“Lord, you have searched me out and known me…” (Ps. 139:1).
“Know thyself”: this was saying inscribed upon the ancient Temple of Apollo at Delphi; an invitation to philosophic introspection and to the journey within. Who are we? Where are we headed?: these are the perennial questions. Of course, the ancient Greeks were also great observers of the natural world and creators of a civilization, in addition to their philosophic explorations that encouraged the inward glance. You might say that education, the process we’re engaged in at St. Andrews’ – Sewanee School, invites us to follow in their footsteps and to look not only at the world outside us, but also at the world within.
In looking outward, we’re making new discoveries: about the history of the world and the creative activities of human beings, artistic and scientific, as well as the regularities and singularities of the physical world. But part of the new discovery, that goes along with education and maturation, is the journey of coming to know ourselves. Again, the perennial questions: Who are we? How do we relate to the world around us and to the people around us? What is our place in the world, and in what direction are we headed? People have been asking these questions since the beginning. An education gives us some tools, and a habit of thought, as a guide. We never graduate from this program or these questions, because the search for answers goes on throughout the course of our lives.
This is where God comes in, and adds another piece to the puzzle. We’ll never quite figure out the world in all its immensity, nor are we capable of figuring ourselves out completely. Just try it sometime. St. Augustine wrote in his Confessions (10.33), perhaps the world’s first autobiography, that he was a puzzle to himself: he was a mystery or question to which he could not supply the answer. We have capacities of memory and will, yet memory fades, attention wanders, and in the best of times we have trouble figuring ourselves out. What’s up with us?
Yet God knows us better than we know ourselves, as our psalm today reminds us. “Lord, you have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar” (Ps. 139:1). God has both the big picture of creation, the origin and goal of all things; yet he also knows us, each of us, intimately. He knows our motivations and our desires, our thoughts and our dreams. “Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, but you, O Lord, know it altogether” (Ps. 139:3), as we said in our psalm.
If we are a puzzle to ourselves, as St. Augustine thought, then God is the One who really “gets” us. Our psalm also says, “You trace my journeys and my resting places and are acquainted with all my ways” (Ps. 139:2). In other words, God knows where we are going and where we are now. You might say that God knows both where we live, and where we are coming from. That word “trace” in our psalm, as I understand it, has as its Hebrew root an idea of dividing one thing from another, of making distinctions: getting things “sorted” or figured out. We’re complicated, but God is the One who truly knows us.
One final wrinkle in the story, which requires mentioning. God, who knows us better than we know ourselves, who knows us intimately and in every dimension, also loves us, completely and in every respect. Later in the psalm it says, “I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful and I know it well” (Ps. 139:13). God sees us, and recognizes how full of wonder we are. St. Paul wrote, “But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). It’s hard for us to imagine a knowledge and a love like that, extended to us, but that’s how God operates.
Today we all have the opportunity not only to look around at the world, and to bring our questions to it; but also the chance to look within and to interrogate ourselves. In our liturgy today, questions will be directed to our confirmand, and also to the whole congregation. We all have the chance as we answer to consider who we are in relationship to God in Christ: to get things sorted. Thank you to all those who will join in the response to these questions.
God holds the clue to who we are; Jesus has the key that unlocks the mystery of our identity. I don’t think we’ll come closer to an answer to these perennial questions than the one posed by the Psalmist. “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” (Ps. 139:1). And that answer will bring us closer to God.