psalm 139 - omniscient and omnipresent - 26th week friday 2016

Today on the memorial of the saint, St. Jerome, who said, Ignorance of scriptures is ignorance of Christ, let us reflect on psalm 139, one of the most beautiful psalms, a subject of so many beautiful hymns in the church.

Psalm 139 speaks of two qualities of God – omniscience and omnipresence.  God knows everything and God is present everywhere.

God knows everything.  In just one stanza he uses the verbs – you probed me, you know me, you understand my thoughts, you scrutinize me, I am familiar to you.  That’s how God is to each one of us.  He knows us intimately.

God is also present everywhere.  He is always with us, always there by our side.  God will always be there for us.

God is omniscient and omnipresent.

If you think however that this is a fine arrangement think again.  Even the psalmist seems to bulk at the idea that God knows everything in me even my inmost thoughts and that God is always there even if I escape to the heavens above or to the earth below to be freed from his presence, from his gaze and from his scrutiny. “Where can I go from your spirit?  From your presence where can I flee?”

There are parts of our lives which we want to keep to ourselves.  There are places and activities we would rather have God leave us alone, undertakings we would rather not involve God at all.

And yet God is persistent as expounded by the psalmist, “if I take the wings of the dawn, if I settle at the farthest limits of the sea, you Lord are there.”

I have read that in America there are parts of your lives you would not want God to be very involved; there are discussions and debates in your lives you would rather not bring God in; there are activities in your lives you would not want God too close.  That is too sad in a nation which puts the words, in God we trust, in its money.

But how long can we keep on fleeing away from God?  How far can we go without him?  How far can we be duped into believing that we are better off without God in our lives and in our society?

The woes of Jesus in the gospel are not angry woes.  Scholars say there is sadness and regret in the word which is translated as woe.  It is the sadness and regret of one who has only our highest good in mind, but is willfully ignored and not listened to.  It is the sadness of one who wanted to be with us but is forcefully and even legally left out of our lives.  But can we really flee from God?