Matti Bowen

“Hearken to my voice, O Lord, when I call;
have mercy on me and answer me.
You speak in my heart and say, “Seek my face.”
Your face, Lord, will I seek.
Hide not your face from me,
nor turn away your servant in displeasure.
You have been my helper;
cast me not away;
do not forsake me, O God of my salvation.”
—Psalm 27, 10-13

Dear Friends,

What does it mean to be truly, completely seen?

One of the readings appointed for today, Psalm 27, opens with several strong declarations of faith. But the tone of the Psalm shifts, toward love we ask of God in return. It is not a moment of contractual obligation, where we say to God “I did this for you and now I deserve that.” Nor is it some kind of demand, where we assert that God’s love is a prize we have secured by being faithful. Instead, the tone is one of supplication where we reach out to God in love and devotion, hoping that God will reach back.

In reading this Psalm I was reminded of several passages in Rowan Williams’ foundational work Being Disciples. One moment in the second chapter almost leapt off the page as I was thinking of this Psalm, and the desire to see and be seen by God. Williams writes:

Faith as dependable relationship is something other than faith as a system of propositions, or faith as confidence in my own capacity to master truth; it’s much more a confidence that I can be mastered by truth, that I can be held even when I don’t feel I can hold on. If my relation to the living truth is initiated and sustained by God’s faithfulness not mine, it is dependable. (Williams, 2016, p.25)

So perhaps, in examining this Psalm, we can name the desire laid out so plainly in verse not just as the desire to see and be seen by God but not to be abandoned in the face of whatever is found when we are truly seen. The desire to be fully known, even if all of our flaws, and still held in God’s love. This is immensely vulnerable, but relatable. How many of us fear that there is something within us that is impossible to love? Something that, if truly seen, would see us abandoned again and again? But as Williams reminds us, our relationship with God is ultimately sustained by God’s faithfulness and not ours. We can allow God’s love to be enough, even in the face of what we find unlovable in ourselves. God’s love is of an immeasurable vastness, and this season is full of reminders of that love, reminders that humanity has not only been created in the image of God but chosen again and again in love.

So perhaps, when we read this appointed Psalm and feel the anxiety there, we should remember a love so profound that God turns to us in anticipation and hope that someday we will turn back. A love so profound that God chose his Son to be born among us, a baby in a barn on a cold night. Now that is dependable.

In Community,

—Matti Bowen