Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Good morning. Please join me in a prayer of illumination.
Blessed Lord, as we gather this day to offer thanks and praise for your many gifts, please tell us what we need to hear and show us what we ought to do to obey Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Today's scripture is from Psalm 8, and it's on page 427 of the Pew Bible.
O Lord, our sovereign, how majestic is your name. In all the earth you have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouths of babes and infants, you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established what are human beings, that you are mindful of them mortals, that you care for them.
Yet you have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands. You have put all things under their feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and whatever passes along the paths of the sea.
O Lord, our sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth.
And now, Colossians, chapter 1, verses 15 to 17, page 596 of the Pew Bible.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
For in him, all things in heaven and on earth were created things visible and invisible.
Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers, all things have been created through him, and for him, he himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: So last Sunday, I shared with you all about a trip I took back in my college days, spending my junior year abroad in Berlin, Germany. And one of the friends I had made during that year was a fellow from Norway named Hans Christian. He had a friend come and visit him from Norway in Berlin, and the pair were planning to take a skiing trip to to the Alps. They invited me to come along. I said yes, hopped in a car with them. We drove eight hours south from Berlin to the Austrian Alps to a resort that was called Maria Alm in Austria.
I had a wonderful time with this pair at Maria Alm, which you can see here. But there were two challenges I faced when I skied with this particular pair. One was these two skied so fast that I often felt when I was trying to keep up with them, that I was putting my life in mortal danger, which, in retrospect, I was.
I almost followed this pair, as I shared with you last Sunday, over a cliff.
But the second challenge of skiing with this particular pair is every morning at Maria Alm, when we'd get up, they had this practice they called cooling down, which meant drinking not one, but several beers before we set out.
Now, not only at least my opinion would that impair one's ability to ski safely, but it also meant that we got a really late start each morning.
So later in our trip, one afternoon and evening, it snowed hard, and I knew there would be a fresh layer of powder the next morning. And I wanted not to be one of the last people to enjoy it, but the first. So before my Norwegian friends even woke up, I got up, went out to get bread, and then went out to enjoy this fresh powder. I was one of the first people on the mountain. That particular morning. I took a gondola and then a chairlift all the way to the summit.
And then, since a few people had already beaten me, I wanted to get fresh powder. So I traversed over to the left, over to that side, and after a bit, I could look out, and all the snow in front of me had never been skied on. And I could look out on the Austrian Alps for the first time and last I'd ever gotten to visit there, and just behold that extraordinary sight. And if you're wondering why I'm showing you winter images today, it's because it's so hot out there.
So there I was looking out, and there's something about fresh fall and snow that makes everything before you look like it was, well, the way God originally created it. I didn't see any buildings or structures or houses. I just saw the trees and mountains. It was all as if it was God made. And I looked out to the blue sky and could see that expanse as well.
And atop Legg Mountain, at Maria Alm, I had that experience you have surely had. Maybe when you've stood atop Echo Mountain, or maybe atop Mammoth Mountain, or yet another summit, or maybe you were gazing up at a mountain range like the San Gabriel's. This is a photo taken from just outside our former house in Altadena, when those mountains had just been covered with a fresh layer of snow the night before.
And maybe your eyes went yet further up to gaze at the vast expanse of the blue sky above. Or maybe it was night and you looked up to contemplate this moon and stars. You were looking at what the ancient Greeks, like Aristotle, called the celestial spheres, the moon, planets and stars that seem to occupy different moving spheres above us. Producing a kind of music if we had ears to hear it.
And looking up at that, you said to yourself, or maybe you said out loud, o Lord, our sovereign, the one who has made and rules over all this. How majestic is your name, how majestic are your works in all the earth.
And then you thought for a moment perhaps, of how small and insignificant you were in comparison to that vast expanse both below you and above you. And you prayed, oh, God, when I look at your heavens or down at the work of your fingers here on earth, what are human beings? What are mortals? That you're even mindful of us, much less that you care about us.
But then on that mountaintop, or looking up on that mountain, maybe you experienced the kind of elevation that comes right after that sense of being humbled, even though you were small and insignificant, and recognized that you also saw that somehow, some way, you were connected to all that in the kind of tapestry God had created you, linking you to all that you beheld in relationships of care and concern and connection.
And you said, God, how amazing that you should give to me and other people this precious gift, the earth and the fullness thereof, and make me a steward of its riches, linked to it as a caregiver and companion. You provided for all my needs, all our needs, with the goodness of the earth and skies, water to drink, food to eat, air to breathe, beasts of the field and birds of the air to share the glorious ecosystem with us. We're not deserving of such wonders, and yet you've given them to us.
Thank you. You said, thank you.
And maybe you ended your prayer as it began. O God, our sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth.
That kind of pattern of thought is familiar to you. Maybe you recognized it as. Cheryl, read Psalm 8 today.
Psalm 8 is one of that category of the 150 Psalms in our scriptures that are often called creation psalms. Two weeks ago, with the Reverend Kevin Ha, we looked at Psalms of Lament. Looking at one of those psalms last Sunday, we looked at a psalm of wisdom celebrating God's law. Today we're looking at a psalm of creation, one of the songs in our scriptures that extol the earth and heavens and the God who made them and rules over them.
In the very first verse of Psalm 8, we hear a reference to God's name. And it is as if the psalm writer was looking out, perhaps up to a mountain or down from a mountain, and witnessing how everything out there bears the name of the Creator.
You know, this sanctuary that we're sitting in right now bears Somebody's name.
It was built, of course, to the glory of God and to allow us a chance to worship and gather. But it's got somebody's name on it. Out on the patio, you'll notice a plaque that is put on this site and that will be there for as long as this place stands. And it reads, culver Heaton, F A I, A, which means Fellowship of Architects in, or rather fellow of the American Institute of Architects. And then it names architect Pasadena Culver Heaton. This building bears the name of its architect.
And if you're wondering about that color on the pew cushions, you know what that's called?
Heaton Blue.
Heaton Blue. It was once all over our ceiling and walls, and thank heaven it isn't anymore. But we kept it on the cushions so that we would remember in some ways, not only the sanctuary's history, but not only Culver Heaton, but others who helped build this. Even the cushions bear the name of the architect. Well, as Psalm 8 begins, it's as if the singer sees everything before their eyes as bearing the name of the architect, marked by God's hand, Yahweh, the Lord, the divine sovereign ruler of heaven and earth. The psalmist then contemplates how small they and other humans are in the face of that vast expanse before them of earth and sky. And yet, the psalmist notes, you have crowned humans with glory, giving them a high and honorable role and position, that of being caretakers of creation, ruling over it with the very compassion and care with which God rules over us.
The psalmist here, of course, is reflecting on the stories of creation from Genesis 1, and how God not only created the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, the fish in the seas, but then God created humankind and then told them they would have dominion over creation.
Well, if you're like me, when you hear that word dominion, it's a tough word in part because it often makes us think of domination or exploitation.
But in Scripture, words like radah in Genesis or mashal in Psalm 8, words that are often translated into English as dominion, they imply not simply rule over, but responsibility for those with whom one has been connected, as we are connected when we're given that honor of Radah or Mashal, those words translated as dominion, were meant to evoke notions of caring, of stewardship, of compassion, of concern towards the governed. It's a call to mirror the or mashal, the dominion that God exercises over humans. And we read time and again in Scripture that God's rule means lifting up the weak and Lowly welcoming in the stranger, providing for the nourishment and thriving of all creatures, ensuring their safety. There's a deep compassion God has in scripture towards God's creation. And such compassion humans are meant to mirror in God's name twice toward the natural world.
Humans have power that other creatures don't possess, after all, creatures like sheep and oxen. And the word dominion in some ways is simply an acknowledgement of fact.
We do have power that other creatures do not possess.
We can create structures, we can develop sophisticated tools, we can work together in remarkable ways. And we can impact the natural world and impact one another in ways that are marvelous and ways that are destructive.
One way to view the destruction of habitats on which wild animals depend, or pollution in rivers and oceans on which fish depend, or polluting, or warming of the air and skies that so harms creatures and humans alike is that it is a thing failure to answer the power, the call that we are given in Radah and Mashal, A failure to recognize the power we do possess and use it for the thriving of our neighbors, human and animal, and all that share this planet with us. Too often in history, we humans have taken dominion and made it domination or exploitation.
There was a writer of the Harlem Renaissance, Claude Mackay, who was deeply concerned with how some people exercised dominion as domination.
He was concerned with the plight of workers treated like tools and machines for the profit of others. But he glimpsed in the natural world another economy, one where there was a kind of harmony humans can know with the natural world and other creatures and plants that share this world with them. He heard a kind of music those connections can make.
Back in the early 1920s, McKay penned this poem. And some critics wonder if this resident of Harlem might have been recalling his childhood in rural Jamaica as he wrote these words.
There is joy in the woods just now the leaves are whispers of song and the birds make mirth on the bough and music the whole day long.
And God to dwell in the town in these spring like summer days on my brow an unfading frown and hate in my heart always a machine out of gear I tired yet forced to go on For I'm hired, just forced to go on through fear for every day I must eat and find ugly clothes to wear and bad shoes to hurt my feet. But a slave should never grow tired Whom the master has kindly hired.
But oh, for the woods the flowers of natural sweet perfume, the heartening summer showers and the smiling shrubs in bloom Dust free dew tinted at morn, the fragrance fresh and life giving air the Billowing waves of corn and the birds notes rich and clear.
For a man machine toil. Tired may crave beauty too, though he's tired.
Friends, you don't need to stand atop a mountain to see it. You can glimpse it even from the streets of Harlem. You can see the wonder and dignity of each person created in God's image and the beauty in a bird or in a tree. And how humans and nature are given the gift of connection and relationship. But you can see too, from the streets of Harlem and from history of enslavement, how human made structures and systems can exploit people and represent colossal failures when it comes to that call to love God and neighbor and care responsibly for all God has made.
Well, in the Hebrew scriptures, there's a story that became indelibly linked with a people's identity. And that story was how an ancient people, held in bondage and forced labor under the domination of Egypt's Pharaoh, cried out to a living God. And God answered their cry. God delivered this people. God invited them across a Red Sea to freedom and a new land, into an identity as God's beloved. It was the story of those humbled then, elevated by God's wondrous work and word. They were given a new relationship with their Creator, with one another, and with the good earth on which they stood.
And then in the New Testament, we read of how in the fullness of time, the same God who freed the captives in Egypt came to us in a new way. The book of Philippians describes Christ like this. He did not consider equality with God something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking on the form of a slave, being born in human likeness and humbled himself, became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Therefore, God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name.
His name, the name of Jesus Christ, is now on everything, every corner of the earth. Or as the Book of Colossians puts it, when writing about Christ, about God's son, Christ is not only the image of the invisible God, but in Christ all things in heaven and on earth hold together.
And so now, as we gaze from atop a mountain, we can see not only the work of the one Scripture calls our Divine parent and Creator. We can sense not only God's presence in the Holy Spirit. We can see Christ in whom all things hold together. Christ, the name above every name and the Name now marking things.
We can see the very Savior who humbled himself and rose again that we might die to sin and rise again to fullness of life. And that life, as it's described in Scripture, is a life of rich, loving connection with our God, with one another, linked with others as the body of Christ, and connection with the beauty and wonder of what God has made. That's life in the fullest, and we're given it by Christ.
So hear the invitation of Psalm 8, friends.
Look up at the sky day or night.
Look out at the San Gabriel mountains. Look at a tree standing before you, or at a bird up in that tree. Or just look at that neighbor sitting right next to you, or who will be out enjoying pizza with you after the service.
And recall, like the psalmist, you and I and that neighbor are so small in the scope of the galaxies.
Recall that.
And yet, by God's grace, we are connected to one another, to that mountain, that tree, that bird, that neighbor. Not just as Christ creatures sharing this ecosystem, but we're connected also by the love of God poured out for us in Christ.
We're connected by a Savior who holds it all together.
When you see that, savor the awesome gift all of that represents. And it just may lead you to pray or single.
O God, our sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Amen.
