Psalm 8 Divine Majesty and Human Dignity (NRSVUE)

To the leader: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.

¹ O Lord, our Sovereign,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.
²     Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
    to silence the enemy and the avenger.

³ When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars that you have established;
⁴ what are humans that you are mindful of them,
    mortals that you care for them?

⁵ Yet you have made them a little lower than God
    and crowned them with glory and honor.
⁶ You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
    you have put all things under their feet,
⁷ all sheep and oxen,
    and also the beasts of the field,
⁸ the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
    whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

⁹ O Lord, our Sovereign,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

What a challenge we have been given to have dominion over the earth, especially if we have somehow come to think that to have dominion means to control. Our first clue that human beings are narcissistic and dominating lies in verse 5. To look at ourselves as being a little lower than God indicates our psalmist has fallen into the same pit our disciples who argue over who is the greatest fell into.

God gave us Jesus Christ as a living example of what it means to have dominion over something, as God has dominion over us. I am quite confident that a god who can create the universe and all things in it just by speaking them into existence could force us to do anything they wanted. I have no doubt that God has dominion over us. So why then, do we human beings refuse to have dominion over the earth as God does over us? Why do we refuse to love as our God loves?

As far back as human history has been catalogued, we have been treating love as a business transaction, whereby one of the individuals involved is given ownership of the other as if they were property to be bought and sold, treated however one wished to treat the other. To love is to have dominion over another. But, to have dominion, as Jesus Christ has dominion, as the Lord our God has dominion, is to serve the other, to put oneself at the other’s feet, and to treat them as you would treat the God who created you.

Our psalmist begins by glorifying God, how majestic is their name (which we do not know). God took babes and infants, immature beings, and with them founded all that which we now call civilization. Imagine that. God seeing in someone you have deemed useless the useful. Imagine if we could look at one another that way? ALL OTHERS. Imagine if you could look at every other human being in this world and see the potential that God sees. Imagine if you could do what God believes you can do.

God granted us dominion over the world because God believes we are capable of loving it the way God loves us.

Our psalmist continues to speak of the wondrous works of God, the heavens, the moon, and the stars. Not one inch of space not touched by God. Not one millimeter, an endless universe, a waste of space. Imagine if we could look at the world that way? What if we stopped seeing our earth as resources and instead saw it as that which God gave us so that we might survive?

Imagine if we could see ALL THINGS, that which breathes and that does not, that which crawls and that which is dormant, that which flies and that which swims, that which burrows and that which floats, ALL THINGS.

Imagine if we could see all things in God’s creation as important. Not just that which is like us. Not just the cute and fuzzy. Not just that which we like, how it interacts with us, but ALL LIVING THINGS. The trees and plants, the insects and arthropods, the fungi and bacteria, even the viruses, show them the love that God shows us. Imagine if we had dominion over them as God has dominion over us.

Dominion, you see, is as demonstrated by Jesus Christ. It is respect. It is treating something with integrity. It is building a relationship, maintaining a relationship, and expanding that relationship. It is love.

Gave us dominion over life forms to serve and to bow down. We are not granted dominion over the waves of the ocean, the wind in the air, or the sun above; those belong to God. Are we treating them that way?

As Spring has finally sprung in northern Michigan after a long, cold, and snowy winter, I am forced to reconcile with ecotheology. I do not have dominion over the season, the rotation of the earth, or anything in the solar system for that matter. Of all the things in my life I can choose, the weather is not one of them.

Today marks the first Sunday after Pentecost, Trinity Sunday. A day we remember Creator, Son, and Spirit. The Holy Trinity.

As I sat in church last Sunday, I wrote a short sermonette about spiritual constipation. Quite similar to constipation of the bowels. Our bodies were designed to process things. Air, substance, energy, and interestingly enough, the Spirit. These things enter through various orifices of our bodies and are meant to pass through at a certain rate and speed. When things are going well, our bodies receive nutrients from that which passes through us, taking only what they need to survive and trusting that when they need more, we will be smart enough to give it more.

Unlike the creatures of the earth, we have dominion over however, we are not smart enough. We eat too much, sleep too much, stay in the sun too long, and generally consume far more than we need, so we get fat, lazy, and constipated. We try to dominate everything instead of allowing it to flow as God intended it. Instead of living a nice, peaceful life of moderation and trust, we fear periods of scarcity. We oscillate between over-consumption and under-consumption, creating stress, anxiety, and spiritual and physical constipation.

We over-process foods, sucking out the nutritional value before we even consume them, forcing us to eat more, retain unhealthy fats and chemicals, which make us fat, and then we put ourselves on restrictive diets while simultaneously going through 15 minutes of over-exerting exercise, which our muscles are not prepared for because we’re lazy. We try to condense the flow of the Spirit to one hour on Sunday morning, so it flows too fast, our bodies panic, and we hold it inside the rest of the week for fear we might not have enough to get us through. We seem to forget that what comes in must go out. If we are only bringing things in and restricting the flow out, we will get constipated. If we are taking in energy and not using it, we will be in pain.

Spiritual constipation is our own fault. It makes our bellies hurt, our muscles ache, our minds get muddled, and our relationships wither and die. Love comes into us ALL the time. God ALWAYS loves us; there is NEVER a shortage of love. God gave us not just themselves to have dominion over us, but also their son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. There is NO love shortage. The problem is we’re constipated because we’re taking it in but we’re not allowing it to go out.

Just like the food we eat, we don’t get enough exercise to burn off the excess. We are taking in far more love than we are putting on, but instead of giving more, we are trying to receive more. That would be like eating more cupcakes, cookies, and ice cream to feel better. It is not going to work. The problem is output, not intake.

We have been given dominion over the creatures of the earth. We have been tasked with caring for them. Loving them as God loves us. But, instead of loving them, having dominion over them, we try to dominate them. We cage them. We breed them against their will to make them bigger, fatter, and less healthy. We do not love them. A good rancher loves their cattle. They respect them, giving them room to roam, don’t over-crowd them, and they don’t over-harvest. A good farmer makes sure that their crops have enough seeds for the coming year and plants them with space to grow. A good farmer loves the land and its bounty. They exercise dominion with love, integrity, and respect as our God does us.

We are not a little lower than God. We are A LOT lower than God. God has dominion over us and dominion over this earth. We are granted dominion over the living. We serve the living with joy and love, not dominance and narcissism. To serve a creature, we must make sure it has food. For the earth to produce that food, we must love the earth. To love the earth, we must love its creator.

What are humans that You are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? We are servants. We are created to serve God and one another. We are created to love God and one another. We are babes and infants. We are a protected species by God.

In Michigan, it is illegal to kill seagulls. We do not inflict harm upon that which serves to clean up our waste. God protects us because we are designed to create balance and order on the planet. I am grateful we serve a forgiving God because we are failing. I am grateful that God still sees us as capable, despite the fact that for generation after generation, we have failed to perform as we are designed. We have failed to assume our role as having dominion over the works of God’s hands.

To love is to care for. To have dominion over is to love. We will receive no glory in heaven if we do not demonstrate this love on earth as it is in heaven. We are not property. The animals are not our property. They are owned by God. We are but caretakers. God is the landlord. We are not in control. God is.

Love is constantly flowing into us. To avoid becoming constipated, we must allow it to flow through us, which means it needs to come out as fast as it is coming in lest we get spiritually constipated.