Poverty of Presence

Hi there. It is really good to be with you today! My name is Josh Huckabay and I am the Worship and Creative Arts Pastor at Gateway Chrisitan Church over in Town and Country. I have been married for 16 years and have 4 kids, whose ages range from 9 - 14, and I have to tell you, I really appreciate what you folks do!

‌My family and I just moved to the St. Louis area last year, and as you know, it was a crazy process trying to buy a house. But by God’s grace, we had a wonderful realtor and did a lot of praying were able to secure a home, which made getting settled in a new place so much easier and the transition smoother, so thanks for being people that help bring some stability into people’s lives!

‌I really wrestled with what to say to you today, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt like it would be good to address a topic that is a pandemic in its own right.

‌Today, I want to talk to you about our poverty of presence.

‌No, I’m not talking about birthday gifts. I’m talking about presence. You know, presence: when all of your faculties, every part of you is present to the current moment that you inhabit. When you give and receive undivided attention with someone else. It’s about attending to the present. It’s about holding space for another, maybe even yourself. It is something that goes beyond the level of doing. Presence is about simply being. We are a presence starved people. We are presence bankrupt. We don’t know how to give it to others, ourselves, or to God.

‌But that seems weird, right? I mean, through the use of technology, we have the ability to be present to more people than ever before in the history of the world. We can be standing with one person, texting with two or three others, DM’ing another, and ordering food at the drive-thru.

‌But we all know how that works. In our attempt to be present to everyone, we end up giving presence to no one. You aren’t really listening to the person that your physically with. Your text notifications are blowing up because the person on the other end expects that you will be responding immediately to their questions, your DMs are backlogged, and you ordered the wrong food at the drive thru because you were handling the other 4 conversations you were in. No wonder we are so anxious all of the time. We can’t even be present to ourselves, much less to others or God.

‌And you can hear how presence starved we are in the ways we greet each other. We do the polite greetings: “hi”, “what’s up” but the one that really reveals how presence starved we are is: “how are you doing?” That one especially betrays how we think of ourselves in relation to people. Do you hear it? How are you “doing”? Rather than seeing a person that is worthy of dignity and love simply because they exist, we think of our relationship to them in terms of their production and commodity. “What can you do for me?” How can I leverage our relationship to get what I want? The person in front of me is not someone to be loved, they are a resource to be used. We have a poverty of presence.

‌I recently learned the common greeting in South Africa: When you are walking down the street someone will say to you, “SAWABONA.” It literally means “I SEE YOU” As to say, “I respect and acknowledge you for who you are” In return people say “SIKBONA” which literally means “I AM HERE” as to say “When you see me you bring me into existence.”

‌SAWABONA: “I see you.” “I see you.”

‌There’s a dignity in that greeting that goes beyond what someone can do because it leans in to who they are. Do you want to be seen? Do you know how many of your clients just want to be seen? Your kids? Your spouse?

‌Have you ever been talking to someone who is trying to text someone while they are “listening” to you? How do you feel in that moment? What about when you start talking and someone pulls their phone out? Makes you feel real important doesn’t it? What do you do? You get your phone out because you feel stupid.

‌You see the problem with our lack of presence, our commodification of people is that we don’t just come to see others as a task or job or text message or email notification or network or resource or inconviencnce; we actually begin to see ourselves that way as well. And then, we think this is solely how God sees us. As something to be used rather than a child to be loved. As an inconvience rather than a delight. As a result, we act as though no one really needs any attending to as persons; no one needs any real presence.

‌But we are desperate for someone to give us real presence, for anyone to give undivided attention that is uncoerced.

‌A few years ago a performance artist named Marina Abramović held an exhibit at the New York Museum of Modern Art called, The Artist is Present. Normally, when you go to an art museum you admire the work of the artist but the artist is not there. In this artwork, Abramovic did the opposite. Her presence was the artwork.

‌The piece was setup with two chairs facing each other. She would sit in one while the other was open for a visitor to sit in. Once someone was seated, she would simply give you her undivided presence for as long as you wanted. There was no talking, no touching, just a pure mutual gaze; staring straight into another person’s eyes; pure unadulterated presence. She did this 8 hours a day for 3 months. And hundreds of people lined the streets of New York City just to get a moment of presence with Marina Abramovic. Some came numerous times. Some wept. She saw over 1000 people in over 700 hours of this. 8 hours a day for 3 months. People couldn’t get enough.

‌We are a presence starved people. We don’t know how to give it, and we don’t know how to receive it, but we are utterly desperate for it.

It’s one of the reasons we are so anxious as a society. We don’t know how to receive God’s full presence to us, in us or through others. In one of the Apostle Paul’s letters in the New Testament, he writes to a group of Christians: “The Lord is near. Therefore, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition present your request to God, and the peace of God which transcends your understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4).

What precedes peace in your life and mine is the received reality of God’s presence. And unlike you and I, God is omnipresent, which means God is fully present at all times to all things without diminishing any of his presence anywhere else by doing so. Sometimes, we think that God dips in and out of being present with us and to us, but in reality we are the ones who move in and out of presence inbetween phone calls and emails. After all, this is the name that was given to Jesus: Immanuel, God with us.

And you see, when we give our full presence to another, we are imitating God. So, one of the ways you can be most like God is by giving your undivided attention. Put away your phone, take off your Apple Watch, turn off the Netflix and be with someone.

It seems so simple right? So, if it is so simple, why are we so starved of it and bad at it?

1) We’d rather have distraction over satisfaction.

It’s so much easier to pick up my phone and look at scores on ESPN than it is to play with my kids and ask them about their day.

It’s easier to binge watch a new show than to sit over a meal for a few hours sharing and listening to/with someone I love.

It’s easier to be busy - “If the devil can’t make you sin, he’ll make you busy.” -Corrie Ten Boom

Real presence, given and recieved leaves you satisfied. Distraction always leaves you longing for more.

2) We want intimacy without vulnerability.

We all want to be close to someone, but we don’t want to take the risk of being wounded. See, we are scared of presence because we are scared of being fully known. Why? Because when someone really knows us, they have the opportunity to hurt us. We are vulnerable. That word comes from the Latin word “vulnus” which means “wound.” When you are vulnerable it means you are woundable. That is the difference between transparency and vulnerability. (illustration) There is no intimacy without vulnerability.

Do you remember that South African greeting, “souwbona” - “I see you.” You know that is how God greets you, don’t you? The truth is most of us are scared to death of that. We are scared because if we can’t show God enough good things we’ve done or tell him how many Bible verses we read, we might find out that he doesn’t really like us. Some of us have an image of God that says God would rather not be around us. That He loves you but he doesn’t like you. That He wouldn’t really ever want to spend any time with you. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the Bible says that God is not far from each one of us if we would just reach out and find him.

But you are never going to grow in intimacy with God if you don’t learn to receive God’s presence or give yours to him. If you never learn to let yourself be woundable to God. There are no safer hands than God’s.

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God is already there. God’s heavenly gaze is completely on you. God is perpetually greeting you saying, “I see you.” “I see you.” God doesn’t just want something from you; God wants you; all of you.

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-Before you begin read Psalm 139. Read it with this kind of presence in mind, knowing that God is completely present to you.