I think very shortly I'm going to feel the need to write a book, or maybe a blog, and it will be entitled “The Anthropology of a Coffee Shop.” The reason I'm doing so is, with almost infuriating regularity, I get inspiration from what I observe in coffee.
This week would make a chapter. I was in Thorncliffe, where I go for my coffee, and this time I was sitting by the door. I don't normally sit there but it was busy and that was the last seat. Sitting there, I observed humanity at its highest and lowest. Its highest, when I saw people opening the door for those exiting with their carafes and cups of hot coffee and various and sundry edibles. And then a gesture of thanks was given to those who held the door. I thought how wonderful and gracious human beings can be. I thought of Psalm 8, today’s scripture: “We are crowned with glory and honour.” Wow, we're great.
Then a few minutes later I saw somebody leaving with coffee in both hands and a person let the door go flying back at them, the coffee spilled, and the person who had the coffee made a comment that I can't repeat from the pulpit, and the person gave them a gesture that I can't repeat from the pulpit. Similar scenarios repeated themselves a couple of times during the time I was there. I saw the lowest of humanity and I saw the highest of humanity. I thought we're made with glory and honour, and then, with the Psalmists, what is humankind that you are even thinking about us? We're so wretched.
I realized after I read the whole of Psalm 8 that maybe I have a problem myself. You see, in many ways I was judging people; their value, their abilities, their credibility. Don't we all do that from time to time? Don't we ascribe great honour and majesty to those who show glory and honour, and then of course we de-value those perhaps who don't?
We make judgements about people on the basis of the behaviour we. We all do it. Psalm 8 is not a moral legalistic judgement but a profound statement about humanity that is much richer, much deeper and much more complex. For the psalmist to use a very famous Latin phrase, sees humanity "simul et humilis exultatis." We are both humble and we're exalted at the same time.
In many ways the psalmist paints a picture that is so rich and vibrant that you can see that we are both exalted and humble at the same time. Now the psalmist has this image in mind and I want you to capture it this morning. It is an image of God in the heavens and then humanity made less than God – but then Creation and the created order and creatures being below humanity.
Human beings in this cosmology are in the middle. We're in the centre. We have God above and we have ourselves below. We are, as Blaise Pascal the philosopher put it, a Chimera, a mythological creature that is a hybrid, maybe between a god and a human or between a human and an animal, a creature that demonstrates two sides or two components to it.
Blaise Pascal summed us up beautifully as both being worthy of honour, but also of being humbled when he wrote the following: "What a Chimera then is man! What a novelty, what a monster. What a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things. Feeble earthworm, depository of truth, sink of uncertainty and error; the glory and the shame of the universe.”
See? Psalm 8, both the glory and the shame, the exalted and the humble. Humanity as a whole is both. The reason why the psalmist is doing this is to put us in our right place within the created order, to give us a sense of who we really are. First of all, there's no doubt about it, we're exalted. There is the highest self. There is the self that is only just below the angels.
The psalmist writes, "We have been crowned with honour and with glory." One of the theologians and preachers who impressed me the most over the years is the great John Stott, who was at All Souls Church in London for many, many years and was a prolific writer. He wrote this beautiful piece on Psalm 8, a commentary about the human condition:
Christian teaching on the dignity and worth of human beings is of the utmost importance today, not only for our own self-image and self-respect but also for the welfare of society. When human beings are de-valued, everything in society tends to turn sour. There's no freedom, no dignity, no carefree joy. Human life seems not worth living because it is scarcely human any longer. But when human beings are valued as persons, because of their intrinsic worth, everything changes. Why? Because people matter. Because every man, woman and child has worth and significance as a human being made in God's image and likeness.
Stott is right. The implications of humanity being exalted is that we are made, to use another Latin phrase, in the "imago dei." We are made in the image of God. And because we're made in the image of God, our value is intrinsic. We're made in the image of the Creator. Lower than the angels, certainly not God, but nevertheless of great worth and value.
You can see this weaving its way through the Psalms. It says to us that whether you're a CEO or begging on Jarvis Street, whether you are somebody who is of great intellectual calibre or those who are challenged in your ability to learn, whether you are strong and athletic and brilliant in a physical sense, or you're weak and you're disabled, it doesn't alter your worth or value. The most fragile to the greatest among us, the people who open the door at the coffee shop, and those who don't, have value. They're important. They're exalted.
The psalmist doesn't leave it there because we also are a humble people. He asks the question heard many times. “What is humanity that you think about us?” Who are we? In the vastness of this universe, why do we matter at all? There's also a sense in which we as human beings need to hear that ourselves. The reason being that we are very powerful. On this planet, we are the species that can destroy everything. We are the ones who have the capacity, both to save life and to take it like no other creature. Just in pure, real terms, our footprint on this earth is disproportionate to all others. We are powerful.
What we do with that power matters. There is a phrase in here that has for a long, long time made people feel a little uncomfortable. Namely that humanity has been given dominion over the fish of the sea and the creatures of the earth. Another word that is used to translate that Hebrew is that we have been made rulers of this. Some have suggested that because we see ourselves as rulers or having dominion over the created order, we ourselves have become part of the destruction of the earth, and the Scriptures have been used to justify it.
That is not what dominion and rulership means in the Jewish thinking at the time. Those are words that are used exclusively for the monarch – the king or the queen. The monarch has dominion or rule, but – and this is significant – there are two parts of that dominion and rule. The first part is to recognize that there is someone to whom they are accountable and that they have been put in that position in order that they are accountable to a higher power, to God.
At the same time they have a responsibility for the creatures and the earth. They have responsibility as a good monarch does, to protect and preserve the citizenry. So the language that the psalmist is using is not dominionship with no accountability or responsibility. On the contrary, the word is used to describe both accountability and responsibility.
I thought of that these last few days when I went out to try and see the eclipse. You all know in Toronto it was cloudy and we missed it. I went out there at exactly the right time and nothing was happening much where I was living. I did however see on Facebook from friends in different parts of the world and also on television, that this was a mighty occasion.
You realize as a human being and a race of people, that while we have power on this earth compared to the heavens, we are nothing! Why does God even think about us? When in fact the moon moves and the sun and the earth and everything that is in this solar system is so vast. What is humanity that you would even think of us? Of course we might think a lot of ourselves, but our place within this earth is so fragile, really, relative to the cosmos.
At the same time there is a power that we have and it can be a powerful life or death, a powerful good or evil. I thought about this this last July after hearing about Cecil, the lion being killed in Zimbabwe. Shot for the sake of entertainment by a human being. I thought to myself at that moment what the psalmist must have been thinking when he wrote this. “Who are we?” Who are we to do this? Who are we to take a life wantonly? Not for food or necessity but for the shame of pleasure?
Oh, we're powerful all right. And we have responsibility for the use of that power. It affects every part and dimension of our human life. We must also realize that we are not as powerful as we might think, because of God. But you know, whether we're exalted or humbled, whether we're at our very best or our very worst, God remains sovereign.
This is significant, because no matter what state we're in and no matter how we think of ourselves, God is always the one who has, as this Scripture says, our majesty and our praise. Ultimately before God we kneel. The only time that Psalm 8 is used in the New Testament is by the writer of the Book of Hebrews, in Chapter Two, verse 18. In this verse, the writer of Hebrews quotes Psalm 8, that we are made and crowned with glory and with honour. He makes the argument that we see that crowning and that glory and that honour in the one who came and stood with us in that mediatorial role. The God who came to us, Jesus of Nazareth. That in him we see both the glory and the humility. We see the power of the resurrection and eternal life and Lord and honour. But at the same time we see the humble servant who died on a cross. We see both sides of the Chimera in one person, the power and the presence of God along with the humility of God. It's an incredible passage, and I ask you sometime to read it in Chapter Two of Hebrews.
It makes sense of Psalm 8 for us. We as human beings look to the mediator, the one who is supremely human and supremely divine, Jesus of Nazareth who is our guide, our inspiration, and most of all, our saviour, the one who identifies fully with us. When we look at Him, we see this value in a whole new way because we see Him giving value, particularly to those who are in need.
I told a story here a few years ago but it is really worth repeating, of a woman who had lost her husband. As a widow she didn't know how to bring up her three young children. She went to a psychiatrist for counselling and guidance in her grief. The psychiatrist asked her a lot of questions but then finally came to one that she found most troubling. He asked her “Which of your three children do you value the most?”
She said “I value them all the same. I'm a mother. I can't say who I value or love more than any other.”
He says “Oh, come on. We all have our favourites. You know, just be honest with me. I won't tell anyone. It's okay, you can have your favourite you know. We just like some people more than we like others, so that goes with your children too, don't you think?”
She says “No, no, no, I can't love one child more than I love another child. It's simply impossible. I can't do it.”
He looked at her and said, “Come on.”
And she said “Oh no, you're right. You're right, I do. I love the one who is crying and needs comforting, that is the one that I love the most. The one who has not achieved at school and has been disappointed and needs affirmation. That is the one that I love the most. The one who is sick and weak and needs me to be by their bedside, I love them the most. She realized that she didn't love any one more than the other, but I loved the one who needed her the most at any given time.
When Jesus came on this earth that was his message. For the humble and the broken and the imperfect he came to seek and to save the lost. Recognizing that even though that was very much his ministry of sacrifice and humility, every single one had value and worth, no matter how great or small.
So if you are one who's sitting in the pew today and you have great power and influence, then maybe the word of Psalm 8 is to humble yourself and realize how accountable you are to a God who also loves you and gives you value. If you are weak and feeling less than you should be, if you're troubled in your soul and feeling inadequate, this is the God who comes to you and says, "I still value you and I still love you. In my hands you are precious and exalted." It matters not what we are and who we are. In God's eyes we're wonderful. But in our power we are responsible to God, our maker. Be the glory. Amen.