January 17, 2021 – Psalm 139, John 1:43-51, Ecclesiastes
Psalm 139; John 1:43-51; Ecclesiastes [non-lectionary text]
Knowing God
2nd Sunday after the Epiphany – January 17, 2021
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Dedicated to my colleagues, Melinda and Carolyn.
“A threefold cord is not quickly broken.”
When the calendar flipped over to 2021 this year, I felt a sense of tremendous relief. 2020 with all its difficulties was behind me and behind us. Good news about vaccinations was making headlines. It was realistic to think that most people would be vaccinated by September. There was light at the end of the tunnel.
Yet much remains unknown. My very first Devotion Moment reflected on the theme, “I do not know.” And that remains true. I really do not know what awaits us all in 2021, although I have many hopes. I hope we are all able to gather again as a congregation. I hope all of us remain healthy and well. I hope the difficulties of the past year make us all aware of how difficult it is to go through struggle and I hope we are all more compassionate towards each other. I hope for an end to systemic racism and I hope for peace and unity in the United States. But I do not know what will come. 2020 will have taught us all that particular lesson.
A favourite passage from Ecclesiastes comes to mind:
Then I saw all the work of God, that no one can find out what is happening under the sun. However much they may toil in seeking, they will not find it out; even though those who are wise claim to know, they cannot find it out.
You can’t get much more categorical than that. The writer of Ecclesiastes is famous for stating that “all is vanity.” You could translate that as, “all is passing.” Or, “all is ephemeral.” Or even, “all is finite.” In the end, rich and poor end up in the same state: dead. Same with the righteous and the unrighteous. So why strive after anything? All is finite. You cannot know anything that is certain. Except the end – in death.
Yet, the readings this week suggest that we are known. “Oh, LORD,” states Psalm 139, “you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.” This is both comforting as well as disconcerting. We yearn to be known intimately like this – and yet we are all frightened of it. Being known – truly known – is one of the most wonderful things imaginable. Yet, do we really want someone to know everything about us? The good as well as the not so good? Our highest aspirations as well as our basest desires?
As Melinda beautifully suggested in her Devotion Moment on Psalm 139 on Wednesday, God knows us intimately but does not use knowledge of our imperfections against us. I think it’s lovely that in the Gospel reading Nathanael is known by Jesus. Jesus knows that Nathanael is cynical and prejudiced against people from Nazareth. But what does Jesus actually point out about Nathanael’s character? That he is pure and “guileless,” that is, honest, unable to deceive. Jesus does not use his knowledge of Nathanael’s imperfections against him but, in the words of Luther in the Small Catechism, Jesus speaks well of his neighbour and seeks to interpret everything he does in the best possible light.
Yes: God knows us intimately, the good and the bad, but delights in and lifts up the good.
But where does that leave us? Is there anything we can know?
Perhaps there is a clue in this God-way-of-knowing to how we should best know.
I will admit that this is a difficult time of the year for me – for me, January is the cruelest month. Although the days get shorter and colder through December, I can get through it with the light of Christmas shining at its dark centre. But January? January is different. For those of us with mental illness and particularly those prone to depression, this is the hardest time of the year. It gets yet colder and the months seem to stretch away into the future with little hope of respite. It’s tough to work up much enthusiasm for anything. The delights of Christmas are gone. Joy is hard to come by. Energy wanes. The words of Ecclesiastes ring true, “All is vanity.”
The most famous words in Ecclesiastes come from its third chapter, the beautiful poem known by the name, “For everything there is a season.”
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance.
I do find this comforting in January – and it is. The wheel will turn. Yet, there is also something very random and almost menacing about it; one can never know when one time will end and another begin, and certainly there is nothing one can do about it.
Take the season of the pandemic that is upon us. Who saw that coming? And who could have stopped its arrival? This is the season we find ourselves in.
And yet, almost as soon as the writer is finished his poem, he begins to point to the joys that can be had in this life. As one writer recently wrote about Ecclesiastes, “as cranky as [the writer] is about finitude, he too stops to smell the roses.” It is almost as if the fleetingness of everything throws into sharp relief the beauty there is in this life to enjoy. Knowing things are temporary make them that much more beautiful.
And so he encourages enjoyment over and over again:
I know that there is nothing better for [workers] than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.
What is to be enjoyed is “the exquisite nature of life in all its limitedness.” As a result, he becomes ever more aware of the importance of the people around him, particularly our closest partners in life:
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help. Again, if two lie together, they keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone? And though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one. A threefold cord is not quickly broken.
This season of pandemic has impressed this all the more upon me. The public health orders we have been under have meant that I have had the gift of spending way more time with my son than I ever thought possible and that I have binge-watched more tv of his choosing than I ever thought I would – and I have enjoyed every minute of it. It has been a window into his world and into his mind and into his passions. And there is more: the food and drink we have had in our home. The technology that allows us to gather almost nightly with our closest friends however far away they may be. The sun shining into our apartment. And the unfathomable miracle of music endlessly issuing from the hi-fi. These things have come in a season of pandemic. They have been passing. But they have been beautiful. And I am grateful for all of them.
Many have questioned whether Ecclesiastes should be included in the Bible. Even religion is “vanity” according to the writer. And in the end we can know very little, if anything. But I am willing to venture that we are intimately known in our unknowing, and loved limitlessly with a love we may never fully limn but which is real nonetheless. And we can know joy, and that is no small thing. As we re-affirmed at Christmas, God is usually known through the mundane, and surely that is as true now as it was then: for most of us, most of the time, God is known through the mundane. With Luther we affirm that everything is gift, from the greatest galaxy to the smallest child – and that the great love of the Giver can be discerned in both.
In this season of pandemic, know this: God is still with us.
Let us pray. O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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