Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Second Sunday after Epiphany - Year B

January 18, 2015

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

O God, you have searched me and known me.
  You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.

You search out my path and my lying down,
  and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue,
  O God, you know it completely.
You hem me in, behind and before,
  and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
  it is so high that I cannot attain it.
For it was you who formed my inward parts;
  you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you,
  for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
  that I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,
  when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written all the days
  that were formed for me, before they existed.

How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
  How vast is the sum of them!

I try to count them —
  they are more than the sand;
I come to the end —
  I am still with you.

As I mentioned last week, my father is also a pastor; as is my brother and his wife. We are, to use the language of the Old Testament, a priestly family. Both my brother and I followed in our father's footsteps. But, we didn't do it perfectly.

My father is a very conservative Lutheran. We even joked in our family that my father was more Lutheran than Martin Luther himself. We were raised in a very Lutheran home. Yet, it was being raised in that very Lutheran setting that eventually caused me to leave the Lutheran church and find my home here in the United Church of Christ. The central understanding in Luther's thought was that we are saved by grace, and it is totally and completely a gift from God that we do not deserve nor can do anything to make God more likely to offer it to us. Salvation is about God acting, not us.

Yet, as I grew into adulthood I discovered that all too often, even in a denomination that preached grace, grace was not truly lived out and experienced. So, I sought out a church, a denomination where I felt that grace was more than just something that was talked about; it was also a driving force in the way in which the church functioned and presented itself; I found that in the United Church of Christ.

As a denomination, we are young; not even 60 years old. Yet, we trace our roots to the oldest Protestant churches in America. We trace our roots through churches and practices that are diverse and full of differences. Our differences do not keep us from being church, though, we are United regardless of our differences. In the UCC, there are congregations that are extremely liberal and there are congregations that are extremely conservative. And we embrace each other as being part of the same testimony to God's love and grace. We are who we are.

One of the interesting conflicts in the world in which we find ourselves is the seeming contradiction between our desire to all be individuals and the desire to fit in. Look at a group of teenagers – chances are they all have the desire to be different, to be unique; yet, when it comes to what they wear, the music they listen to, a majority of them do the same thing. A few years ago, it seemed that tattoos and piercings were a way in which people could declare their uniqueness. Now, when so many people have them, is it really a way of declaring your being different? When I was in high school the kids fought against it every time the topic of school uniforms was brought up; even though we all wore jeans and t-shirts to school everyday anyway. We didn't want to all dress the same, yet we basically all wore the same uniform every day anyway.

At a certain level, we all know that we are different. We look at each other and it's clear to see. I have blue eyes, and yours are brown. I'm tall, and your shorter. I wear glasses, and you don't. I'm married, and you aren't. I'm a morning person, and you're a night person. I like coffee, you prefer tea. I'm outgoing, and you are introverted. It would be a boring world if we were all the same. And the most incredible, wonderful thing about it, is that God made us different on purpose. Each and every single one of us was “fearfully and wonderfully made.”

It might seem hard to see how incredible that is. We are all of high value, all precious creations in God's sight. Sure, some people may be more public than others, but coach Urban Meyer is not more fearfully or wonderfully made than you or I. Sure, some people may consider him to be of much greater value or worth than us, but to God that is not the case. As we heard last week, in our baptism's God calls names each and everyone of us as beloved children. And as a parent knows and love their children, so too does God know and love each and every one of us. God knows us so well because God made each and every one of us, just as we are.

When I was growing up, there was a poster in our church office that showed a young child. The words on the poster declared, “I know I'm okay, because God doesn't make trash.” What a wonderful, powerful message. It's a message that is as relevant today as it was over 30 years ago. You and I can know we are okay just as we are, because God doesn't make trash. God made us short or tall, fat or thin, athletic or clumsy, musical or not, straight or gay, shy or outgoing; God made us that way, and God doesn't make trash.

If you look at the front of your bulletin this morning, you will see a picture of fish. There are a lot of fish, and they mostly all look the same and are going in the same direction; but, there is one fish that is different, and headed in a different direction. All of these fish were fearfully and wonderfully made by God. It's the unfortunate reality that we as human beings tend to treat poorly the fish that look a little different, or go in a direction that is different than ours. It's a tragic thing, that we in the church have far too often followed human nature in how we have treated those that are different in how they are fearfully and wonderfully made. The church has historically not always seen beyond the externals to see others how God sees us as God's own beloved children; made and known just as we are.

We, here at Zion United Church of Christ, have voted to be an Open and Affirming congregation. That means that (in the words of our statement) we will, “extend God's Extravagant Welcome to persons of every gender, age, race, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, mental and physical ability, social and economic status, faith background, political and theological beliefs, marital standing and family structure.” We have decided as a church that we are going to be a different voice here in our community and region. When people hear about us, what they are going to hear is a message of welcome, a message of embracing all people as they are, as they are fearfully and wonderfully made.

It's a wonderful statement, a wonderful guide for how we are going to function as a congregation. Yet, we all know, that words without actions behind them are just words; nice to hear but without power. We must, as a congregation, as a community of faith, as a gathering of God's children, give power to the words of our statement in our lives and actions.

The church is sometimes thought of as being a place of refuge in the chaos of the world, an island of calm and peace in the storm around us. And that is the way it should be, but all too often we have turned that image on its head. Rather than the bringing people to the island, each and every week we set sail from our paradise, bringing a message of welcome and love. Then, we leave and head our own way – leaving those who we delivered our message still on their islands of despair and exclusion. Our calling is not just to bring the message, but to bring those who hear that message back with us.

It is not enough for us every every Sunday to proclaim that we accept everyone, that no matter where you are on life’s journey you are welcome here, then go back to our land of abundance leaving them still trapped in their lives of isolation. I want us to invite the people into our lives and church and to make as many trips as necessary to bring them out from where they are to that place of security, in the bosom of the Lord. Our work, our call to follow, my call, isn’t done until I can tell God who I helped save. Will God say well done my good and faithful servant to us? I sure hope so.

When someone takes that sometimes terrifying step across the threshold of our house of worship we need to be prepared to repair, heal and set free them. Even if the person can’t walk across that threshold alone we need to rescue them, and help erase the harms done. We need to show a different Christian than the ones they’ve known before.

Today I challenge all of us to accept the call to affirm all of Gods children, to bring them into the fold and then tell them the words from the affirming mysterious process of creation in our Psalm. For it was you who formed my inward parts, I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made, wonderful are your works that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depth of the earth. Your eyes beheld my uniform substance, In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. Amen.