Psalm 8; Matthew 28:16-21
This week I received an e-mail message similar to many
others I’ve received at least once a month for the past year or
so. It was telling me about a new computer virus or “worm”
that is sending out dozens of e-mail messages in German to computers
all over the world. It seems it is able to get past the filters by using
a language other than English.
It’s pretty amazing to realize how much we are a part of the global
community via the internet, as the e-mail I received noted, but when
you stop to think about it, it’s just as amazing to think about
how rapidly our technology has progressed in such a short time. The
use of computer and information technology has enabled us to have the
world at our fingertips instantly. But just as rapidly we can be made
to feel totally helpless by a “virus” or “worm.”
It’s a funny thing that we name the human-made things that “infect”
our human-made computers after organisms found in nature. With all of
our advances there is still nothing as magnificent, fascinating, or
complex as God’s creation.
Psalm 8 stands as one of the most beautiful and profound of all the
Psalms. The writer of this creation psalm captures in a few verses the
awesome nature of God and what God has done. Beginning with the infinite
span of the sovereign God, a picture is painted of a surprising creation
in which God inverts the expected order: words from the mouths of infants
thwart the wicked and strong.
The psalmist moves us from the cosmic nature of God and the heavens
to the earth and mere human beings who pale in the presence of the brilliance
of the moon and stars. “What are human beings that you are mindful
of them?” the psalmist asks. Why would God care for these insignificant
mortal creatures, he ponders.
If you have ever been out in the desert in the middle of the night,
or stood at the top of a mountain looking out across surrounding peaks,
or flown low over a glacier or a volcano crater, you have experienced
that feeling of insignificance. If you have been present at the birth
of a baby, or simply watched the sun rise or set over the ocean, you
have stood in the presence of the mystery of God’s creation.
What’s truly amazing is that God trusts us with this creation!
God created us in the divine image, giving us trusteeship of all creation.
God also gave us free will so that we could choose to follow God’s
will or our own. Sometimes, if we’re honest, we have to wonder
what God was thinking.
Millennia before the advent of information technology human beings recognized
that we have authority and dominion that far exceeds that of all other
creatures. We have intelligence that increases with each generation.
We develop knowledge that builds upon previous knowledge as if we were
building a tower to reach toward heaven. Our technology expands like
a virus, exponentially, with each increase multiplying everything that
has preceded it.
The power of information technology alone doubles every 18 months and
is expected to continue well into the foreseeable future, according
to those in the computer industry (Joel Garreau, “Inventing Our
Evolution,” in The Washington Post, Monday, May 16, 2005, pg.
A9). Writer Joel Garreau reports that the 27th doubling occurred in
2002 with the billion-transistor computer chip. But our ability to expand
knowledge and technology far exceeds our ability to use it well. Our
ethical discussions and conclusions have not kept pace with the advance
of technology.
Each technology that has life-giving promise also has a shadow side:
life-destroying threat. Discoveries in physics have opened up the universe
to human minds and exploration yet hold the potential to destroy it.
Advances in medical research promise cures to devastating disease yet
hold the potential for the “invention of our own evolution”
and the risk of horrific abuse (Garreau).
So we must ask with the psalmist, what are human beings, mere mortals,
that God cares for us, crowns us with glory and honor, gives us dominion
over the works of God’s hands, and makes us a little lower than
God?
Although the translation we heard earlier reads, “a little lower
than the angels,” the Hebrew actually says, “a little lower
than God.” The word here is “Elohim,” which is one
of the Hebrew names for God. It is the name for God who speaks creation
into being in the first chapter of Genesis.
It is a sobering thought to know and truly believe that God intentionally
has created us a little lower than God’s Self. To ponder that
statement alone leads us to examine the nature of God.
The God we worship is not a distant God who set the universe into motion
and stands off, disinterested. This God is intimately involved in our
lives. God speaks to our hearts through the good news of Jesus, who
came in human flesh to understand who we are and to lead us to understand
who God is. He gives to us the understanding that God is not wholly
transcendent, but knows and understands each and every one of us uniquely
and loves us.
The Holy Spirit resides beside us and within us, guiding, nudging, challenging,
and uplifting us to reach beyond ourselves. The Spirit also brings us
to those places where we recognize our mortality and dependence upon
God.
I just returned from the women’s retreat where we heard the spiritual
journeys of two women who have known the presence of God walking beside
them through the ups and downs of their lives. One told specifically
of the way in which God hears and answers our prayers. She told of a
loved one who survived a medical disaster in a way that doctors could
not explain. She knew it was through prayer and God’s intervention.
As a pastor I am privileged to hear these stories on a regular basis.
I get to see especially how God becomes tangible in the lives of persons
who struggle with illness, disabilities, disasters and brokenness. God’s
grace is constantly moving beyond our human limitations expanding our
possibilities and helping us to realize how great God’s love is
for us.
I read this morning that 2005 has been named the World Year of Physics
in recognition of the contributions Albert Einstein made to our knowledge
of the universe during four months in 1905. The papers he published
during those months laid the foundations for quantum and nuclear physics
and forever changed the way we mortal human beings view the universe.
It has been said that Einstein achieved a God-like status because he
was “thought to have come into contact with what is essential
in the universe” (Bernard H. Gustin in “The Year of Albert
Einstein” by Richard Panek, Smithsonian, June 2005, p.118). We
are in awe of people like Einstein and others like him who have the
ability to penetrate the mysteries of our world. But even Einstein,
who was a pacifist and utopian, came in later life to realize how the
knowledge we attain has power to be life-giving or life-destroying and
that we are charged with great responsibility in its use.
We may easily make gods of science and technology and come to think
we can rely solely upon ourselves and our own understanding. However,
all it takes is something as simple as sitting down at a computer that’s
been infected with a virus that expands beyond the control even of its
human creator, or a virus so devastating to human life as HIV-AIDS,
to bring us squarely back to the realization that we are finite, that
our knowledge is limited, and that in spite of all our reaching we remain
mortals.
When computer viruses strike, we can call in the technicians. When biological
viruses arise we rely upon doctors and medicines to attack and subdue
them. But through all, the one constant, predictable, and reliant presence
and help is the God we call Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Although we may claim with humility along with the psalmist that we
are created a little lower than God, it is only through God’s
love for us that passes understanding that we gain true and everlasting
life.
Prayer: O God, our God, how majestic is your name in all the earth.
Expand our knowledge of our world for life and not death. Guide us in
the ways in which we use the insights and discoveries you give us to
draw us closer into communion with you and our neighbors, not farther
apart. Teach us reliance upon you, even as we gain deeper understanding
of the amazing universe you have created. Give us the grace to stand
in awe and praise you alone. Amen.