If Only God Really Knew..., Mountain View United, Aurora, CO 2-26-2012, by Rev Steven R Mitchell

If Only God Really Knew…
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
Mountain View United, Aurora, CO 2/26/2012
Based on Psalm 25:1-10
This past Wednesday evening a group of us kicked off the season of Lent by observing Ash Wednesday. For those who are not clear as to “why” we call it “Ash Wednesday”, “Ash Wednesday is a day of repentance. Ashes were used in ancient times, according to the Bible, to express mourning. Dusting oneself with ashes was the penitent's way of expressing sorrow for sins and faults.”
As a group, a part of our observance was to time to reflect through meditation and expression through art, what we would like to leave behind us during this season of Lent. As a way of honoring our reflections and expressions, we then brought them up to the “alter” and gave them symbolically to God, then we received the imposition of ashes which again symbolically expressed our sorrow and recognition that we sin before God and others. We are going to leave these expressions of what we wish to leave behind during this season, throughout the six weeks of Lent as a reminder to help us focus on the work of deepening our relationship with God.
It is not often that we use a Psalm as the focus for reflection during any given worship throughout the year, but what better way to start this season of reflection than to start with the topic of our Prayer life. Church historian and author, Dianna Butler Bass, was engaged by the Lilly Foundation to study liberal Mainline Denominations that were growing, to see if there are any commonalities. Over a ten year period, Mss Bass study fifty churches that represented the Presbyterian, United Methodist, American Baptist, ULCA Lutheran, United Church of Christ, and the Episcopalian denominations, finding that there were around thirteen primary commonalities that could be found in a growing and vital liberal church, although no one church exhibited all of these traits. Yet one trait that seems to be in most of these fifty churches was the seriousness of prayer life within the congregation.
Taking the Bible seriously is another common trait of a vital and growing liberal congregation. When we think of all the sections of the Bible, the Psalms seem to hold a warm spot within most Christian’s hearts. I think the reason for this comes because the Psalmist tends to show all aspects of our feelings, holding very little back. Although many of the Psalms were sung in the Hebrew culture, they are often expressions of prayer.
So as I was studying this particular prayer that we know as Psalm 25, looking for some theological themes, I started thinking about what does our personal prayer life look like? I don’t know about you, but I was taught as a child, that when talking to God, I wasn’t supposed to talk about certain subjects, or say anything that might offend God. In other words, I wasn’t supposed to share my true feelings with God. Does this resonate with any of you this morning? Somehow, as a Christian, I wasn’t supposed to be angry with God about any of my situations in life, I wasn’t supposed to question the wisdom of Gods plans, I was however in some instances allowed to ask God to get even with someone who was wronging me.
I am not sure why I was taught this; that there were things that I could and couldn’t say to God. It seems that there was supposed to be a “politeness” when talking to God, that didn’t necessarily hold true in a typical relationship; a sort of proper, prayer life that is supposed to be polite to the point of being dry, sterile, and possibly even stand-offish. The interesting thing about this teaching is that it coincided with the way I was supposed to interact with my parents and other adults who held authority over my life. With all of these things that I wasn’t supposed to discuss with God, I started thinking about what is a healthy interaction with God supposed to look like? What type of relationship am I suppose to have with God? If there are proper and improper topics to pray about, does this not put God as someone who is at a distance, not a part of the family, maybe like distant relative who is so prim and proper that any true expression of thoughts or feelings would cause them a heart attack?
Prayer is the life line to our relationship to God! What would happen in our relationship with God, if God really knew what we were thinking? We mentally know that if God is all knowing, that God then already knows what thoughts are going through our brains and even through our hearts, but there is a disconnect many times with what we know and what we feel. The reality is we often don’t want to acknowledge to God our feelings. Why? We already know God knows them, so then why would we not want to lift them up to God? Is it out of embarrassment that we try to hold them hidden somewhere deep inside of ourselves?
I was raised in a family that never hesitates to tell you what they think. If it hurts your feelings, so be it, but you knew exactly where that person stands on any particular topic, as well as how they feel about it. Yet again, I was taught not to have that same honesty with God, because God is God and who am I to tell God just what I am feeling?
And yet, I believe this is exactly what God desires of us. The reason being, when we are being fully honest with God about how we are experiencing some event in our lives, we are really opening up our hearts for relationship building. Just like in a family, if we never express our thoughts and our feelings, generally a deepening in relationship with those members of our family is retarded in its development.
My younger sister and brother and I, tell each other exactly what is on our minds about any given situation that is occurring in each other’s lives as well as what is going on in our own personal experiences. Do feelings get stepped on, of course they do, there are times when our feelings are hurt so badly that we will not talk to one another for a time, but we eventually get over feeling “picked on” and pick up where we left off. We pick up where we left off with one difference; we have become a little closer to each other. Why? Because through our sharing with one another even when it hurts, we know that we are loved by each other and we have allowed them access to our lives, so we have someone else walking with us.
In Psalm 25, the author does sort of the same thing. He is unloading before God his fears, the troubles that he is facing; he talks to God about dealing with his enemies, and even about guilt that he has carried around since childhood. “In you, LORD my God, I put my trust.” Next the author is asking God to deal with his tormentors. A normal human response would be to ask God to destroy his enemies, much like the outcry to the terrorist actions that killed so many people with the destruction of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Yet he doesn’t do that, this psalmist rather only asks that his enemies become embarrassed through their behavior of him, a kind of “egg on the face” sort of embarrassment.
What is amazing in this Psalm to me is the asking of God for teaching and guidance so the psalmist will avoid losing sight of his humanity and of hope during times of trial and persecution. The Psalmist is asking for internal strength, for integrity, because he trusts in the steadfastness that comes through love, mercy and goodness that God shows toward us.
This period of preparation for Holy Week and Easter is a time to seek to learn God’s ways and God’s paths. To build deeper our relationship with God, by being more honest with our prayers, of letting God really know what our life is like. Some of us have no problem in expressing our deepest feelings to God. Others of us may still struggle to expose our true selves to God in prayer, not wanting to let God really know what we are thinking or feeling. Let this season of Lent be one where we can deepen our prayer life, our relationship with God. Amen