God Knows My Name

Search me. I don’t even know if we say that anymore. “Search me!” Shows you how far out of coolness I am these days. Ah, well. But I remember saying it all the time. Search me. It has probably been replaced by the ubiquitous “whatever” by now. Search me.

It was a “I don’t know” kind of thing. It was an admission of ignorance, and maybe of complacency. Search me. It refers to what we don’t know. Not something we like admitting these days. Are we in an age of certainty? It is hard to state that there is something beyond our understanding or experience or knowledge.

One of the problems the church has these days, I think, is that we are no longer sure what we believe. We want to move beyond a childish faith, and we want to incorporate all that human beings have learned about how the world works – and how we work – and yet we keep being told that what we’ve learned about the world can’t fit into what we believe about God. They don’t match, the bump up against each other and something has got to go. Unfortunately, for most of us, what has gone is diligent theological thought. Which isn’t the same as saying we’ve lost our faith. We just don’t think about it all that much anymore. We can’t make it work, so we don’t bother. What do you believe about God? Search me. That’s what many have come to these days. It is just easier. Search me.

Of course, search me is also used in another way. The way that Psalm 139 uses it. And maybe it is that searching, or the acknowledgment of God’s searching that might help us reclaim our faith as a reasonable part of our existence. Can faith be reasonable? Does that make sense? Search me.

No, wait. I didn’t mean that. Of course it can. To a degree, anyway. There is always something beyond knowledge about faith, even Psalm 139 admits that. The Psalm ends with an admission that knowing all of God is beyond us. But it begins with the affirmation that being known by God is the nature of the relationship. In fact, the essence of the Psalm is the declaration that the only knowledge of God accessible is in relationship.

In our creeds and in the Lord’s Prayer we are reminded that we call God Father. This is not to reduce God to a human role, but to lift humans by acknowledging that the parenting role is a part of the divine. So, whether we are father or mother, whether we care for birth children or adopted children or children baptized into the family of God, we reflect an aspect of God. We believe that God cares and so we do too.

We are also reminded by our liturgy that God is creator, and that all of creation has a single point of origin. But however we understand that creation to have taken place, we worship God as creator of all there is. We can argue methodology, and we do, but there need be no conflict with the article of faith that claims God as creator.

Then there is that term that appears in liturgy – Almighty. What does that mean? Search me. No, wait. It means that there is more to God than I can grasp with my understanding. It means that I trust in the power of God even when I can’t sense it. It means I believe in the power of God even when it seems God has lost a grip on the world God created. It means I will spend my days seeking evidence of that power and that presence with confidence and with hope.

But why all this struggle to understand God in the first place? Why do we seek the face of God? Why do we want to know God’s will? Curiosity? Well, perhaps, but there is more to it. We seek God because God has sought us. That’s what Psalm 139 tells us. And the gospels tell us. And Paul’s letters tell us. That is what the doctrine of Incarnation tells us. That this amazing, almighty, unknowable God, knows us. Seeks us. Loves us. What an incredible thing. And it isn’t that God knows about us. That God has some scientific or sociological interest in humanity. No, we believe, we claim that God knows us. Intimately and personally. We are known.

Whenever we encounter someone who shows interest in us as human beings, as a real person, who wants to know the real us, then of course we are going to want to know that person. We call upon the Lord, because the Lord has called upon us. O Lord, you have searched me, and known me. Let me in my own small way return the favor.