Psalm 8 Richard C. Hulbert August 21, 2011
When you saw my sermon title, you may have thought that Rick is entering dangerous territory by attempting to define what a man is in relation to a woman. I need you to know that this southern accent should not mislead you to think that I have such an intelligence deficiency that I would attempt such a complicated undertaking. I am happy to leave the daunting challenge of discussing man in relation to woman to Professor Amy Jill Levine in her lectures on Sex and the Bible in September which I hope you are planning to attend. No, I will attempt the “significantly lesser task” of talking about man - short for human beings, in relation to this planet and to God. That is what I want to explore with you today. And that is the question raised by the Psalmist in Psalm 8.
Art has been defined as “an expression of human creative skill and imagination to be appreciated primarily for its beauty and emotional power”. So it is with Psalm 8, a hymn of praise used in ancient Jewish worship…probably some 2500-30000 years ago. Unlike the teaching material that is found elsewhere in the bible, or the other narratives, Psalm 8 it is an expression of one who is overwhelmed by wonders of the universe in which he lives and asks the profound question who am I, what is my significance, why am I here in the midst of all of this? What does my life mean in the midst of all this greatness?
In a sense, the significance of this Psalm is that it gives deep and profound expression to one of those questions that lies in the bowels of our existence, and occasionally rises to the surface - in times of despair, or just when we allow ourselves to reflect on the meaning and value of our lives. For at least 3000 years we know this question has been asked, and I suspect it has been asked since the birth of man’s consciousness. It is a reflection of our innermost selves. Some say it is the ultimate question of human existence. Who am I? What is man? Why am I here? And where am I going? Plainly put, it is a question about why am I here? And what is to become of me when I am not here? Like all art, Psalm 8 asks this question in a manner that impresses us with its beauty, and stirs us with its emotional power.
When I write a sermon or teach a class, I do it primarily because I want to learn about something specifically. So it is with this sermon, I wanted to learn about the answer to that that question that I find in my life. So here are some things I have learned and that I want to share with you.
All of us in this place qualify as “human beings”! What is a human being? The word “human” comes from two Latin words, “homo”meaning “man” and “humus” meaning “earth”. Taken together this means “earthly beings” as opposed to “gods” who presumably reside elsewhere.
So first of all, we are creatures, among many, who inhabit the earth. We are in many ways like other creatures….we have an instinct for survival, we procreate, and we live in communities.
But, we are unlike other creatures in two very specific ways. First, we have through the process of evolution acquired advanced brains and reasoning power so that we are driven less by instinct than by choice. Second, and most importantly, we have developed a sense of self-consciousness that separates us from other earthly creatures and with that comes a sense of our own mortality.
Humans, alone among the creatures that inhabit this earth, are aware that life has a beginning and an ending. We know that we are going to die. And that knowledge, perhaps more than anything else, determines much of how we order our lives, the choices we make, and the behaviors we exhibit.
And that self conscious awareness of our own mortality is the driving force behind the evolution of what we call “religion”. “Religion” of some sort has been a driving force of human beings from the time that we developed self-consciousness and awareness of our own mortality. If my dog were suddenly become self-consciousness and discover his own mortality, he would develop some type of religion.
Why is “religion” so much a part of self-conscious beings who are aware of their own mortality? Religion is defined by a number of theologians as a man-made set of rituals and values aimed at coping with the anxiety generated by the knowledge that life on this earth is temporary and that we will die. Often, what we see in religious practice is an attempt to pave the way for what is going to happen to us when life on this earth comes to an end. It seeks to fill the fear of “nothingness” after death with hope for an eternal life. Taken to its extreme, religion seeks to convince its adherents that life on this earth is nothing more than an opportunity to prepare for and insure eternal life after death. Life on this earth thus becomes a period of “testing” to determine if we are worthy for eternal life. For some, life is not only a period of testing, but subject to a grand “pop test” called the rapture, where God, in the persona of Jesus, suddenly, without warning, returns to earth and ushers in his kingdom by smiting the unfaithful, and taking the faithful to heaven thus ending life as we know it. So for these Christians, Human beings are earthly creatures seeking a spiritual experience.
Religious practice is often a means of “transferring us from this earthly existence to some kind of spiritual realm, even while we are living, that is a foretaste of what eternal life will be. Achieving that spiritual consciousness becomes the aim of human life, and man is defined as a earthly creature, imbued with a sense of his own mortality, anxious about what happens to him after death, and ordering his life and religious practice to ensure eternal life and if he tries hard enough, actually glimpsing eternal life while he is yet on this earth.
For these Christians for whom this view of the purpose of life on this earth is at work, Jesus is viewed as God’s way for ensuring that we have a way to eternal life. A source of transport if you will. If we believe Jesus is the way to eternal life, then we will have eternal life. If we do not, then we not experience eternal life. It is each person’s responsibility to provide for his own transportation to heaven but also to be urgent in letting everyone else know that he or she needs to provide for his or her transport to heaven through belief in Jesus.
Now I ask myself, where is the Gospel, the good news, in all of this?. Is life is a continuing final exam that some pass, and others fail? Those who adhere to this interpretation of our faith do point to its biblical roots, however, one can read the Bible with any set of lenses to find a basis for one’s belief, no matter how far fetched that belief is.
I do not agree with this view of the purpose of life on this earth. I do not believe it is consistent with the overall tone and message of the Bible - old or new Testaments. This view of the purpose of life on this earth is not consistent with my understanding of God. And that is not what I believe the life of Jesus - our model for human life- is intended to represent. The rejection of that view of religion, is basically, what lies at the heart of John Shelby’s Spong’s book Jesus for the Non-Religious. Which many of us have read. If that is what “religion” is, then we are challenged, by our own faith, to reject religion.
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There is yet another answer to the question, “who am I”, what is man‘s purpose on this earth? I want to share that with you and invite you to experience life anew in the context of that answer.
First of all, I believe that man is already a spiritual creature. Man. You and I… does not need to spend his life here on earth attempting to discover or to somehow guarantee for himself or others eternal existence in the spiritual realm of God after this life.
This is what the ancient Jews thought too when they constructed the story of man’s origins. Recall in Genesis 2
The Creation of Man and Woman
4 These are the generations
of the heavens and the earth when they were created,
in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground,
6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground—
7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
That “breath” that the ancient Jews referred to when trying to explain the origins of man in the best way they knew how at the time, continues as a mystery even to this highly scientific day. And I believe that is what Jesus, a product of the Jewish faith, believed also. We can explain in scientific terms how life is conceived and we can explain in scientific terms what happens when a person dies. But we cannot explain the life that inhabits these bodies at the time we enter this life, and we cannot explain the life that is absent from these bodies at our death. It has been given many names - “soul” is a common one - but it remains a mystery.
I personally believe the ancient Jews had it right….it is that spark of divinity that each of has within us that lived before us, lives within us now, and re-unites with its source at death. The breath of God is our spiritual origins and therefore we are spiritual beings through and through. We worship, and praise God as our source of life. But what we do not do, nor do we need to, is to prove ourselves to God as worthy of eternal life. The good news is that since we are of God, nothing, as Paul said, can separate us from the love of God. That is because God inhabits us as the life within these bodies. We are thus spiritual creatures who need only embrace and rejoice in this knowledge. As we do that, we discover the unity of all of life….before we were born, while we are here, and after we die.
So if we are already spiritual creatures, what is the purpose of life on this earth? Who are we that God is mindful of us, that God cares for us? Why? This is the question the psalmist is asking. If God loves us already, if we are at one with God in spirit now and forever, what in this world, on this planet is our purpose?
I decided to develop this presentation upon my recent rediscovery of the writings the French Jesuit
Priest Tielhard de Chardin (Tay-YAHR duh shar-DAN) . He was born in 1881 and died in 1955. He was trained as a paleontologist and co-discovered the celebrated “Peking Man” fossils. These human fossils are thought to be between 500,000 and 700,000 year. This, by the way, “casts a bit of doubt” on the popular fundamentalist view that the world was created 6000 years ago!
Chardin’s best known work is the book The Phenomenon of Man wherein he suggests and develops the theme that
“man is not a human being having or searching for a spiritual experience; rather, we are spiritual beings having a human experience “
At the time this book and its message rocked the theological world and its impact continues today finding its way into the thinking of those who find that contemporary religion insufficient to answer the questions, asked by the Psalmist some 3000 years ago, about what am I, who am I, and what is the purpose of life on this earth. In rediscovering Chardin, I have found the words to describe my uneasiness with contemporary religion and a simple concept that for me brings unity between my biblical faith, and my human experience. In rediscovering Chardin, the whole of the Bible, and especially the New Testament fits like a glove with my own experience. With my spirituality a settled issue, and with it knowledge that I come from the Spirit and will return to the Spirit, I am free to discover what it means to be a human being
Could Chardin’s simple yet profound perspective reveal the reason a man, “human being”, named Jesus appeared among us, designated by those who knew him the “Son of God”, ? Could it be that the good news he proclaimed have something to do with reassuring us about our spiritual ancestry and leading us by word and example to take full advantage of the gift of a human experience? Could this be the meaning of Jesus’ reference to himself as the way and the truth?
Please let me close with the following recent experience: Several weeks ago I spend a week at a conference in Austin Texas where the temperature did not get below 100 degrees until about midnight each night. The days were unbelievably hot and human to the extent the three block walk from my hotel to the conference center, in the so called “cool” of the mornings was almost unbearable.
Early in the conference which was held in a very well air conditioned Hilton Hotel, during a break, I walked to a large floor to ceiling window, overlooking Austin to get a sense of the city. After a few minutes my eyes were drawn to the exterior concrete window ledge which had installed on it the wire contraptions you often see on window ledges to discourage pigeons from roosting. You may not have noticed but these are commonly used on buildings …I most recently noticed them on the Algeria Shrine building in downtown Helena. They typically have densely constructed wires almost like a wire brush, to keep the pigeons away. We actually use them in this church building.
As I looked at this contraption, I noticed, embedded somehow within the wires, a pigeon roosting, pressed up against the building, among the wires intended to keep him or her out. The pigeon was absolutely motionless except for some occasional eye movement, even when I tapped on the glass. I soon noticed the remains of another pigeon who had not survived the intense heat on the concrete window ledge. The ledge was on the side of the building that received the full force of the hot Texas sun and surely exceeded 110 degrees. (By the way when I got home, I researched the behavior of pigeons and learned that they do indeed seek high ledges to make their next and lay their eggs - often two. And that the male and female take turns sitting on the nest, one during the day light hours and the other in the evenings. The pigeon I observed was the unfortunate one required to sit on the eggs during the heat of the day. I will leave it to you to determine which one that was - the mother or the father!)
At any rate I returned to the same spot daily to find apparently the same pigeon sitting motionless on the eggs in the intense heat - day after day.
As I developed this presentation my mind turned to that pigeon and it occurred to me that this pigeon was having a pigeon experience. The pigeon was doing what pigeons do. The pigeon was not apparently worrying about what happens to him or her when he dies, like the pigeon who lay dead near him. If the pigeon had such worries, the pigeon surely would have found a cooler spot to roost. The pigeon was not fashioning a religion, as near as I can tell, to relieve his anxiety about these things. No he was going about the business of mating, raising children, providing for the family, roosting on ledges. That is what pigeons do.
Now I realize that pigeons are programmed for life on this earth and are driving by instinct. But humans have reasoning power and make choices, and most of all a sense of their own mortality. Though difficult, we can choose to be human and to develop those instincts within us for love, and big thinking, and creativity and self giving until we draw our last breath. Or we can rely on those instincts within us to worry about what is to become of us.
This is not easy and that is why, in my belief, (and here is my learning for the day) Jesus is so important to our lives….and the record of his experience on earth is so important to our lives….in this person we have our role model for life on this earth…that for me is what it means to believe in Jesus.
What is Man: A spiritual being who is having a human experience.
