May 6, 2007--Fifth Sunday of Easter

Lectionary Texts:
Psalm 148;
Acts 11:1-18;
John 13:31-35;
Revelation 21:1-6

Sermon Text: Psalm 8

The Song of Creation:
Majesty and Sovereignty?

“O Lord our Sovereign. How majestic is your name in all the earth.” (v. 1). This psalm places in our minds the vision of God as this king, majestic and sovereign, who rules the earth. Have you ever wondered about the majesty of God? Have you ever considered the sovereignty of God?

As I read this psalm and remember my childhood, it occurs to me that my parents taught me about the majesty and sovereignty of God in the most interesting ways. Every summer, my parents would load us up in a slide-in pickup camper, and head west for vacation. We would be gone about two weeks. It also occurs to me that was in the days before gas was $2.50 a gallon. Maybe we should take that trip this morning, because it might be a long time before some of us can take one like it. We would leave the rolling hills of Iowa and head west through Nebraska. I’ll have to admit, that part didn’t teach me so much about the sovereignty and majesty of God, except maybe that God was able to create the largest flattest piece of ground I’ve ever seen. During that part of the trip, my sister and I would lie up on the cab over part of the camper and look out the window, counting yellow lines as they went under the pickup. It went on for hour after hour. I’m not sure about this but I think “Nebraska” might mean “parking lot” in Navaho. Apologies if you are from western Nebraska. Iowa, where I grew up takes its share of jokes. Turnabout is fair play. Who knows? Maybe if God was going to build a parking lot, that’s how he’d have it.

Once we got through Nebraska, the terrain would change dramatically. One year, we went to Colorado. With the hard rock of Pike’s Peak under my feet, I worked to catch my breath, as I massaged my temples and worked my jaw to get rid of my popping ears and my headache. Only part of that was my body’s reaction to the altitude, the rest was my mind’s reaction to the magnitude of the scene before me. I could remember the 90 degree weather at the base and could see the snow on the surrounding peaks. I even touched some of it. There were sheer drops and gorgeous rock formations. Standing there, I don’t think I ever questioned God’s majesty or His sovereignty. If God was going to create a lookout, this is the way God would have it.

One year we went to Yellowstone and visited the lower falls. I stood there on an overlook that seemed to dangle above the roar, and watched hundreds of thousands of gallons of water fall over 300 feet to the canyon below. Standing there before that gorgeous scene of grace and power, with the roar and all that wonder, I had no trouble picturing the majesty and sovereignty of God. If God was going to make a fountain, that’s the way God would have it.

At the other end of the spectrum, one year we went to Carlsbad, New Mexico. There we toured the caverns. There was one underground room that could hold the surface area of six football fields. Standing there below the earth, looking up at the formations that reached several stories into the air and the beautiful colors painted on the walls by the trickle of water over centuries of time, I just couldn’t question the majesty and sovereignty of God. If God were building a shelter, that’s the way God would have it.

On one of those trips we went to Montana. While we were up there we went to Glacier National Park. Before each of those trips, mom would do a little research and learn what the area was famous for, and we would look forward to seeing that. When we went to Montana, mom told us that it was called “big-sky country.” Being twelve and having had some science classes (and therefore knowing everything), I asked myself: “If Montana is a part of earth, and the sky is the atmosphere, how can the sky be any bigger there than it is in Iowa?” Then, one afternoon on that trip, my parents woke me up from one of my many naps in the camper. We were at a rest stop. I walked out and asked: “Where are we?” They said, “We are in Montana.” Immediately I looked up . . . and I was a convert. The sky just seemed to stretch out forever and the clouds seemed to reach right down as if to touch me. I stood there rubbing sleep from my eyes, and looking up while I stretched my cooped-up legs, I had no trouble picturing the majesty and the sovereignty of God. If God were going to build a chapel, with a beautiful ceiling, it would look like that. That’s they way God would have it. It’s never in those kinds of places that one doubts the majesty and sovereignty of God.

There are other places, however. I learned to swim in a pond in southwest Iowa. It was a farm pond called Crystal Lake. We would park our car and walk about quarter of a mile to the pond. It had a sand-and-dirt bottom with a gentle slope, so it was perfect for learning. When I was in the second, third and fourth grades, we would go out there in the evening, hold our breath and dog paddle. I remember the last few times I went out there. We swam a little, but we were so scared we didn’t really enjoy it. There were broken glass bottles, beer and soda cans all over the place. The pond had been “discovered,” and it was just far enough off the beaten path to be convenient as a party place. I don’t remember being in awe of anything as we walked away from that place the last time. As I think back on it, the name Crystal Lake seems a bit ironic. I don’t think I had one thought about God’s majesty at that point. I just wondered why people would wreck a perfectly good swimming hole. What, I wonder, is God’s sovereignty? How could God let people do that to His creation? Surely that wasn’t the way God would have it?

I have a friend in another city. He is a deeply Christian man. He is one of the most generous people I know. He volunteers his time and gives willingly. He loves everyone he knows and has done me more favors than a lifetime could repay. He has, or at least used to have, one deeply confusing behavior. After stopping at 7-Eleven and finishing his Coke, he opens the window, while driving down the road, and throws the cup out. I have to say, the times I’ve followed him or ridden with him, I’ve never been overwhelmed by the majesty of God. I’ve just always been puzzled by this behavior. As I think about it now, I wonder a little about God’s sovereignty. This man believes in God; in fact, this man believes that he is sold out to God and totally obedient to the Creator. Why doesn’t God require him to care a little more for the land around him when he drives? Surely this isn’t the way God would have it? Why doesn’t he make this man care for the earth?

Well, the passage we just read does say, “You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet.” We sometimes have the idea that God wants control of everything. The truth is that phrase never appears in the Bible. We have some artists in our midst. If you look at the bulletin boards in the halls, you know that Charles Walkingstick has been decorated as an accomplished artist. He’s also a father. (Walk to the easel.) I want you to imagine Charles spending hour upon hour meticulously painting this nature scene of the southwest; colors blended just so; texture perfect; expression just right. And then he gives this creation to his children. They graciously receive his gift of his creativity. I don’t know his children, and am sure this would never happen, but just imagine they take it, thank him and then lay it on the ground outside their front door as a welcome mat to wipe their feet on as they come and go. (take picture and put it on the floor by platform door, pretended to wipe feet on it). Yes, he gave it to them. They own it, but that’s not what their father had in mind when he painstakingly created this masterpiece. That’s not the way Charles would have it. I’m sure Charles’ family would never do that; but what about the family of God? When the psalm says creation was put under our feet, does it mean that we are free to trample it into oblivion? When God put creation under our feet, it was a distinct possibility that we would. But He did it anyway. Sure, creation affirms God’s majesty, but how does what we do with it speak for His sovereignty?

There was another time I had no doubt of the majesty or sovereignty of God. Almost six years ago, I stood in a delivery room and watched as this silent dream we’d been thinking about, talking to and planning for emerged into the world. I counted fingers and toes and guessed at eye color. But something happened before all that. Something I didn’t quite understand at the time. When she was born, the doctor held her upside down and I think they patted her feet. She took a big breath and let out one of the most beautiful sounds in all the world.

When I first experienced it, I didn’t know how to interpret it. I knew it was beautiful but didn’t know what it meant. As I was studying this passage this week, I think I learned the language of that first scream. It says here, “Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark.” Here is a good translation for what that little mouth was saying. “O Lord our sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth.” Thinking back on that time, I don’t have any questions about the majesty and sovereignty of God. If God was going to create a herald for his praise, that is the way he would have her.

But then the craziest thing in the world happened. A wily nurse thought it would be good for daddy to give her the first bath. That way he’d be able to do it in the future with some confidence. She must have sensed my innate ability to avoid scary stuff. She put that baby in my hands and told me what to do with water, soap and so on. Of everything I’d ever seen in creation, this was the most magnificent. This was His masterpiece and God put it in our hands. I didn’t question God’s majesty at all at that point. Just His judgment--what was God thinking entrusting this work of art to me, not just for a 2 minute bath but for 18 years of life?

All those thoughts come back again when I hear stories of parents who shirk their responsibilities to their kids, see the billboards or the news stories about little Kelsey Briggs (Oklahoma City child who died from abuse), or hear of any other little one who’s been abused. And then I think about the countless hundreds who’ve never gotten to take a breath. God in His majesty creates, and adults abort, neglect and abuse them. And when there is a problem, the government steps in to care for the kids. While those agencies are full of foster parents and social workers who care, the news media is telling us that the sheer bureaucracy of it all has actually lost some kids. I don’t question the majesty of God. But when I have to tell my 3-year-old that “stupid” isn’t a word that she should use, and that daddy shouldn’t have used it just now either, I’m tempted to question His judgment and to wonder about His sovereignty. What was God thinking entrusting them to us?

The psalmist asks it this way: “What are human beings that you are mindful of them? Yet you have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor and have given them dominion.” The sovereign God whose name is majestic in all the earth has chosen to place the earth under our authority. Sheep, oxen, beasts of the field, birds of the air, fish and infants. From bluebirds to babies, the sovereign God gives us dominion, responsibility and authority over it all.

It’s amazing what we do with authority, when we get it. The media and political systems of this world want us to choose between the two things I’ve been talking about. One side of the aisle is intensely interested in our care for the environment, but wants to make sure that we can legally silence those little voices before they scream God’s majesty.

On the other side of the aisle, is a system of thought that would never interrupt God’s creation of a human life, but could really care less about the rest of creation as long as we humans have enough fuel and space. It is as though modern political culture has forced us to choose. Do we see the majesty and sovereignty of God only in mountains and waterfalls, or do we hear the majesty and sovereignty of God only in this human creation? When you see that we are required by the political bosses who set platforms to make that choice, do you just want to ask a question, “Who is sovereign here in this world anyway?”

When God put humans in charge of creation was that because He just didn’t care that much for it anyway, so if we treat it or each other like a doormat, it just won’t matter? We were crowned with honor and given power in creation to rule, only we didn’t know what to do with it? Now we destroy creation, each other and are destroyed by creation in disasters. Has God left the whole thing to us, and stood back to see what we will do with it? Is the dominion that God gives us just about getting and exercising our power?

Well, not exactly. Those words, “He made them a little lower than the angels,” are not the last time that is mentioned in scripture. Hebrews chapter 2 quotes this psalm, “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals that you care for them? You have made them for a while a little lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory subjecting all things under their feet” (v. 6). Then it says, “As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them. But we do see Jesus who was for a while made a little lower than the angels” (vv. 8-9).

I’m struck by how Jesus related to creation. It seemed He was fond of pointing it out to his disciples. He wanted them to consider the soil when wondering how to receive His word. In some teaching He was doing on a mountain, He told His followers to consider the lilies of the field and the splendor with which God clothed them, and the birds of the air which God fed. He said that not a single sparrow falls to the ground that our Father in heaven does not know about it. When the disciples were arguing about which one of them was the greatest and would have more authority, Jesus showed them a little child and said, “Whoever welcomes one of these welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes him who sent me” (Mark 9:37 NRSV).

Have you thought about how Jesus used His authority? As far as dominion, He commanded the winds and the sea to be still. In John He said, “The words I say to you I do not say on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works” (14:10, NRSV). Hebrews 1 says, “He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word” (v. 3, NRSV). Colossians 1 says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (v. 15). In Psalm 8 we are lifted up to the place of human and sovereign. In Hebrews Jesus comes down to that same status. If God was going to start over with a giant redo of humanity, Jesus is the way God would have us.

Sure, we know we need to be careful about how we nurture and care for children, we want them to get to heaven some day. But what is all this about how we treat creation? Isn’t that just some kind of political mumbo jumbo? I mean, this world is passing away, right?” Well in one sense, that is right. The world, meaning the evil systems of power-grabbing injustice; those are going to be no more. But as far as creation is concerned, the end-times prophesies of Isaiah about the peaceable kingdom suggest something else. You may know the words. “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them” (11:6, NRSV).

One of the first passages anyone ever memorizes says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son . . . God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17, NRSV). Jesus, the Son of God, came to call us brothers and sisters, and to usher in a whole new humanity that would represent God’s free and gracious reign and rule on this earth. It’s about time we started to live up to that vision. Romans 8:9 says, “Creation eagerly awaits the revealing of the children of God” (NRSV). Folks, God sent Jesus because he loved the world.

The psalmist begins by saying, “O Lord our sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth.” Standing on top of a mountain, or near the roar of waterfalls, or around the table in a delivery room; very few people miss the majesty in those moments. In the middle of this psalm, God the King takes His sovereignty and places it on us like a crown. In one of those high and honorable ceremonies, where a king gives authority to a prince or princess, God places it on us like a crown. He does it again later by sending Jesus who honors our race by spending some time a little lower than the angels. The psalmist repeats it at the end of the psalm. “O Lord our sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth.” But the way he chooses to exercise his sovereignty is by the free obedience of his children as we learn from Christ, our older brother, how to take care of each other and all of creation. That’s the way our majestic, sovereign God would have it.