Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, Jan. 31, 2016
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”
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“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”
The first word God has for Jeremiah. The first word of many that would not only change Jeremiah’s life but the course of an entire nation was this:
I know you.
That word, “know,” is one of the most powerful words in scripture. In Hebrew, it’s yada.
Yada doesn’t just mean “Hey -- I know that guy.” Yada means to know deeply … intimately … fully.
We read yada in Genesis when we hear that Adam knew Eve -- wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean? That kind of know. In “the biblical sense.”
We read yada in Exodus when God says to Moses, “I know the sufferings of my people and I have come down to deliver them.”
This is deep, intimate, vulnerable, personal and utterly complete knowledge. All hearts open. All desires known. No secrets hid.
Yada is the ultimate approach/avoidance situation of human existence. We crave being able to share and to have another know those parts of ourselves we are convinced we must hide away. We crave it almost as much as we fear the pain and shame of that intimate knowledge being turned to ridicule, betrayal and rejection. Almost as much as we fear what we thought was “being known” turning into “being found out.”
It’s ironic isn’t it? Being known might be our deepest desire. And yet being found out is so often our greatest fear.
That’s because being known is being understood. Being found out is being shamed.
Being known is living fully, authentically and without shame. Being found out is being yanked out of a closet and sucked into the deep downward spiral of shame.
Being known is about intimacy and acceptance, about love and embrace, about forgiveness and grace.
Being found out is about examination and rejection and the confirmation that those voices inside us that have told us we are no good, that we are less than, that we are not worthy of love have been right all along.
And so when the Word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah, when God says “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,” does Jeremiah sing with joy or cringe in fear? Does his heart fill with hope or did his stomach bottom out in dread.
I imagine it was a lot of both.
But God is kind. Because God doesn’t leave Jeremiah twisting in the wind, wondering if he has been known or found out. Because in the very same sentence God says even more.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
“Jeremiah. I know you. I have always known you. I will always know you. And what I have seen is so good, so beautiful, so worthy that before you even did anything to earn it, I have set you apart and am giving you a purpose to fulfill, a life to lead, a truth to tell to the world.”
God tells Jeremiah, “I know you.”
Not “I’ve found you out” but “I know you.”
And even though it takes Jeremiah a second to believe God. Even though Jeremiah’s first reaction is to look behind him, certain that God must be talking to someone else, someone older, better, more eloquent – the message sinks in. Jeremiah indeed becomes a prophet to the nations. And the words God gives him – words that become a fire shut up in his bones that he cannot help but let out (20:9) – are words that change the course of history itself.
God tells Jeremiah, “I know you.” Not “I’ve found you out” but “I know you.”
And Jeremiah believes God.
And that makes all the difference.
So the question for us this morning:
Do we believe in a God who knows us … or a God who is trying to find us out?
Because our answer makes all the difference, too.
For centuries and even millennia, much of Western Christianity has preached a God who is trying to find us out – and we have suffered mightily for it. We have turned following Jesus into the very things he railed against – adherence to purity codes, behavioral norms, and dogmatic confessions. This Grand Inquisitor God has not stood with Christ while Christ stands with us in all the fragility and beauty and imperfection of our humanity -- but instead has driven us behind masks and into closets.
Preaching a God who is trying to find us out, for centuries and even millennia, we have enshrined the Fall, not rejoicing that we are wonderfully made but cowering in fear and shame when God comes walking in the garden in the cool of the day because our very bodies – created in God’s image -- offend us, and, we assume, offends God as well.
And preaching that false God, for centuries and even millennia, we have turned the church into an instrument of fear and shame. Instead of proclaiming with Jesus that today the Gospel of liberation is fulfilled in your hearing, the church has been an enslaver, using fear and shame to subjugate anyone who doesn’t fit into a hopelessly narrow understanding of human being and expression.
Instead of proclaiming with Paul that love is patient and kind and that at best now we see in a mirror dimly, for centuries and even millennia the church has become a generator and amplifier of the moralizing certitude of slut-shaming, purity culture, modesty culture, homophobia, transphobia and the list goes on and on.
Instead of singing with the psalmist, “In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge; let me never be ashamed,” in the name of Jesus, for centuries and even millennia, the church has used fear and shame and even our own religious imagery to support systems that tell people with black and brown bodies to be ashamed and fearful, that refuge in the church is contingent on acting white, and that expressing fully who you are, especially any anger you might have, is not allowed.*
Fear and shame. That is what preaching this God who is trying to find us out has wrought in our hearts and in our churches. Fear and shame.
Have you felt it?
Even in this space … even in this wonderful community, have you felt the need to hide pieces of yourself in fear and shame? Have you felt unable to be your full self, to explore who that might be, to express the image of God that is upon and within you?
Even in this space … even in this wonderful community, have you felt the fear that you will be found out – that you will be discovered unworthy, an impostor Christian or less than a full and beautiful child of God because of something you have done, or believe or even who you are.
Even in this space … even in this wonderful community, is there something that when God brings God’s word to you that God is setting you apart and giving you a purpose to fulfill, a life to lead, a truth to tell to the world your first reaction is to look behind you because surely God must be talking to somebody else. Certainly God could not be giving this incredible word to you?
Fear and shame. That is what preaching this God who is trying to find us out has wrought in our hearts and in our churches. Fear and shame. And that is not only the deepest tragedy, it is also the deepest irony.
Because fear and shame have not only no place in Jesus’ Gospel of liberation, fear and shame are the biggest enemies Jesus’ Gospel of liberation knows.
Fear and shame are the very things from which Jesus’ Gospel of liberation comes to free us.
And so that is why this question – Do we believe in a God who knows us … or do we believe in a God who is trying to find us out? That is why this question is so important … and why our answer makes all the difference.
It made all the difference to Jeremiah. God gave Jeremiah a word to judge the nations – a word that plucked up and pulled down, a word that destroyed and overthrew, a word that built and planted. And yes, it was a word about how the people of Israel had strayed and fallen short, about how they had gone after other gods and betrayed God’s love for them. It was a word of calling to account for the sins they had committed.
It needed to be. Judgment is important. Our actions matter and confessing sin and together committing through the grace of God to new ways of living is how we fully live into the images of God we always have been.
But the context is always God’s grace. And God’s grace is that first word that Jeremiah heard – a word Jeremiah had to believe first for himself if he was going to say any of the others: That the God who has called us into covenant, the God who created us in the divine image and brought and brings us out of bondage is not a God who finds us out but a God who knows us.
A God who sees deep in our hearts and understands because God has been there.
A God whose dream for us is to live fully, risk boldly, love deeply, and grieve honestly.
A God who does not shame us for our sins but who stands with us in them, bearing their pain with us and calling us into new life in their wake.
A God to whom all hearts are open, all desires known and from whom no secrets ever can be or ever need to be hid.
Jeremiah believed that the God who spoke to him that day was a God who had not found him out but a God who knew him. And because he heard and believed that word, he was able without fear or shame to take a word upon his heart and upon his lips that would change the world.
And now the question rests on us. Which God do we believe in?
Do we believe in a God who knows us … or a God who is trying to find us out?
Do we believe in a God who calls us to cower in a closet or to rejoice we are wonderfully made?
Do we believe in a God who castigates us with shame or stands with us in love?
Do we believe in a God who dreams for us to join God as co-creators of a liberated world or live in fear of breaking rules that continually forge our chains.
The Word of God comes to us this morning saying, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.”
Imagine what purpose we could fulfill, what life we could lead, what truth we could tell to the world,
Imagine what living ambassadors of Jesus’ Gospel of liberation we could be if we could believe God knows … and loves … us, too.
*I am indebted to Elle Dowd for these thoughts about the damage the church has done to bodies. Be sure to click here and read her fantastic sermon on this same text that expands on these thoughts and links it to the killing of Gynnya McMillen.
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