We All Want to Know that Someone Notices Us ~ August 30, 2026

Proper 17a, 2026 Ginger Solaqua

All of us want to be noticed. We want to feel like our lives are witnessed, like we matter.

It’s not necessarily that we need our name in lights or that we need acknowledgment for every nice thing we do, but we want to be to be seen as who we are.

A few years ago, I was at the grocery store in Houston, where I grew up, running errands for my mom. A man I’d never seen before came up to me and asked if I was related to Clint Strickland, who is my brother. I look like my brother with longer hair, so I can see how he made the connection. Standing in the grocery aisle, this man told me that he had been bullied and miserable in high school. He asked me to tell my brother that his help had made all the difference, and that life had turned out pretty great. I must have looked surprised. My brother is profoundly kind, but very shy, and I just couldn’t picture him picking a fight with a big group of bullies. The man said, I don’t think he ever said something to the bullies, he might have or maybe not. But your brother noticed me. He came up to me a few times and asked how I was doing. He saw that things were hard and he cared, and that made all the difference.

We all want to know that someone notices us. We want to know that we are not alone. This is particularly true when we are going through difficult times. When we are hurting, we need that person who notices that something is wrong, who asks how we are doing. And when we are hurting we particularly want to know that God sees, that God notices and cares.

I try to read from a Children’s Bible regularly with our daughter, which is difficult as her attention span is about 60 seconds. But she does love the story from our Old Testament reading today, Moses and the burning bush. A side note that if you are ever looking for a baptism or birthday gift for a young child, the Children’s Storybook Bible by Desmond Tutu is really excellent. Anyway, she loves this story because it’s so shocking and dramatic – the illustration is wonderful: a spectacular fiery bush in the middle of the desert and a terrified Moses diving for cover.

But what came to mind this week as I read this extraordinary story isn’t the drama, the miraculous appearance of God in the desert. What I was drawn to was a smaller detail: after God has called to Moses from the bush, and after Moses has drawn near to hear God speak, God explains why all this is happening: God says, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry... Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them.”

The whole story of the Exodus, the story of the Lord’s miraculous deliverance of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the promised land, begins here. God’s call to Moses to lead his people out of bondage, the ten plagues of Egypt culminating the Passover, the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, Israel’s wandering in the desert and their eventual arrival in the promised land. All of this begins because the people of Israel were hurting and God noticed. 

Exodus Chapter 2, just before today’s reading says that the Israelites groaned under their slavery …and their cry for help rose up to God…God looked upon the Israelites, and God noticed them.”

God noticed them.

I find this immensely comforting: that the God of the Universe hears us when we cry. God notices when we are in pain. Even if we feel alone, even if we feel as if no one notices our tears, God does.

God heard the cry of his people in slavery in Egypt. God hears our cries too. One of the Psalms says that when we are suffering, it is so significant to God that it is as if God collects every one of our tears in a bottle or writes down the details of our pain in a book.

We are not crying out into a void. We are seen. Even when we feel most alone, when we feel as if our pain is wasted or meaningless – even in those moments, God notices.

God notices and cares.

As we all have learned in life, the fact that God notices does not mean that the situation is instantly resolved with a snap of the fingers. I’m sure that the Israelites laboring in the hot Egyptian sun wished for a quicker response to their cries. And I’m sure that each one of us has prayed for God to act more quickly.

The Psalms are full of what the scriptures call “lament” – prayers describing the pain and suffering of the writer, begging to God to act quickly.

Psalm 13, for example begins with a complaint: “How long, O LORD? will you forget me for ever? how long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I have perplexity in my mind, and grief in my heart, day after day?”

It goes on like this for several verses – God, you are not hearing me, you are not responding, God, have you even noticed?

And then, abruptly, the tone shifts: “But I put my trust in your mercy; my heart is joyful because of your saving help. I will sing to the LORD, for he has dealt with me richly; I will praise the Name of the Lord Most High.”

This happens again and again in the Psalms: suffering, grief, complaint that God doesn’t notice or care. And then an abrupt switch to praise for God’s faithfulness.

Some scholars believe that these Psalms were meant to be prayed in two parts: you would pray the words of lament every day for as long as you needed to, pouring out your anger and sadness and asking God to notice and respond. Then, when God acted, when the situation was resolved, you would return to the Psalm and pray the end, the part that is full of gratitude and praise.

This two-part structure is built into dozens of the Psalms – it’s built into the poetry, this expectation that it might take a while, but God notices us and is alive and at work in the world.

I wonder if this story also contains an invitation to us, an invitation to be people who also notice. We are called to imitate the one who hears the cries that everyone else ignores. We are called to imitate the one who notices the pain of others and responds.

Like my brother in those awkward high school years, we don’t always need to fix everything, to resolve the situation. Sometimes just noticing and saying a kind word is enough.

I am grateful for the kindness of this community, grateful for the way you notice our daughter and include her, grateful for the way that you have welcomed and cared for us. So many of you have shared the things you love about this part of the world. You have helped us to notice more deeply the beauty of this place that God has created. The gifts that you offer us here sustain us for the year. 

And I see how you notice and care for one another. This makes Emmanuel truly special. Thank you.

And so as we go out into the world, may we notice other people; may we treat their pain gently and with respect. May we be witnesses of one another’s lives so that the world feels a little less lonely. May we notice one another as God notices us. Amen.