Under the Spotlight

Text:  Psalm 139 

           It’s a game that evokes smiles and giggles bringing delight.  Keek-a-boo is the magic of the disappearing act.  Now you see me – now you don’t.  The illusion that the world is gone the moment we cover our eyes carries on into the toddler years.  Have you ever seen a child cover their eyes and say, “You can’t see me”?  We can’t see therefore we can’t be seen.  It doesn’t take too long for us to realise that life is not a game of ‘keek-a-boo’.

            We learn that even if we block the world out the world is still there.  We may try to hide what we are doing.  We may sneak around in the shadows.  We might believe that we’ve slipped under the radar.  But we never know when someone will catch us with our hand in the cookie jar...slipping a chocolate bar off of the shelf and into our pocket...sneaking a look at the magazine on the top shelf...browsing the X-rated website...fiddling a figure on our tax return...fluffing up the CV with a few false claims.  The CCTV camera monitors our movements.  The speed camera snaps us doing 50 in a 30 mile an hour zone.  The News of the World captures a cricket betting scam through surreptitious videoing. 

            The nightmare of George Orwell’s book 1984 pictures a society in which control is maintained by the all pervasive presence of Big Brother.  Big Brother’s eyes and ears are everywhere.  When the main character, Winston, makes an effort to break away from the control of Big Brother he is caught, tortured and converted.  There is no escape from Big Brother – even in his thoughts.  It is a terrifying portrayal of a totalitarian state. 

            Aspects of Orwell’s 1984 have entered popular culture with the comedic interview program Room 101 hosted by Paul Merton and Channel 4’s long running program Big Brother.  Contestants live in a house with 24/7 monitoring in an attempt to survive evictions until one of the housemates emerges victorious.

            High profile figures know that there is no escape from the spotlight.  This week we read or heard William Hague’s heartfelt, personal response to internet accusations of an inappropriate relationship with an aide.  He with his wife Ffion felt they had to bare their souls of their personal sorrow of not being able to have children.

            Then there are those public heavyweights that we thought had slipped out of the spotlight who have grabbed media attention through the release of their auto-biographies.  Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair’s books have exploded onto the shelves.  People have devoured their accounts of life and politics.  We have been allowed into their lives in a way that politicians of another era would have considered unseemly.

            How would you feel if you knew that every moment of your life had been recorded and would be made available to the public?  What if you were never able to elude the spotlight?  What if you were conscious that at any time a long lens camera might be taking snapshots of what you were doing?  What if you knew that secret microphones were picking up on every word you spoke?  Would you feel quite happy about this?  Or would you feel terror and constant anxiety?

            Psalm 139 explodes any ‘keek-a-boo’ illusions that we have about God.  The Psalm begins (v. 1) and ends (v. 23) with being under the spotlight of God’s searching and knowing.  Even when we’ve got our eyes covered to the reality of God’s existence he is still there.  Even when we convince ourselves that we are the centre of the universe and that nothing else exists, God is still there.  The reality of the LORD who searches and knows everything is comforting to those who trust in him and terrifying for those who hate him. 

The use of ‘I’ and ‘me’ throughout makes it an intensely personal Psalm.  He grapples with the awesome mystery of the LORD knowing every part of life.  Every action and thought is known to him.  The LORD searches my motives like a baker sifting flour or a farmer winnowing wheat.  All my ways whether waking or sleeping are known to him.  The LORD knows me so well that he knows what I’m going to say before I say it.  It’s like a couple married for a long time who can anticipate what their partner will say.  I am hemmed in behind and in front.  I am surrounded by God’s presence.  He lays his protective hand on me.  Like a baby placed in a playpen, confined to safe, free play.  Like a toddler in a harness:  free to walk and yet kept from running into the road.  The complete knowledge of the LORD is wonderful and yet totally beyond comprehension.

The Psalmist contemplates escape routes.  Is there any way to give God’s spirit the slip?  Is there any chance of stepping outside of his presence?  If I were to fly to the sky – the dome of heaven...if I were to sink into the place of the dead – Sheol...in the height and depth of the known world you are there.  If I were to fly from sunrise to sunset...from east to west...from edge to edge...your leading, holding hand would be there.  There is no escape under cover of darkness either.  Darkness is like the light of the brightest day.  The Lord not only knows everything about me he is present with me everywhere. 

God’s knowledge and presence in every part of my life is because he was there at my conception.  God who formed the first man from the dust of the ground formed my ‘inward parts’ – my kidneys – the seat of my emotions.  As a weaver at a loom he wove me together into a magnificent pattern.  As the first man was born in the dark womb of the earth in full view of the LORD so each embryo is shaped under the gaze of God.  Before we were born each day of our life was written in God’s book.  In the ancient world it was believed that God’s book contained the number of our days and recorded all the good and bad deeds done.

The Psalmist contemplates God as creator and is moved to praise.  He is awed by the inscrutability of God’s thoughts.  Any attempt to figure out God’s mind is as futile as counting the sand.  God is present from the beginning of life to its end.

Faith in God as creator was challenged this week by Stephen Hawkins.  Up to this point he has allowed for the possibility of God as the energy sparking the Big Bang.  He has changed his mind however and now suggests that there is no need for a divine being to touch the blue paper.  As people of faith we grapple with understanding our world with all the scientific tools we have to hand whilst still affirming that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The Psalm turns to an uncomfortable theme.  It is a plea for God to kill the wicked...to expel the bloodthirsty.  The Psalmist cannot tolerate anyone who speaks or acts against God.  He hates those who hate the Lord.  He loathes those who plot against the LORD.  His is perfect hatred.  God’s enemies are the Psalmists’ enemies. 

In the midst of this beautiful Psalm about God’s all-knowing, all-present, all-creating being...in the midst of the tender tones of being totally enveloped in God’s care from the beginning to the end of life...these violent words come as a bolt from the blue.  Yet they follow on from the Psalmists’ affirmation of God as creator.  God has created humanity and yet there are those who move against the purposes of creation.  The Psalmist is not capriciously praying a death wish on people he happens not to like.  The Psalmist is enraged by wickedness.  Wickedness is a move against creation.  Rather than being life giving, evil is death dealing – bloodthirsty.  For the Psalmist, the killing of the wicked is the removal of all that opposes God’s creative presence in the world. 

Is it appropriate for us to pray that God would deal with the wicked?  Is it right for us to pray that those who abuse power, oppress, violate, and kill should be brought to justice?  Such a prayer is praying for an end to all that promotes death...to all that opposes life... to all that binds. 

The Psalmist is not only concerned about the wickedness and evil of others, he wants God to search his own heart and mind for wickedness.  His longing is to be led by God in ‘the way everlasting’.  This could also be translated ‘the ancient way’.  His wholehearted desire is to choose the way that his ancestors chose...to choose the way of life.  He longs to be under the spotlight of God’s searching knowledge...to test his heart for all that is not life-giving, co-creating with his Creator. 

Anthony de Mello tells this story:  “ ‘Excuse me,’ said one fish to another, ‘You are older and more experienced than I, and will probably be able to help me.  Tell me:  where can I find this thing they call the Ocean?  I’ve been searching for it everywhere to no avail.’

‘The Ocean,’ said the older fish, ‘is what you are swimming in now.’

‘Oh this?  But this is only water.  What I’m searching for is the Ocean,’ said the young fish, feeling quite disappointed as he swam away to search elsewhere.[1]

Frances Young, academic theologian and Methodist minister, tells of the challenge she has faced as mother of a severely disabled child.  In her book, Brokenness and Blessing, she writes:  “...my pilgrimage with Arthur has been a kind of Exodus, through the wilderness to the Promised Land.  For years I found holding onto faith profoundly difficult.  God seemed absent.  But then one day, as I got up from a chair to go and do some household chore, I suddenly heard a voice, as it were:  ‘It makes no difference to me whether you believe in me or not!’  It was meaningful for me at all kinds of levels:  for one thing, I was absolved of responsibility for deciding about God, for God no longer depended on me for existence – God just ‘is’, independent of what I thought or felt.”[2]

We are not called to search for God.  God is.  He created us.  He knows us.  He is present to us.  Instead of searching for God will we pray for him to search our hearts and minds?  Will we allow him to show us anything that is in our heart, mind, or actions that is opposed to him and his life giving ways?