!

Happy shall he be who takes your little ones,
and dashes them against the rock!

Surely you can understand why these two verses are left out.

In addition to its soaring poetry the 139th Psalm contains a similar obstacle:

Lord, you have searched me out and known me; *
you know my sitting down and my rising up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.

***

If I take the wings of the morning *
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

Even there your hand will lead me *
and your right hand hold me fast.

***

For you yourself created my inmost parts; *
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

***

I will thank you because I am marvelously made; *
your works are wonderful, and I know it well.

***

How deep I find your thoughts, O God! *
how great is the sum of them!

If I were to count them,
they would be more in number than the sand; *
to count them all, my life span would need to be like yours.

Think how impoverished our doctrine of God and our doctrine of humanity would be without these incredible, theological insights. But all of the wonderful, sacred reflection leads up to this:

Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God! *
You that thirst for blood, depart from me.

They speak despitefully against you; *
your enemies take your Name in vain.

Do I not hate those, O Lord, who hate you? *
and do I not loathe those who rise up against you?

I hate them with a perfect hatred; *
they have become my own enemies.

It almost feels like the writer took a sharp turn and drove the psalm right off a cliff. No wonder these verses get omitted from our public reciting! And yet, to my reading, they are the key to understanding the entire psalm. Let me explain.

It is clear that beyond all the magnificent language and imagery, the psalm’s author is filled with anger. He is consumed with rage at his enemies, at those who take God’s name in vain, at the wicked in the land.
Now, anger takes many different shapes and forms; some appropriate, some not.

• Rage is a violent outburst of anger in which self-control is lost.

• Fury is an overwhelming rage of such frenzy that it borders on madness.

• Indignation is a righteous anger aroused by what is considered unjust.

• Wrath is deep indignation that expresses itself in a desire to punish or to get revenge.

It is hard to say which of these the psalmist experienced, but this we do know: the author – no matter how justified he or she may have been in feeling anger – was not comfortable with its intensity. He or she wonders if it is the appropriate response or not.

And so the psalmist confesses a belief that God is always present, that God made the author to be who he or she is, that God knows the author through and through, that God’s insight is deeper and greater than anything we can imagine. Given all of this, the author lays out the hatred he or she feels.

Search me out, O God, and know my heart; *
try me and know my restless thoughts.

Look well whether there be any wickedness in me *
and lead me in the way that is everlasting.

“Here I am God, bare and unvarnished. Now tell me if I am justified to be this angry or am I nurturing sin with all that is raging inside me.”

It is a powerful psalm not just because of what it says about God and not just because of what it says about God’s craftsmanship displayed uniquely in each one of us, but also because it demonstrates how one person presents him or herself to God for examination, for judgment, and for correction. “O God, am I right to feel the way I do?” What an incredible prayer.

Many of the psalms approach God with a question and in some of them God responds, but not here. This one ends with the psalmist’s offering of self before God. Whatever God’s response was, the psalmist chooses not to incorporate it in this work. I am O.K. with that. Imagine if God’s answer to this person was, “Of course you are right to hate your enemies.” Then the psalm would be used as a proof-text to justify all anger. Or what if God’s answer was, “No, you are wrong to hate.” Well, then the psalm might be used to say all anger is unjustified. What the psalm gives us is the question; the witness of one person placing him or herself before God seeking divine discernment.

Some people say that the bible has all the answers to life’s questions. While it does contain some concrete direction, often times what the bible gives us is a question. The question of Psalm 139 is “Am I right to hate my enemies?” And while it does not give us the answer, still there is something incredibly valuable about its witness, isn’t there. It calls us to be people who come before God continually, presenting ourselves, our actions, our motivations, our emotions before the seat of the One who is always with us, who formed us to be who we are, and who knows us inside and out.

Search me out, O God, and know my heart; *
try me and know my restless thoughts.