B, Pentecost 12 Proper 15 - Psalm 34:9-14 "To Know is to be Known"

Oh yes I know!  I know how you feel!  I know! I know! I know!  Do you know?  I know!  We know how to do it? I know too!  He knows, she knows, they know! Okay smarty pants, how do you know?

You don’t know! You should know! I don’t want to know! I don’t know!  I know nothing!

How do I make it known?  How do I know?

How does one know that they know what they know?

If you haven’t guessed, today’s address is about knowing!  From where does one get knowledge?

People have been struggling to know how one knows since time began.  In fact, Adam and Eve wanted to know and they ended up finding out what they didn’t know, and probably wish they had never wanted to know in the first place.

The experience of all young people is they think they know everything.  Every successive generation has grumbled that their young folk think they know everything.  And the young, likewise, protest for being blamed for not knowing anything.  And as one ages and gains experience, they realise they don’t really know as much as one thought they knew. As teens and young adults there’s a tendency to believe one is invincible.  But failures, accidents, and bad experiences through life teach otherwise.

In Old Testament times elders of the people were those who had grey hair and beards through experience.  They were the knowledgeable ones; they were to whom one went for wisdom.

Wisdom literature in the bible is associated with the books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs.  However, for believes in God all of Scripture is the central true source of wisdom.  For believers, our life experiences are secondary to God’s Word and the events of our lives are measured in the Word of God.

However, the Word of God can be used in the wrong way too.  We hear in God’s Word how Adam and Eve first used God’s Word in the wrong way.  Rather than standing under his Word in submission they stood over his Word as they were encouraged by the serpent to question the knowledge of God and then gain their own knowledge of good and evil.  Satan encouraged them to trust in themselves and their own understanding of what God said, and they chose the wrong way even though it seemed so right to them at the time.

Ever since then humanity has struggled to know.  The leaders in biblical times learnt through bitter experience to not trust themselves, realising what they knew, was not going to sustain them.  Socrates and Plato began the western philosophical tradition by asking questions about our being, how we know, and why we do what we do with this knowledge.  Thousands of years of asking questions has left humanity with only more unanswered questions.

Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack!  The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.  Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD.  What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good?  Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.  Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. Psalm 34:9–14 (ESV)

Since Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and were thrown out of the garden, God has sought to teach us.  Here in Psalm 34, we are taught the wisdom of God.  Those who are familiar with the older version of Luther’s Small Catechism will be reminded of the “fear and love” language in what each commandment means for us.  Here, like the Catechism, we are taught to fear, love, and trust God over all things.

The lion is the king of wild animals.  Coming across one in the Israeli wilderness, I imagine, would have caused great fear, especially a lion that suffered want and hunger.  But we are taught this big proud predator struggles with poverty and hunger, but even in the face of death, suffering poverty, and hunger, and one’s desire to live and love many days, those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing.

So, how do we know what is good and what is evil?  Do we turn once again to experience?  What about the senses?  What we see, smell, taste, hear, or feel?  Surely all these things are open to deception because they find their origin in the person.  What seemed good or evil to Adam and Eve, was not so for God. In the same way, what pleases and displeases me is not necessarily what gives God pleasure or displeasure.

Knowing what is good and evil enables us to seek peace and pursue it.  However, when I look at what I seek and what I want, and my pursuit of it, I realise the peace I get from it is rather superficial and subjective at best.  Just like two farmers living next door to each other one wants rain to grow his crop to grain, but the other doesn’t because he has cut his crop and wants to make hay. What one of us believes is good is not necessarily good for the other!

Or like a person being chased by a hungry Israeli lion. As they run, they cry out to God yelling, "PLEASE LORD! CONVERT THIS LION TO BE A CHRISTIAN LION!" They run until they reach a dead end. The hungry lion approaches slowly, as they cry out louder: "PLEASE LORD HEAR MY PRAYER AND CONVERT IT!" The lion stops walking, and the person praises God. The lion kneels, puts its paws together and says: "Come Lord Jesus be our guest and let this food to us be blest, Amen."

What becomes evident in our knowledge, or in our pursuit of knowing, is that we really don’t know what is good and what is evil outside our own narrow perspective.  Generally, we are a little better at naming evil as eviI. But history has proven if a large enough group of people deem something good, it is regarded as such even if the opposite is true for God and those who choose to follow him.

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Ephesians 5:15–16 (ESV)

We are called to wisdom.  Paul tells the Ephesians to be careful, to look where they walk.  One needs to be wise because the days are evil and there are many ways that aren’t wise.  And we know this from witnessing what happens in the world and the church is more that often contrary to what God has called us to in his Word.  Inside and outside the church in our fears and desires we continue clinging to many destructive idols because of what we think we know is good.

But God’s Word teaches us to know that we know what we know, only because God knows us.  He knows you better than you know yourself and he has known it from before you existed in the womb. 

“Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.  Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight.” Proverbs 9:5–6 (ESV)

The way of insight is knowing God knows us better than we know ourselves.  Little by little he makes known to us the grave depths why he needed to send his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us.  He gives us knowledge of our sin and evil but at the same time increases in us our knowledge of the good which could only be done by his Son at the cross. 

Just like a proud lion whose lost his pride through poverty and hunger, we allow Jesus, the Lion King to devour the poverty and hunger of our sin. In fact, in knowing Jesus consumes our sin, the Holy Spirit increases our knowledge of God’s existence, and our trust in his providence.

Jesus says, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” John 6:54 (ESV)

In a beautiful twist of God’s love, God fills us with faith to feed on him.  And this food of faith fills us with hope that once again we will be with him in the garden of paradise at our death and resurrection on the last day. Amen.