Psalm 8 (NIV)
1 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the
earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 From the lips of children and infants you have ordained
praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the
avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what
is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you
care for him?
5 You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and
crowned him with glory and honour.
6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put
everything under his feet: 7 all flocks and herds, and the
beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the air, and the fish
of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.
9 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the
earth!
The following was reported by the Ananova news agency on March 21, 2005:
“The singer, Mariah Carey, was due to stay at the
Baglioni hotel in Kensington.
However, the hotel had foolishly forgotten to roll out
the red carpet flanked by the correct large white candles—at
2.15 in the morning.
This oversight was so appalling to poor Mariah that she had
to suffer the indignity of driving around the block in a
cavalcade of limos until everything was in order.
Her aides had come at 2am to check everything was set for
her arrival, when they were met with ordinary pavement
and lighting. Clearly this wouldn't do, so hotel staff
were summoned
to rectify the situation—as Ms Carey will not step
on a dirty pavement.
Once the plush red rug was rolled out and the big fat candles
were lit, Mariah finally turned up to take residence in one
of the 15 rooms she'd booked.
"
It's not unheard of for us to rush a red carpet out for a
guest," the hotel's operations manager said. "We're
used to dealing with high-profile guests and everyone has
their own requirements."
Just a little bit of ego from one of Pop’s divas!
Egos can be funny things. Sometimes people are complimented
enough and stroked enough and successful enough to develop
a rather inflated opinion of themselves.
They listen to those around them and are told how important and special
and valuable they are—and they believe it—to
the extreme.
But it isn’t always fame and fortune that can inflate
people. Sometimes ordinary, everyday people become proud
of their looks or talents at work. Sometimes they uncover
an ability that’s special. They begin to develop
it with success. Sometimes people have inflated egos over
the
accomplishments of their children.
People don’t have to have the money or fame of Mariah
Carey to develop something of the attitude—the pride
that knows no bounds.
Egos can be funny.
They can also be fragile.
As well as people who can be arrogant and haughty, there
are other people who feel quite useless and worthless.
They don’t worry about walking on red carpets. They become
someone else’s doormat. They may have listened to
others all their lives but the messages they received were
negative
and harsh and ungracious. They appear to be very humble
but heir humility can be an expression of poor self-esteem
and
a lack of self-confidence.
There are extremes.
And then there are most people. We, who can have our egos
and moods and attitudes swing back and forth between
feeling wonderful about ourselves to feeling awful—and
everything in between. It all depends on who spoke to us
last or how
successful our last task was or whether what we wanted
or desired came to fruition.
Egos can be funny.
They can also be fragile.
Our Scripture lesson brings an interesting balance as we seek to understand
how we are to view ourselves.
The Psalmist begins with praise to God.
God is the majestic, all powerful Creator.
What God puts God’s hand to is always incredible.
God is so far above everything and everyone it’s
absolutely amazing that God should acknowledge or have anything
to do with humanity. This isn’t a separation of arrogance.
This is a division based upon majesty, awesomeness and power
beyond our imagination. How could someone so utterly astonishing
have any need or desire to relate to creatures so far below
Him. It’s the same as human beings who don’t
have much interest in ants. We’re too far above them.
We don’t pay much attention to them.
The Psalmist put it this way:
Psalm 8: “3 When I consider your heavens, the work
of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have
set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
the
son of man that you care for him?”
What are human beings that God should even bother?
Why should God care in the least about such creatures?
The Psalmist truly puts us in our place.
I wonder how Mariah Carey would respond?
The point is we don’t have the right of a connection
with God, who is so far above and beyond us in intellect,
creativity and ability. You name it and we are far, far outdistanced
by God. There’s not even a glimmer of a contest.
But, thankfully, the Psalmist doesn’t leave it there.
To leave it there would cause the entire world to have
a permanent inferiority complex of massive proportion.
Once the Psalmist outlines our place he goes on to recognize
that, amazingly, God doesn’t care about our inferiority.
Indeed, God ignores it. God doesn’t share the Psalmist’s
view. God acts in ways to challenge it. God seeks to reach
out and value us—give us worth—give us an identity
that is glorious and honourable.
As human beings—just by being born and taking breath,
we have enormous value. We are provided with the wonders
of this world for our use and pleasure. We are given dominion
over the rest of all creation. This world is God’s
gift to us and we are given responsibility to look after
it for God, in God’s name.
The Psalmist wonders aloud as to why God would bother to
have anything to do with us and then affirms that God desires
to lift us up and gift us with the world.
We are thus given the secret of true humility and healthy
pride.
Humility is something we should all have.
We are not the be all and end all of our world or our community
or our friendship network or our family. We have no right
to place ourselves above others for we are all created
by God. God’s hand has designed us. God has designed us
in terms of who we are—our way of thinking—our
strengths and our weaknesses. We aren’t the ones who
decided who would have blue eyes and who would be left handed.
We aren’t the ones who decided who would be a math
whiz and who would effortlessly play the piano. We aren’t
the ones who placed us in this country at this time in
history.
All this is beyond our control.
Of course, when we leave God out of the equation, we gain,
at least, a sense of control and power. That’s
one of the great problems of ego without God. Ultimately
we are
doomed to find we cannot live up to the tasks we desire
so much to control.
Patrick O'Boyle recalls the late-1940s Hyde Park "Speakers'
Corner" appearances of Frank Sheed, the Catholic author
and publisher:
"
Sheed could be devastating with hecklers”, O’Boyle
said.
“ Once, after he had described the extraordinary order and
design to be seen in the universe, a persistent challenger
retorted by pointing to all the world's ills, and ended
shouting, 'I could make a better universe than your God!'
'I won't ask you to make a universe,' Sheed replied. 'But
would you make a rabbit—just to establish confidence?'"
The truth is: we can’t make a rabbit from scratch.
That truth should keep us level headed about our abilities,
talents and power.
We can’t make a rabbit.
We are not the Creator. We are part of the Creation.
We can’t make a rabbit.
When we lose sight of that we lose sight of God and our
place in God’s Kingdom.
We can’t make a rabbit.
But we aren’t supposed to and when we can accept that
we can concentrate on what we have been created for—and
that is relating to our Creator and looking after this
world God has put in our care.
Those are pretty important tasks when one thinks of it.
Imagine: part of the reason for our existence is to know
God—to reach back to God who reaches out to us—to
love and develop a relationship with the Supreme Lord God
Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. If that isn’t
a boost for one’s ego and self-confidence I don’t
know what is! You and I are important enough that God wants
to show His love for us and have us respond in kind.
And imagine: part of the reason for our existence is to
look after the gifts God has given to us—the gift of
the world and the gift of who we are. We have a responsibility
to God to treat our world and ourselves with the same love
and respect God offers. That’s a pretty important task—one
that we often don’t recognize.
Imagine if we were to focus on the tasks of loving God and
caring for God’s gifts to us.
We’d be pretty important.
It’s enough to make one feel proud.
That’s a healthy pride because it comes, not from
ourselves, but from the God who loves us. It’s not
us puffing ourselves up. It’s us acknowledging God’s
value of us—God’s trust in us.
True humility and healthy pride.
That’s quite a combination.
At first glance, the two don’t seem to really fit.
But when we find our humility in recognizing God’s
greatness and when we find our pride in understanding God’s
love for us and the tasks God trusts us with, we go a long
way to knowing ourselves and what life can be like in all
its fullness.
An ancient rabbi understood:
“…(he) taught that we should all carry two rocks
in our pockets to be drawn on depending on the situation.
On one rock should be written, ‘I am dust and ashes’ and
on the other, ‘For me was the world created’.
Such is the character of human existence.”
(Preaching Through The Christian Year A, page 62)
Such is the character of human existence.
(1625)
© The Rev. Dennis Cook, St. Timothy’s Presbyterian
Church, Ajax, ON, Canada
