Never Quite Alone

Midweek Worship, Tenth Week After Pentecost

Semicontinuous Reading: Jeremiah 1:4-10

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Have you ever been alone in the dark?

I don’t think I ever have. Not really. When I’m alone, when I’m at peace, when life at last is hushed—there’s something more, something there, something beyond and behind and beneath all the rush and the frenzy and the fever of this world. In the darkness, in the quiet, there is God. Not like some goblin sitting in the corner of the room, but like an ocean in which we swim, like the waters of the womb. And I am known and I am seen and I am loved. And so I am never quite alone.

This is in many ways the core of my faith. When I’m worn down or tired or doubting, when I don’t know what I ought to do or ought to be, I find the quiet. I close my eyes. I listen to the silence underlying all the world. And He is there. He has always been there; I have never been able to doubt this. I have always believed in God, even when I have tried very hard not to. I may doubt myself, or my understanding, or the image of God in my mind—but never the presence.

I think it’s what the Buddhists call Nirvana. I think it’s what the Hindus call the Brahman. I think it’s what Kabbalists name as Ein Soph: the Infinite, the Endless, the Nothing that is Everything. I think it is what Jesus calls the Father. And to borrow a favorite turn of phrase from St Thomas Aquinas: “This all men call God”—the One in whom we all live and move and have our being.

And because He is always here; because He is closer to us than we are to our jugular; because He is the Source from which we draw every second of our existence; our lives are thus saturated with meaning and purpose and value and worth. Everything we do, every choice we make, is a gift, one that is never wasted, never forgotten. “God remembers,” wrote Elie Wiesel. “That’s what makes Him God.”

“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.” To exist is to be known. And to be known is to be loved. This is the heart of Christian faith: the conviction that God is an infinite act of Being, of Knowing, and of Loving. As the Father God is; as the Son God knows; as the Spirit God loves; and these Three all are One.

Not only is this the relationship within God’s very self, the Holy Trinity of Father, +Son, and Holy Spirit, but it’s also how He relates to you, and to all of His Creation. The fact that you exist means that you are known. And the fact that you are known means that you are loved. If you weren’t loved, you wouldn’t exist; indeed, you would never have been. But you do, so you are, just in case you were wondering.

Apologies if this sounds a little mystical, a little woo-woo for a Wednesday night. But the experience of God is at the heart of all religion. Faith traditions only exist as a response to that encounter, to listening to the still small voice of God in silence. And so we are all mystics, to one degree or another. Who could believe that the bread is His Body, that the wine is God’s Blood, were we not all in this moment mystics?

A mystic is someone who experiences God, who knows God even if only as mystery. And all of this, everything you see—the art, the architecture, the music, the liturgy, the paraments, the vestments, our worship together—all of this exists to facilitate that for you: to aid us, as individuals and as a community, to know and to love and even together to be Jesus Christ our Lord, God made flesh.

There was never a moment when you were not known. There was never a moment when you were not loved. From before all worlds God knew you, knew in the eternity beyond time and space, that you would be His child and He would be your God. And everything you do is precious to Him. Everything you do is worthy. He could never forget you, never abandon you. We all live in Him.

“Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb?” sayeth the Lord in the Prophet Isaiah. “Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.” You are written in His book. You are engraved upon His hands.

We wander far from God, I know. We harm ourselves, and each other, and the whole world that God has made. We curl in upon ourselves, and we are sick from it, sick unto death. But death can be no obstacle to the Risen Jesus Christ. And as surely as He stretched out His arms upon that Cross, stretched them out to the worst that we could do, just as surely shall He at the last gather us all unto Him.

If you ever doubt this, if you ever waver, if you ever wonder whether God is there at all, whether your life has any meaning, or whether anyone has ever loved you, stop. Take a breath. Close your eyes. Center yourself in the silence, in the blessed Sabbath rest. And feel that, right here: every beat of your heart, every breath in your lungs. It is a gift. It is the slow, steady proclamation that “I know you; I love you; I’m here.”

I know the world can be a lot. I know that at heart we all want assurance that someone somewhere understands, that someone somewhere cares; assurance that somehow everything really will be all right in the end. I’m here to tell you it is so. Have no fear. But don’t just take my word for it. Read the Scriptures, come to worship, receive the holy Sacraments; and then go find some quiet nook to sit alone in silence. He is waiting for you there, as He has always been, as He will always be.

And you will never truly be alone.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.