The Transparency

Text: Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24
Theme: “M5: The Transparency” (5th in a Series)
5th Sunday after Pentecost
July 17, 2011
First Presbyterian Church
Denton, Texas
Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

IN THE NAME OF JESUS

1 You have searched me, LORD,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, LORD, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

This morning, for your consideration, I offer the fifth in a series of messages on the mission of Jesus Christ which is, of course, the mission of the holy catholic church of which First Presbyterian Church is a part. Guiding our thoughts will be this incredible selection from the hymnal of the Bible, the Old Testament Book of Psalms, that you just heard. As an aside, all of the messages in this series are posted on my blog, The Straightforward Pulpit. The website is prdunklau.blogspot.com. If you’d like a printed copy of one any of these messages, let me know.

Two truths emerge from this beautiful and dearly beloved selection of Scripture – and both of them have massive significance for the mission of the church. First, God knows us better than we know ourselves. We are, in a word, “transparent” to the Almighty. Every thought, word, and deed is known by the Lord even before it is a thought we might think, a word we might say, or deed we might do.

The text, penned by King David, all but suggests that God is into surveillance. It’s as if He has a wiretap on the phone of our life. Everything is monitored. Some might say that this transparency, this omniscience (to use the traditional theological term), this knowing everything about us is a ridiculous lie. There are other points in Scripture that seem to contradict it anyway. “Who is man that You are mindful of Him?” asks another psalmist. Others might allow the possibility that it is true, that God knows everything about us, but it really has no bearing on the life and living of any given day. People will say what they say, do what they do, think what they think, and God, while knowing all, appears to be supremely indifferent. Finally, there are others who would have to concur with King David: “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.” Perhaps that could have been the reaction of the people after they heard what Jesus Christ Himself said one day: “Not a sparrow falls to the ground without Your heavenly Father knowing it.” And “Every hair on your head is numbered.” We are known far better than we can begin to know ourselves. Such an assertion is just too much to sink our teeth into, wrap our arms around, or get our hands on. That’s either going to scare the living daylights out of you, or you’ll learn to accept it as a grand mystery and begin to love it!

While we’re transparent to God, we do – perhaps more than we think – try to be far less transparent in our interactions with others. There is a certain “public personae” that we want others to see, but it doesn’t always match the reality. Say that a friend comes up to you and says: “Hey, how are you doing?” With a smile, you reply: “Pretty good.” It might even be apparent to your friend that you, indeed, are “pretty good.” But, if that friend knows you well enough, he or she might see beyond the apparent and catch a smidge of the transparent truth. The tone of your voice or the look in your eye might make it plain to your friend that you’re not as good as you make yourself out to be.

In the spring of 1944, America was at war with Germany and Japan. Back at the White House, Anna Roosevelt, the daughter of President Franklin Roosevelt, looked beyond the usual upbeat and effervescent appearance of her father. The presidential zest was nearly always apparent. But what she saw beneath the president’s bubbly personality alarmed her. She became conscious of the darkening hollows under his eyes, the loss of color in his face, the soft cough that accompanied him day and night. She noticed for the first time that his mouth hung open for long periods. Joining him at his cocktail hour, she saw the convulsive shake of his hand as he tried to light his cigarette. One time, when signing a letter, he blanked out halfway through, leaving a long illegible scrawl. Meanwhile, Grace Tulley, the president’s secretary, began to notice some of the same things. Doris Kearns Goodwin, an FDR biographer, described it as follows:

Though Roosevelt’s good spirits fooled reporters and visitors, Anna, who was with him most of his waking hours, could not ignore the discernible signs of trouble. There were too many times in the course of the day when she could see that “the blood was not pumping the way it should through one hundred percent of the body. (Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time).

Anna went to Dr. Robert McIntire, the president’s personal physician. McIntire thought it was just a bout of bronchitis and influenza. Anna didn’t think so; she knew her father better than McIntire. Eventually, she persuaded her dad to have a full check-up at Bethesda Naval Hospital. There, the president met Dr. Howard Bruenn, a cardiologist. “I suspected something was terribly wrong as soon as I looked at him,” recalled Dr. Bruenn. “His face was pallid and there was a bluish discoloration of his skin, lips and nail beds.” Dr. Bruenn put his hands on the president’s chest and listened to his heart. “It was worse than I feared,” he said. Roosevelt was suffering from congestive heart failure.

As it turns out, Dr. Bruenn never said a word to Roosevelt about the situation. Dr. McIntire had instructed him not to. For that matter, the president himself did not ask a single question about what Bruenn found out. At the end of the exam, Roosevelt smiled his famous smile and extended his hand. “Thanks, Doc,” he said. Then he left.

I share this to illustrate the extent people will at times go to keep up appearances. It may work for a while in human interaction, but, as our text reminds us, it doesn’t fool an all-knowing God.

If you believe that God knows you better than you know yourself, if you’re persuaded that God loves you too – even better than you can love yourself, then you have a liberated soul. You can share your experience, strength, and hope more easily. You can cling to the thought that the worst parts of your life, in God’s hands, can be your greatest assest. All of this, on the individual and congregational level, makes for effective mission.


The second truth is this: God’s Spirit is always with us. In the psalm we discover that wherever Kind David goes, the Spirit of God is there. Wherever he travels spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and even geographically, God’s Spirit is there. Reading between the lines, King David almost seems to say that he tried to flee from God’s presence but, like Adam and Eve before him, found it be an exercise in futility. Wherever he was, wherever he went, God was there. Can you say the same? Do you believe the same?

At the end of the movie Chisum, a classic western where the good guys win, John Wayne’s sidekick, “Mr. Pepper”, rides up to Chisum on horseback and says: “There’s an old Commanche saying that says there’s ‘No law West of Dodge, and no god West of the Pecos,’ right Mr. Chisum?” John Wayne, portraying Chisum, replies: “Wrong, Mr. Pepper – because sooner or later people find that there’s the law, and wherever they go they find that God’s already been there.”

But what if you don’t see it like Chisum? What if you don’t share the same experience of God’s presence as King David? What if God, to you, is a thought, a concept, or a possibility but certainly not an actual presence? Then I invite you to consider the words of Job. These words, for me, were a welcome tonic at a time in life where I thought God was nowhere to be found or had other fish to fry. On a personal note, this is one of my top five favorite selections from the Bible. Job, the afflicted one, says, in Job 23:8-10: “But if I go to the east, he (meaning God), is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him. But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.”

King David sensed God’s presence everywhere. Job sensed it nowhere. But both knew that God knew it all. Both were on the receiving end of God’s magnificent love and mercy. Even better for all of us, in Jesus Christ that transparency, that love, and that mercy is embodied.

King David and Job shared their experiences; they told their stories. Will you share yours as part of this church’s mission?

Amen.