Marvelously Made

Epiphany 2B; Psalm 139; John 1:43-51; St. Paul’s, Smithfield 1/14/2018

Jim Melnyk: “Marvelously Made”

Life had become a struggle for a particular young man – though the struggle wasn’t so uncommon to most folks at one time or another.  Things just didn’t seem to be going right in his life – the job, his home, his faith – all seemed jumbled, and he was having a hard time with it all.

“I don’t understand,” he told his spiritual director.  “I can’t seem to get my act together – it seems like my whole life is a mess.  I don’t feel very worthwhile.”

The spiritual director reached for her Book of Common Prayer and opened it to page 795 – to a section of Psalm 139 we heard just a few moments ago.  Handing the book across to the young man, the director said, “Do me a favor and read verse 13 silently to yourself.  Then read it again, this time as a silent prayer.  Finally, after taking a few moments to let it sink in, read the verse out loud for me.”

Silently, the young man read the words.  “I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well.”  The words startled him – as if he were reading them for the first time ever in his life.  And then, mostly because he wanted to show his spiritual director good faith, quietly he prayed the very same words.  “I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well.”  The young person wondered to himself, “Can this really be true?  About me?  Oh, how much I want it to be true.”  A lump caught in his throat as he read the words out loud to his director, “I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well.”

Over the next few days, then the next few weeks – and years later whenever it was needed, the young man offered the Psalmist’s words as a breath prayer to God. Amazingly, he began to believe the words he prayed.  The words became a touchstone – a sort of home-base – especially when life threw him an unexpected curve ball or two.  The young man had come to realize his own worth as experienced in the eyes of God.

Too often, I think, we are taught to do one of two things when it comes to understanding our own self-worth.  One teaching embraces several variations of self-deprecation – everything from not believing ourselves to be good enough, or smart enough, to something as terrible as the thought that life as we know it is pointless.  The other teaching embraces several variations of self-aggrandizement the sense that everything revolves around us – that what we need or want should take precedent over everything else.  Neither approach to life is especially healthy.  Neither approach comes close to living into the Baptismal Covenant so many of us renewed once again just last week.

Listen again to the words of the Psalmist: “I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well.”  Yes, we are marvelously made – we are each a wonderful work of God – and our very worthiness comes from both the God in whose image we are created, as well as through the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  It is no accident – it’s not arbitrary wording – that has us proclaim so often in our Eucharistic liturgy that in Christ we have been “made worthy to stand before God” (Prayer B, paraphrased).  Does that mean we never mess up and bear responsibility when we do?  Heavens no!  But it is what makes contrition and forgiveness possible in our lives.

And so today’s lessons seem to have a lot to say about how God enters into the everydayness of our lives and calls us to be a part of God’s hopes and dreams for this world.  Today’s lessons speak to us about a God who sees us as worthy laborers in the coming kingdom – a God who sees us as worthy companions along the way – regardless of who we are, or from where we come.

Samuel is but a child when God first calls him.  In fact, the author of First Samuel goes out of the way to tell us that the young boy “did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him” (1 Sam. 3:7).  This, in itself, is an interesting bit of information since we are privy to the earlier story that shows how the conception and birth of Samuel is an answer to his mother Hannah’s desperate prayer to God for a child.  Samuel, who begins his life as an answer to his mother’s prayer, finds himself called by God to become the last of the charismatic Judges who champions Israel on behalf of God, and the first of the prophets who will challenge the kings of Israel on behalf of God as well.

Centuries later, Paul’s letter to the Church in Corinth offers us another startling reality about human beings as seen from the perspective of God.  Paul, trying to help the early Church deal with conflicting views about humanity and our relationship to God in Christ Jesus writes,“do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:20).  Paul reminds the Gentile followers of Jesus that we have been adopted as children of God, and gifted with God’s Holy Spirit who now dwells within us.  In essence, Paul is telling us that we – in all of our mortal humanness – are meant to bear God’s Holy Spirit – that we are created to house the very life-giving promise of God for this world.  We are indeed marvelously made!

Finally, we come to the story of Jesus, Philip, and Nathanael.  Both the Old Testament story about Samuel and the words of the Psalmists are about call, and this story from John’s gospel fits right in to the theme.  And like the words from our previous three lessons, the passage from the Gospel of John has to do with God both knowing us and valuing us long before the call is made. 

When Jesus sees Philip’s friend Nathanael approaching he says, “Now this guy is something else!  He has the faithfulness of Jacob without any of Jacob’s negative baggage – a faithful descendent of Jacob without any of his deceit!”  (You may recall how Jacob stole his brother Esau’s birthright and seemed always to be wrestling with God).  Nathanael is caught off guard by this proclamation.  “Hey, how do you know me?  I know we’ve never met.”  Jesus replies, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”  In Jewish tradition the fig tree is both a sign of peace, and a symbol for the study of Torah.  So we are led to believe that Jesus knows Nathanael to be a person of peace, who diligently studies the teachings of God.

Episcopal priest and professor Lauren Winner writes, “God first knows Nathanael, and, because of God's deep knowledge of him—the type of deep knowledge hinted at in Psalm 139—Nathanael is able to know Jesus for who he is” (Synthesis Today, 1/11/2018).  It’s this deep knowledge shown by Jesus that allows Nathanael to proclaim him as both Son of God and the rightful king of Israel.

Our faith stories for the day tell us that God’s call to us doesn’t depend on who we are, what we look like, where we come from, what we know, or how connected we’ve been to God beforehand.  God calls us because God knows us at the very depth of our being – and God deems us to be worthy partners – to be worthy companions along the way. 

What would it look like for us to live as people who believe ourselves – to live as people who know ourselves – to be marvelously made by God?  I suspect “the way we look at the world [around us] would change.  The way we act [toward one another and the rest of the world] would change. [Perhaps] even the way we look would change.  [For in the end, no one can know themselves to be beloved of God, and experience the call of Christ,] and go away as they came” (Br. James Koester: Brother, Give Us A Word, 1/8/2018).  “We will thank you, most loving God, because we are so marvelously made; your works are indeed wonderful, and with your continued help, we will always know it well.”  Amen.