The Songs of Israel: The Myth of ONLY Human

The Songs of Israel: The Myth of ONLY Human
Text: Psalm 8
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
July 10, 2010

Have you ever heard or used the expression, “But I’m only human?”

Chances are, we all have used that at some point because we use it to express our limitations at something. We are not God, so we are only human.

We sang a little in the Psalm today, using it as it was written, as a hymn of sorts.

We did things responsively, demonstrating the Psalm as a prayer of sorts.

And we saw the words.....and the words give an indication that being ONLY human is something of a myth. There is nothing ONLY about being human.

The Psalm begins as a song of praise to God for the creative power of God and then it asks a question:

What are human beings that you are mindful of them;
mortals that you care for them?


The Psalm goes on to tell us three things and all three things are pretty amazing.

The first is this.
You have made them a little lower than God;
and crowned them with glory and honor.

We are made a little lower than God. A LITTLE lower than God.

Genesis 1 tells us that we, people, are made in the image and likeness of God. At our best, we are much like God. It means we have the capacity to make choices and do things the way God would do things. It demands of us that we live lives with a sense of dignity that God has.

French novelist and playwright Alexandre Dumas, the author of such classics as, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, once had a heated quarrel with a rising young politician. The argument became so intense that a duel was inevitable. Since both men were superb shots they decided to draw lots, the loser agreeing to shoot himself. Dumas lost. Pistol in hand, he withdrew in silent dignity to another room, closing the door behind him. The rest of the company waited in gloomy suspense for the shot that would end his career. It rang out at last. His friends ran to the door, opened it, and found Dumas, smoking revolver in hand.

“Gentlemen, a most regrettable thing has happened,” he announced. “I missed.”

Somewhere, when faced with his mortality, it dawned on him that he had fallen prey to anger and envy and foolishness and none of these were worth losing his life over. Human dignity is something that makes us more like God.

People are like God because we can often do the opposite of what nature would seem to have us do. Birds fly north for the winter and south for the summer. Yet people have the capacity to travel south to beaches and Disney World in the summer, and travel north in the winter to ski and have winter vacations.

The Psalmist reminds us that human dignity is a godlike quality that we should never lose.

The second thing the Psalmist says is this:

You have given them dominion over the works of your hands.

Over the years people have misunderstood the use of having dominion over the earth as a license to do what we want with the earth. The premise was that the earth was going to one day be gone, so we might as well use it and abuse it while we still can.

But this came from a dualistic world view which saw earthly things and godly things as separate. There was the realm of God and the realm of people and nothing in the twain shall meet.

Instead of a dualistic world view, we need to have a holistic world view. The environment is a spiritual issue. There are issues of justice. My abuse and neglect of my environment has huge negative consequences for my neighbor not just down the street but around the world. My waste shows that I don't really care for what is right. I don't care about what is the Lord's. I don't really love my neighbor.

Dominion means to be in charge of something. It means to be responsible for something. The world is not our world, it is God’s world. God has given us dominion by giving us responsibility.

And, like we need to have human dignity, we need to treat God’s world with dignity and respect. That is what having dominion really means.

The last thing is this. The Psalm begins and ends the same way with the prayer:

O Lord our God, how majestic is your name over all the earth!

This is a little reminder of something.

There are two things that give me a sense of faith and security when I walk into the pulpit each Sunday.

The first is the strong faith there is a God; the second is the secure knowledge that I am not God.

I sometimes think of miracles that Jesus did. Turning water into wine and doing so quietly. Only his mother and the chief steward knew. If I had done that I’d have made sure everyone knew so that I would constantly be invited to dinner parties to provide the wine.

The feeding of the 5000? Only the apostles really knew what had taken place. If I had been Jesus I’d rent out our facility for banquets since it would take so little effort and expense to provide food for everyone.

And the really big ones like raising people from the dead, curing blindness, deafness, and people being lame.

Plus the self serving things. The Giants would go undefeated and the Dallas Cowboys would go winless. The New York Mets would be the first undefeated baseball team and the New York Yankees would be the first winless team ever.

You get the point. I thank God that I am not God; and really, we all should. God is pure goodness and pure love and we, despite being much like God in so many ways, are not.

Psalm 8 is a tribute to the dignity and goodness of humanity, but it is also a reminder that, as people we are always people. We are never ONLY human, we are grandly human----with a constant reminder that we are not God.