Pasadena Presbyterian Church Sermon Text
February 2, 2003

"Bidden or Not Bidden, God is Present"
Preached by The Rev. Dr. Barbara Anderson

Scripture:  Psalm 139:1-18, 23-24

(1) O LORD, you have searched me and known me. (2) You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. (3) You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. (4) Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely. (5) You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. (6) Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. (7) Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? (8) If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. (9) If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, (10) even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. (11) If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night," (12) even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. (13) For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. (14) I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. (15) My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. (16) Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. (17) How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! (18) I try to count them-they are more than the sand; I come to the end-I am still with you. (23) Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. (24) See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

- Psalm 139: 1-18, 23-24

One evening last fall, I was sitting in a high school cafeteria filled with several hundred students, parents, faculty and staff.  It was an event marking the beginning of our son Ken's junior year at La Salle High School in Pasadena. The evening became remarkable for me not only because of it marked the fact that Ken continues to grow up.  It became remarkable for me also because at the very beginning of the evening, the person who greeted us did so with the words, "Let us remember ..."  and one hundred high school juniors responded, "that we are in the holy presence of God." 

I'm sure I'd heard those words before, but I think it was particularly moving because I knew that, for my son, those are not empty words, and that knowledge means more to me than I have words to say. 

I am also moved by the realization that these words are spoken at the beginning of each class period, at the beginning of every school assembly and gathering in Ken's high school, as a reminder that whatever they do - whether teach or learn or talk together - it is done in the presence of Christ. 

When I mentioned this to Mark Smutny, he remembered the first time he heard these words.  It was when he officiated at the marriage of a friend back east who, coincidentally, was a graduate of La Salle High School in Troy, NY.  Tim asked Mark to begin the wedding service begin with these words that had become a part of his faith and being through his contact with the Christian Brothers:  "Let us remember ... that we are in the holy presence of God."   It's a good beginning for marriage.

A few years ago, Mark and I were given a plaque with a similar message, which has hung beside our front door ever since, just above the doorbell.  The same words appear in Latin on Carl Jung's tombstone.  In English, the words are, "Bidden or not bidden, God is present." 

Whether we call upon God or not, God is present.  Whether we acknowledge God or not, God is present.  No matter how hard we try to run away, no matter how much we try not to listen, no matter how hard we pretend not to understand, God is present. No matter how much we hurl our anger and rage at God, like throwing a ball against a backstop, God is present.  No matter how much we run from God, the hound of heaven is present at our heels.  No matter how much we want to avoid God's judgment, God is present.  No matter how much we want to avoid God's love, God is present.  Each time I enter my home, I see those words and remember that bidden or not bidden, God is present. 

The psalmist says it this way:  "Where can I flee from your presence?  Where can I flee from your spirit?  If I ascend to heaven, you are there.  If I fly westward across the sea to the farthest point of the shore, you are there.  If I make my bed in Sheol [the place of the dead, the place I think of as the place of total darkness, the place of living hell and hopelessness, the place of seemingly total abandonment by God] even there you are with me and your right hand holds me fast."

There is nowhere that we can be where God is not also.  God is with us in the classroom and the kitchen, the boardroom and the bedroom, the office and the hospital.  God is present with us on the freeway and with our friends.  God is with us in our decision-making and our recreation.  Our actions and our responses, our struggles and our faithfulness matter to the One who created the world and created us.  Bidden or not bidden, God is present.

If there is nowhere in the world that we can be where God is not also, there is also nowhere in our hearts and our very being where God is not as well.  God is with us when our hearts are bursting with joy and tears run down our cheeks in gratitude.  God is with us when our hearts are heavy with burdens or breaking with grief.  God is with us in the dark night of the soul and with us when the morning light breaks onto the horizon of our heart.  Bidden or not bidden, God is present.

Some might think it bad news that God is as constantly present, inescapable as the air we breathe or the water in which a fish swims.  But those who know what it is to rest in God, know that this is good news. 

We know that every moment of each day is lived not in the shadow of a judging God, but in the gracious, loving, holy presence of God who longs for us to love and be love, and to be free of the wounds that disfigure us; who longs for us to soar like the eagles, and to work side-by-side with God for justice, peace and mercy. 

Every moment of each day is lived in the holy presence of God who calls us to be more loving and just and whole than we realized was possible, yet who forgives us each time we fall short and gives us new beginnings. 

Because we are always in the holy presence of God, we need never be alone in the decisions we face.  We need never be alone in the struggles we face or the burdens we carry, and we always have someone who rejoices with us in the good.  Wherever we are in the world - in our day, in our heart and mind - there too, bidden or not bidden, God is present. I can imagine no greater gift than this from the God who calls us into being, redeems us in Jesus Christ, and sustains us in faith and life.

Therefore, in the words of St. John Baptist De La Salle, "Let us remember ... we are in the holy presence of God."  Amen.

(c) Copyright 2003 by Barbara A. Anderson.  All rights reserved.  Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution.