Courage to Be Known.
PREACHING TEXT: Psalm 139: verses 1-6 and 13-18
O LORD, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down 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. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your 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. How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them -- they are more than the sand; I come to the end -- I am still with you.
Sermon: Courage to be Known
In the book, Olive Kitteridge, we follow a woman in her 50’s as she wrestles with her inability to connect to the outside world and her own lifetime of bottling up her emotions and words.
Olive deplores the characters around her, casting judgment on the people in her family and small coastal town, until finally they all slip away from her orbit.
Her son, exhausted by her- begins to see a therapist and enacts some new-fangled thing called, “boundaries”, which Olive finds as a true personal affront.
Her husband Henry Kitteredge, painted by the author as a decent and humble man, speaks freely of his opinions of her at the moment of potential death during a crisis in the book. When he might have only seconds left to live- Henry condemns her coldness and her lack of empathy and blames her for their son’s moving across the country. They never emotionally recover from this honest confession. Henry later dies of natural causes, and Olive’s strained relationship with her son continues as they drift farther and farther apart. As I read Olive Kitteridge, I began to ache for her unspoken loneliness. It must be such a painful world to live in, when you cannot connect with anyone around you. The book is a warning to the person who never lets their guard down, and never is vulnerable.
You almost sympathize with Olive, despite all her character flaws. Why would anyone want to be seen as vulnerable?
What even does that mean for people sitting in church on a Sunday morning?The passages we read today are about God knowing us, and exploring what exactly that looks like in our lives.
Psalms 139 is basically saying:
· Life has purpose because God knows us
· Life has purpose because God is with us
· And that makes us extremely vulnerable to God- and that’s a good thing. The scary part of this- is that in order for us to deepen that relationship with God- we have to deepen our relationships with the people around us.
This passage isn’t asking us to overshare, it’s not asking us to pour all our dirty laundry out into the front lawn, or to put ourselves in any sort of emotionally dangerous situation
- Psalms 139 is just asking us to have a little courage. It’s saying we’re known, deeply by God of love. And that’s a beautiful thing.
But we have to have courage to let others know us. We can let our emotional armor take a breather for just a sec- to let the walls come down- just a tiny bit- maybe so that we’re like Wilson- the friendly and wise neighbor from the 90s sitcom Home Improvement- where only half his face was ever exposed to the neighbors on the other side of the fence- I mean, it’s ok to keep some mystery.
We just don’t want to keep the walls too high around our lives- or the armor to stay on 24/7. Whether we do so to protect ourselves from getting hurt, or to please others— it cannot be all the time. If any of you are like me, and have an unhealthy penchant for cheesy romance novels, you’re probably already on Season 3 of the hit Netflix series- Bridgerton. Spoiler alert- I’m really more a Season 1 fan, but I digress.
Violet Bridgerton, matron and former Viscountess of the fictional Bridgerton series family says this to Collin- her love sick son as he hides behind the true depths of his inconvenient feelings for his neighbor Penelope Featherington:
Living to please others? I imagine it can be wearying at times. Painful, perhaps. So, I do not blame you for putting on armor lately. But you must be careful that the armor does not rust and set so that you might never be able to take it off."
Maybe you’re like Collin Bridgerton- operating best on absolutes and guarantees in Regency era England or perhaps your Henry Kitteredge- and have bottled up so much of what you needed to say to someone that it just explodes out of you at the most inopportune time- and is really hard to come back from.
We have grace. It’s ok..
When Covid 19 happened, all the absolutes I could find- mattered.
I collected absolutes as if they were pebbles in the creek.
I listed them in my diary, those certainties I could count on.
And I clung to them, through the news cycles, and the NYTime Covid death map, through that vicious election cycle- I just needed a list of what I could count on. And it felt so scary and tiny. I want to exist in a world where I’m in a pact with the Universe,
here God- I did what was asked of me- now it's your turn.
and I very much would like great health- happy friends and family, safety and preferably unlimited crawfish boil invitations. Maybe extend Mardi Gras for an extra weekend.
Is that so wrong?
Where is the balance between protecting ourselves, and letting our hearts be free?
Why do we cling to the guarantees when we have a God who already knows the entire story and promises to be with us through every chapter- even the chapters where we feel betrayed by God? The chapters where we’re in the pits, and sick, and burying the people we love, and livin’ in a city where police can’t keep up with all the calls?
To me folks- that is why I have such a hard time with vulnerability.
Because where was God when I thought I was about to get carjacked while unloading my car on a dark street? When I was the most exposed and vulnerable?
And don’t you dare say God was there- because my faith couldn’t handle it.
My back is still tight from the fear I felt that night.
Was God the one who had me look up and see the two guys rushing towards me on their bikes as I dove into my car and locked it?
Or was that just sheer dumb luck?
Do we dare to know ourselves as well as God knows us?
Psalm 139 praises a Creator who not only knows us, but actively seeks out our hearts, and knows our thoughts before we think them-, knows even the words on our tongues before we even say them- When I read Psalms, I’m always left with sense of intimate witness of a God and awe of a God that is so intrinsically present within each facet of our lives.
From cradle to grave- we are known by a loving God.
And at our baptism, we are sealed in this knowingness.
Which today, we got to witness as we welcomed Meryl Marie as a peer into our congregation.
Regardless of our age, lived experience- Meryl, even as a babe is now a part of our congregation just as much as each of us.
For me, that’s the part I’ve loved most about baptism,
It’s when the congregation and the children of the church answer the questions promising to support the soul as they join the church.
I don’t know about you-but that seals it for me. If I promise you something- I feel tied to that promise. We ourselves 2 covenant s that occur when we baptize. We got the covenant between God and the person being baptized, with the baptism acting as a sign and seal of God’s covenant to the People wayyyy back in the Old Testament- and the second covnenat is a human one- happening here- every single time a baptism happens.
Let us be tied to the promises we make- and recognize how important it is to keep these promises as time flows on.This is so important because as a church we are saying to the baptized, and to her family, and as a witness before our loving God- that we too, will try to show our hearts to this child, and to love her and support her as she grows up in our faith, so that her heart feels safe here.
Because so many people do not associate the church as a place where they can be vulnerable. But we can be that change. Each one of here- we don’t have to fit into that stereotype. It’s such a vulnerable experience when we exercise our faith like this.
Each time we take communion, or witness baptism- which are the only 2 sacraments in our Presbyterian polity because they are the 2 direct acts of relationship given to us by Jesus Christ,
We are entering into a state of vulnerability.
We are in a state of receiving. And these are holy, tender moments.
These two gifts from Christ- given to the people who so desperately are craving guarantees in a messy human existence.
These two sacraments are opportunities for us to sit with ourselves- and to think of how incredible it is that a God who loves us, might even give us these acts that connect us to his greatest gift of all- Jesus Christ. How brutally vulnerable we are when we sit at the same table, in the seat of Judas- receiving communion.
How brutally vulnerable we are, when we welcome a new life into the body of Christ during baptism. Vulnerability cannot be mentioned without a nod to the great work of Dr. Brene Brown who has made it her life work researching the relationship between vulnerability and shame, and how the only lifeline healing the disconnect between shame and vulnerability is courage. God asks us to courageously show up in the world around us…
He asks us, like he calls to Samuel in our first reading today- Yo Sammie-Are you here?
Are we courageous enough to say- Here I am Lord?
Can we put our emotional armor aside for a second?
Brene Brown’s research on Vulnerability taught her that the people who have a sense of love and belonging in this world,
are the people who believe they are worthy of love and belonging.
It’s that simple.
You simply have to believe you are worthy of love and belonging.
We are our own biggest hurdles sometimes. Most young children still believe this- and we have to protect them, and their innocence- so that this belief remains… but somewhere along the way we get been told a lot of lies- told to us by hurt people some of these lies so deeply embedded in our brains that they pop up daily. Lies that say we’re not loved, that we don’t belong, lies that we have to hide our thoughts and our hearts- lies that take years of therapy and de-conditioning to unravel and heal from.
I have found that the concepts of vulnerability and courage often seem to be tied to gender. Oh vulnerability- that’s a feminine quality. Men are courageous. But that’s just silly patriarchal thinking- and the truth is that a courageous man is vulnerable just as much as a vulnerable woman is courageous.
The one cannot exist without the other. We are called to practice and sit with both. It’s funny because as I was writing this sermon, I had a list of stories from the bible of courage and vulnerability- and realized as you can imagine-
I had subconsciously found only male stories of courage, and female stories of vulnerability.
So to counteract that- for courage, we can look to Rahab, Esther, Mary, Hagar..
For stories of vulnerability, we can look at Jonah, Simon Peter, Jeremiah, or Jesus, the refugee fleeing as an infant to Egypt.
We have to make sure our courage and our vulnerability are tempered, and that we show these- in measured forms as Christians.
My therapist and my Chaplaincy Educator in Seminary both unknowingly had the same joke
- that I panic whenever I am expected to be vulnerable.
I literally am thinking of all the ways I can exit a situation when I am expected to be vulnerable. Can I fake a phone call- or pull the fire alarm. GET ME OUT OF HERE. All caps.
We can talk about you, and your problems all day- in fact I’d love to.
But ask me about my worst days, or my insecurities and buddy we got ourselves a problem.
Did anyone go through First Aid training? The first rule always is Check to Make Sure the Scene is Safe.
That is the Number 1 rule.
When it comes to being open- that is what I do. I am checking- can you handle my heart- God? Is it ok if I doubt that you can?
And secondly- Can I be courageous?
And some days we cannot be- and that is ok.
But being a Courageously Vulnerable Christian is uncomfortable and inconvenient.
Our faith asks big things of us, like to visit the sick and the homebound, and to feed the people with signs on the side of S.Claiborne. Sometimes being Courageously Vulnerable means speaking up when you see something wrong, even though you know it might lose you friends. Might cost you a promotion.
It means taking the keys away from someone who shouldn’t be driving.
It asks us to look people in the eye who are suffering, and not look away.
Sometimes it means enacting boundaries with a loved one who is taking and taking and taking-draining your energy and resources dry.
And it asks us to say we’re sorry when we messed up and ask for forgiveness.
And I want you all to know, this isn’t me wagging a finger at you- honestly I am preaching more to myself here
- you guys are all good examples to me-
You really are.
I’m speaking out loud all the things I struggle to do when you’re not looking.
This is a hard sermon for me to preach.
It’s easier for me to run- to hide. To doom scroll on my TikTok.
To escape into my art.
To put my phone on do not disturb after a touchy encounter.
God- ask anything, anything of me except for me to be in true and conscious relationship with this brutal world around me.
Brene Brown says we’re the most addicted, obese, in debt cohort of Americans in history, because we have learned to cope through numbing. But we cannot selectively numb the bad emotions and keep the good, and so we are missing out in our human experiences because we are afraid to take emotional risks.
When we numb ourselves, throw that armor on, and turn away- we are losing our deep and real ability to connect- and it’s really hard to feel a connection to God
when you’re not fully present and dialed in.
It is easier to say goodbye than to say- please stay.
It is easier to write a letter of condolence, than it is to pick up the phone.
And it is easier for me to stay and work, than to stop my world in motion.
Because when I stop being busy and am still- I have to face myself. And I’d really rather not, thank you very much.
Does anyone else ever feel like that?
Does anyone else remember every mistake,
every misstep, every speaking out of turn-
and in my head, it’s a running tally of imperfections-
every time you have a good day you might think ok but remember that one time” I made fun of that young boy who had holes in his shirt in third grade and the teacher pulled me aside and told me some kids don’t get new clothes every school year?”
We have to make sure that we are always aware of our shame-
to listen to that part of ourselves-
because it can truly keep us in line with Scripture
and keep us accountable so that we turn away from hurting one another and
ultimately our relationship with God.
But we also must be cautiously aware of how much screen time shame gets in the tv-show of our lives. Shame can’t be a self-deprecating main character that takes away from the plot of our lives of service to the world.
Shame also cannot be fully muted from the script. We must practice our own courageous vulnerability- taking the mistakes of our past as lessons to learn from and grow from. We must take these painful experiences and do better. I must take these painful experiences and do better.
So the next time we see someone with holes in their shirt- we can empathize, and be kind.
Because we remember the pain caused by Ashley in third grade to the boy who needed clothes, and how he had cried afterward in the hallway…
O LORD, you have searched us and known us, and still- You stayed.
Amen.