YOU SEARCHED ME AND KNOWN ME

“YOU SEARCHED ME AND KNOWN ME”
Psalm 139
17 July 2005

1. In so many ways we are confronted by the question “why is God so powerful that even my inmost thoughts he knew?” For sure it’s not good to be scrutinized all the time by someone who is not even human, a God who is spirit and it looks like there is no escape from God’s confronting presence in our lives. Alam ko na nakakatakot ang ganitong sitwasyon na walang kang mapagtagu-an sa pagsusuri ng Diyos.

2. Psalm 139 gives a vivid description of God’s omnipresence in our lives and that whatever we do and will do God knows. This Psalm has body imagery and that it is one of the Old Testament meaningful presentations of the human body as one coherent and interrelated body. In having this, it is important that we should miss the prerequisite theological understanding, namely to understand the body as a psychosomatic unit, can help to qualify the sometimes dualistic concept of humankind in the Christian tradition. It can thus counteract a devaluation and disdain of the body on the one hand, and its spiritless fragmentation on the other hand.

3. In so many ways the human body is described in the Bible both the OT and NT as a weaker part of the human being. The soul/spirit is the higher part that animates the body. This kind of dualism is very prevalent in the NT especially in St. Paul’s theology. But this body imagery in our text shows that our human body is an integrated one and thus it is a total whole in relation to God. Thus, the Psalmist believes that God searches and knows every human being not just as spirit or soul but as a psycho—mind and soma-body unit. God is well acquainted with our mind, heart, body. That makes God’s concern overwhelming and God’s care and love empowering. On other hand many people would tremble at the though that ever second of the day, he/she is being judged by God and that an act of disobedience or the thing we call sin is absolutely known by God.

4. Cristl Maier a woman German theologian has this to say about 1-5 of Psalm 139:

Up to the present, verses 1-5 have been interpreted in two opposite ways. Does the close relation­ship between the person praying and God express a feeling of security and divine protection? Or is it proof of a fundamental despair of God which provokes thoughts of escape? Due to the parallel with Deuteronomy 6 and the use of the adjective “wonderful” in verse 6, the psalm is very often interpreted as a hymn celebrating God’s closeness. However, the evaluation of a life which is completely open to God’s scrutiny is negative from the point of view of the person praying: the phrase “you hemmed me” used in verse 5 is normally only used for warlike surrounding and besieging, the “behind and before” makes it impossible for the psalmist to move horizontally, renders him incapable of going on, to go on his way, and to rest as he sees fit. The laying on of hands in this context is not a gesture conveying blessing, but prevents the psalmist’s movement in vertical direction: YHWH’s hand rests heavily on him, even presses him down. Human as well as divine actions are concentrated in the hands.

They can be creative and destructive, powerful and violent. In the Old Testament the hand is thus very often a symbol for power and its literally shattering effect is clearly emphasised in verse 5.
It thus becomes inevitable that we think that God’s hand is always here with us.


3. Moreover, Psalm 139 shows that it is not just the body as such that matters, but that relationships are described with the help of physical phenomena. On the one hand, a person is determined by his or her situation in place and time. Our human existence can be very significant because of the place we occupy and the kind of life we live. Relatively speaking those who are acclaimed leaders and “stars” both in the context of cinema and politics have gained their prominence because of the physical existence.

On the other hand, one’s bodily existence is defined by a person’s relationship with God and with fellow human beings. In the relationship with God, one’s physical, sensible and sensitive side cannot be excluded, for how else can we praise God but with a body and reference to our affections? We cannot separate our physical body from what we do in worship. Our emotions and physical movement such the clapping of hands, swaying in praises to God and other meaningful movements are in concrete relationship with the one we worship—God. Perhaps I am saying this self-critically as a person who grew up with much formality in Protestant attitude which, due to its stress on listening to God and the intellectual debate about God, is in danger of neglecting essential dimensions of human existence. Meaning there is a tendency that we intellectualize our faith rather than live as integrated human beings.


3. Finally, body imagery can be an intermediary with regard to the concept of God. In the psalm, God is presented – with the help of physical aspects – as a living force, and at the same time as an acting personality and the dynamism in this concept of God cannot be overestimated. By stressing God’s omnipresence, Psalm 139 also shows that speaking of God in relation to human activity has its limitations. We know that God in relations to us human beings maintain God’s unique qualities in contrast to human beings. God’s mind is not like our mind, God’s thoughts are unreachable.

Verses 13-17 of Psalm 139 gives us a clearer picture of the Psalmist belief that even when we were still in our mothers’ wombs God has already known us and even knitted our bodies as they are.

13 For it was you who formed my kidneys,
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works; that I myself know very well.
15 My bones were not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 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.
17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

Cristl Maeir has this explanation:
By verse 13 at the latest we notice a change of mood: mentioning the kidneys of all organs – which to us today seems very strange and which is unique in the Old Testament – makes sense if we look at the relational function of this organ. The kidneys, whose existence as a pair was familiar from the slaughter of animals are the seat of affections (Psalm 73:21; Proverbs 23:16) and of conscience (Psalm 16:7; Jeremiah 12:2). This association is based on the experience that the area around the kidneys is particularly sensitive to heat and cold. As the creator of the kidneys, God is described in verse 13 metaphorically as the one who makes his people’s affections and their ability to relate with one another possible. The idea often found in other prayers, namely that God tests hearts and kidneys (Psalm 26:2; Jeremiah 11:20; 20:11; Revelation 2:23) – most translations speak of “heart and mind”, omitting the concrete organ – shows that the relationship between those praying and the deity is being comprehensively tested.

Psalm 139 combines the formation of a human body in the womb, which can be physically experienced, with the theological tradition of God’s primeval creation known from Genesis 1-2. The divine creation of an individual here is defined metaphorically as weaving; the parallel metaphor of being woven in the depths of the earth (verse 15) contributes a variant of this idea that has a cosmological and even mythical background. The verbs “creating” and “weaving” also denote divine actions in the primeval creation of Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 8. The reference to the psalmist’s bones (Mc() again links the mythical concept with the individual’s body.

Through its communication structure Psalm 139 expresses the close relationship between the psalmist and God and this is emphasized by its body-related language. The body imagery stresses the fact that the psalmist is a creature, i.e. created by somebody else and in this respect the prayer is related to many other psalms. The emphasis on the individual, on the other hand, is un-typical since the majority of Old Testament texts stressed the social integration of the individual. However, physicality, being a created body, is a prerequisite for social relationships even in Old Testament thinking and in a biblical context the relationship with God is part of this.
We are integrated human beings and that our being creatures of God, we are endowed with great possibilities of wholesome life lived in peace. The very consciousness of God’s omnipresence assists us in our faith and action towards a renewed understanding of total existence under the reign of God in Jesus Christ.

Embattled Good Soil

EMBATTLED GOOD SOIL
Matthew 13:1-8; 18-23
July 10, 2005

1. Every time rainy season comes to the Philippines, I am reminded of the planting season in the rural areas. In the many years that I have worked as pastor in the island of Panay and Guimaras, I viewed agriculture—plowing the fields, sowing rice seeds, and harvesting crops as God’s own way of sustaining Cod’s creation especially human beings who depend on the good soil for life. In human history, the fertile soil had been coveted by individuals, tribes and classes in society. There have been situations where fertile and arable lands are embattled—that is, the land is the object of conflict.

Out text in the Gospel of Matthew is a parable the sower who went out and sows seeds in the field. In his attempt to harvest double and triple from what he sowed, he sowed abundantly on every square meter of the field. The parable as interpreted is about the characterization of receivers of the message of the Kingdom of God. The seeds that fell on rocky ground, those that fell along the road, are those that fell among the thorns are the receivers of the message of the Kingdom who somehow due to prevailing situations, fail to hear, accept and live out the message of the Kingdom of God. While the seeds that fell on good soil had delivered plentiful harvest. The good soil is known as those who willingly and openly received the message of the Kingdom of God. They have heard of it, understood it and produced crops yielding a hundred, sixty of thirty.

2. The good soil can be inferred as those who followed Jesus’ message of the Kingdom of God or the Christians, while those who did not listen, accept and live with it are considered indifferent people who refuse to listen and do something of the message of the Kingdom of God. Christians who are considered the “good soil” is now embattled, that is, they live in social situations which confuse their minds and twist their Christian values. We live in situations where there are ambiguities in our claims as Christians. And oftentimes these ambiguities have semblances of the work of the indifferent ones.

Russel Pregeant in his meditations on Matthew 13 says that:
The interpretation of The Sower in 18-23 makes clear that the various seeds in the parable itself represent varying responses to the “word of the kingdom,” and the image of the harvest in both The Parable of the Weeds and its explanation make clear that wrong responses are subject to God’s eschatological judgment. Both the Parable of the Net and the identification of the sower with Jesus in vs. 37 show that the judgment involves not only the world at large but the church itself. Thus the seeds treated negatively in the Parable of the Sower include members of the church, and the parable and explanation serve as a warning to Christians and encouragement to hold fast to their commitment to the word. Even those who once received it with joy can fall away in the face of trouble, persecution, worldly cares, and “the lure of wealth.”

(Cite instances when Christians are too busy to hear the message of God’s kingdom, when they can’t accept the truth about God and about life in its fullness)

3. Moreover, the good soil has been differentiated from the barren soil. The latter is referred to as those whose hearts have become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. However, in our modern tines, this characterization can’t be limited to those who are considered “bad apples” but may also refer to the Christians themselves. In this situation Paul in his letter to the Romans chapter 11 tells of the difference between “life in the flesh” and “life in the spirit” which gives a better understanding of the life of Christians in contemporary society. Russel Pregeant has this point:

For an examination of Paul’s usage of the Spirit/flesh dichotomy shows that the latter term does not refer to sheer material reality. Both flesh and spirit are powers according to which one can live. To live according to the flesh is to live within the field of force of an alien power, a power that denies the realm of the Spirit altogether. It is to live as if material reality were the only dimension of existence. To live according the Spirit is, by contrast, to live within the sphere of influence of God’s empowering presence. Thus, if we think of the action of the Spirit in process terms, we can envision it as the agent of God’s luring us toward the good in every moment of our lives. We can interpret it as God’s persuasive influence in every decision we have to make. And this insight can help us with the Parable of the Sower. It is not easy to resist the desire to seek safety in a time of persecution or the seductive lure of material comforts and luxuries. Paul’s image of the Spirit, however, encourages us to be attentive to another set of lures and another field of force that offers a fundamentally different mode of fulfilling our human nature.

4. Finally, Jesus mentioned that those who listen to his words, those accept it willingly and live up to the expectations of the Kingdom of God are called “blessed”. For they have continued in the life which God intends for God’s children. And even if they live in difficult situations, they are able to hear, see, accept and bear witness to the power of God in the world. Amen.

GIVE ME LIGHT IN MY SOUL

JUNE 26, 2005
A MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR EDISON LAPUZ
Texts: Genesis 22:1 -14; Psalm 13

“Give me Light in my soul”

1. A life threatening situation will not find you sitting back and relaxing in the comfort of your home, it gives quivers and sleepless night and groping in the dark corners of life questioning your faith and even your philosophy in life. Then in the process of reflection you see a spark of consciousness and you say “give me light in my soul or I will sleep in death.”

2. We do not know exactly what troubled the Psalmist when he wrote the 13th Psalm which captures the immensity of the trauma he’d been going through. In many circumstances in life we have had inquiries into the divine will, “how long must I wrestle with my thoughts and everyday have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?

3. Since childhood I have not know an enemy worst than institutionalized violence, poverty cause by unequal distribution of wealth and oppression brought about by those who wield power in society. Those I can consider enemies were actually bits and pieces of the larger social evil in the world. Yes, these institutionalized violence cause deep emotional distress, person can even kill another person because one can not longer think and see clearly. For one who has this, persons become things and things are objects adulation for the owner.

4. Persons of faith turn to God for help, appeal for God’s justice and asks for light in his/her soul. The very consciousness of the divine will of God for life assists persons of faith in their unreserved service to people whom they considered as underdogs of society. However those who remain in their emotional distress and social alienation go down to the dark pit of selfishness and godlessness. Those who experience this depravity has the tendency to appeal to God as well, but in the process, distorts the ethical and moral meaning of faith in and obedience to God.

5.Distortion of faith can be seen in the co-optation of the religious symbols and rituals such as in the case of sacrificial blood offering. They who distort the message and co-opt the Gospel with their selfish interests think that it is possible to manipulate the divine will, like siding on them even if what they are doing are morally absurd.

6.The story about Abraham offering his son Isaac as the sacrificial offering is an anthropological evidence that blood sacrifice was practiced by the tribes during that time. The substitution of Isaac with a ram preludes that Yahweh would no longer require human sacrifice as proof of obedience and faith, rather, moral and ethical values are far more important than sacrifice.

7. In Christian Theology, the initiative for redemption of humanity from sin was taken over by God. It used to be that human beings make sacrifices to God, now God has willfully offered the Son as the living sacrifice for the redemption of the world. Thus the once and for all sacrifice of the Son of God on the cross is enough for the world. It is there for our taking, it is there for our commitment and obedience. With this, we therefore resolve that human sacrifices should never be used to please one’s God or deity. If ever there is we should exert our effort to stop them.

8. Even yet, in our world today, there are persons like the Rev. Edison Lapuz who was made a human sacrifice for the well pronounced “Strong Republic” of the Philippine government. Because of the inability of the agricultural, export oriented and import dependent Philippine economy to substantiate equality, opportunity and stability, the Arroyo government in connivance with the military name their “enemies”. Unfortunately, the UCCP the CBCP and other churches and peoples organizations were tagged as “enemies of the state”.

9. Edison Lapuz and I were contemporaries at Silliman University Divinity School in the Philippines. I was a year senior of him, yet we shared common interests like music, theatre arts and activism. While attending the seminary in the late from 1986 to 1991, I realized that this young man from the Island of Leyte was gifted, the moment he take hold of a guitar, he will sing for not just a song but would hold a concert, in which other students would love to sing with him. I thought he will not become of good pastor because he was too jolly and not so formal in so many ways.

10. Tell story about our attendance to the inauguration of the Center for Development Education and Training.

11. Edison and I did not know that he’s dear friend Pastor Dikoy will die of cardiac arrest two weeks after our cabinet meeting in Tacloban city in Leyte, which showed the sorrowful Edison Lapuz.

12. The Bishops of the UCCP know Edison so well, not just as an activist pastor, but is more well known for his singing talent.

Like the Plsamist….(refer to Psalm 13)

A MEMORIAL FOR EDISON LAPUZ

Rev. Edison C. Lapuz was brutally assassinated on the evening of May 12, 2005. The whole United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) is horrified that a respected pastor and church leader, an ardent supporter of the poor and oppressed, who at the time of his murder was serving as Conference Minister of the North Eastern Leyte Conference of the UCCP became the target of State persecution. Rev. Lapuz was loved and respected by his colleagues, parishioners, and the communities where he served. His slaying has proclaimed him a prophet and a martyr.
Rev. Lapuz was calculatingly outspoken, unflinching, principled, and yet, a humble man. His words against corruption in the government, exploitation by the rich and big business, impending environmental degradation and displacement of those economically poor by large-scale mines, the government’s agrarian reform program that is not redistributing land to the landless tillers, and most recently, summary executions and State repression in Samar and Leyte earned him the ire of evil. Edison’s body was destroyed by henchmen’s bullets, but his spirit lives on in the work of God’s people.

“Why Must There Be Sacrifices?”

Why must there be human sacrifices? Whether we understand the present phenomenon of war and violence in the world today in the moral ethical perspective or not, we are convinced that human life should never be sacrificed for whatever purpose on earth or heaven.

Our lectionary text in Genesis 22: 1-14 is a story of an attempted human sacrifice—Abraham was summoned by Yahweh to offer his only son Isaac as a sacrifice. The story is a tribal legend and as its stands now Abraham and Isaac are mere supporting actors to the central actor who is Yahweh. It emphasizes three fundamental elements of Israel’s tradition: revelation of the divine will and purpose by means of an epiphany; the trust and obedience of the patriarch as the representative of the whole people of God, and the provision of the ritual needs for true worship. There is an anthropological necessity in the practice of human sacrifice in which tribes had receive revelation of the divine or were practiced as a means of resolving conflicts. In the Genesis story of Abraham offering Isaac as a sacrifice to Yahweh, human sacrifice has come to an end, because God decided to have a ram instead of Isaac. The very objective of the human sacrifice was to test the faith and obedience of Abraham and he finally passed it.

In our contemporary times human sacrifice has not ended or eradicated. The recent developments in the Philippines where priests, pastors, lawyers and journalists were killed in the name of national security—or in the name of a “strong republic” shows that human persons are sacrificed for the interest of government. The political killings in the Philippines must be put to a stop. A government that kills people will not stand the test of genuine democracy, more so of the quality of life, liberty and equality. The present government under President Arroyo due to its inability to alleviate the plight of the poor and its preoccupation of gaining more wealth for itself, not to mention the election fraud and other anomalies in governance is now on its collapse.
Organized people’s movements and even the professional and middle class sectors have called for the ouster of President Arroyo. We anticipate that soon the death of prophets like Rev. Lapuz will be vindicated in the downfall of this unfit regime in the country. Migrant workers and all expatriates can work and pray for new economic and political systems in the Philippines.**