October 3, 2021 Sermon: Perspective of a Child of God

What are we, that God should be mindful of us? What a great paradox of faith that we are cosmically insignificant, yet we have been claimed as children of God. A sermon for the 19th Sunday after Pentecost on Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12, Psalm 8, and Mark 10:2-16.

Thank you to Debie Thomas in her Journey with Jesus lectionary essay What Are We? for the approach of focusing on the Psalm.

Grace to you and peace from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

This week’s Gospel reading falls into the category of things I really would rather Jesus hadn’t said. Being on vacation for a week was nice, but I kind of wish I’d timed it over this weekend instead. So, I’ll come back to the gospel reading, but for the moment, I’m going to ask you to take out your hymnal again and turn back to the Psalm we just read, Psalm 8.

Like many of the Psalms, this is a Psalm of praise. It’s the poet—maybe King David, maybe someone else—praying to God, worshiping. And yet, as Debie Thomas says, “At the heart of Psalm 8 is an existential question: What are we?” Who are we as human beings, compared to the God we’re praising? How do we compare ourselves to God?

The Psalm starts with praise, saying something about God. Read verse one with me: “O Lord our Lord, how exalted is your name in all the world!”

The point of coming to a worship service—the reason you came here today—is to worship, right? Worship is about declaring what God has done, saying how powerful and majestic and exalted God is. That’s why we’re here, to declare God’s praise.

But it’s not like God forgets, like if no one shows up to worship like God will no longer be great and majestic. Worship isn’t about stroking God’s ego, or trying to butter up God so we can get more blessings or something. No, the act of worshiping God is about keeping the right perspective on life. I’ll say that again: Worshiping God is about keeping the right perspective on life.

Worshiping God is about noticing what God has done, comparing God’s work to our work, comparing God’s abilities to our abilities, and responding the only way we can: With awe and wonder. Praising and worshiping God means acknowledging that we are not God; we are far below God.

Look what the Psalm says God has done. Read verse 4 with me (just verse 4): “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in their courses.”

This is the Creator of the cosmos we’re looking at. Have you ever been out on a clear night on a lake or in an open field where you can see the stars, the “dome of the heavens” above you? Or stood on the peak of a mountain and looked around?

Seeing the world stretched out around you makes you feel pretty small. We can’t comprehend the vastness of the stars. It’s overwhelming. Our brains can’t handle the concept of infinity in time or space.

Keep reading. Verse 5: “What is man that you should be mindful of him, the son of man that you should seek him out?” Or a more modern language translation than our 43-year-old hymnals: “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?”

What are we that God cares about us? Because that’s the message of today’s readings. That’s the testimony of Scripture: God cares about us. God cares about you. God cares about me. God cares about Carlin, baptized this weekend.

God takes us and claims us and declares that we matter, that you have purpose and value. Look at our reading from Hebrews: “God has spoken to us by a Son…the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being.” God—the big, omnipotent almighty—has come in the person of Jesus Christ to be with us, to redeem us, to forgive our sins.

In being born as a human, God has affirmed the uniqueness of humanity, the value of each human being. We are unique among God’s creation, made in God’s image, given eternal life.

God has trusted us with control and dominion over creation (dominion not in the sense of a conqueror coming to exploit and extract value, but in the sense of a park ranger, charged with caring for creation).

I love verse 6 in the Hebrews reading: “Someone has testified somewhere, ‘What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals that you care for them?’” Maybe the writer of Hebrews didn’t bother looking up the verse they’re referring to. It’s from Psalm 8.

Through baptism, we are adopted into God’s family, chosen to be children of God, invited to be blessed in Jesus’ arms. The writer of Hebrews says Jesus calls us brothers and sisters, siblings.

Paul in Romans 8 says that by the work of God the Holy Spirit, we are made children of God and joint heirs with Christ. You are a child of the King of the universe!

Not because of anything you’ve done. Not because you’re so great, or perfect, or worthy. But because God chooses to love you. Because God chooses to claim you.

Because God is generous, and has come into this world to redeem you. The God who has created the world, the Lord who has formed the heavens, the moon, and the stars, has chosen you.

It’s a wonderful paradox of faith. We are tiny, insignificant, mortal, made-from-dust creatures doomed to return to dust, yet God breathes life into us. We are not God, but we bear God’s image. You matter because your Creator says you matter. You have value because Jesus says you have value, because Jesus gave his life for you, even trusts his work to you to carry on. And of course, our only response is to praise God.

All we can do is to trust in God, to trust the way little children trust. Psalm 8 says God’s majesty is praised out of the mouths of infants and children. In the Gospel reading, Jesus says the kingdom of God belongs to little children. “Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

Not in the sense of you can only be saved if you’re baptized as an infant or something, but with a child-like faith. With a trust in God as sovereign, as Lord. Infants can’t do anything except trust and receive grace and love. Children can’t provide for themselves or earn what they need. They’re dependent on adults, in the same way we’re dependent on God, although we never outgrow our dependence on God.

It’s about keeping the right perspective on who we are and who God is.

Keeping the perspective that we don’t deserve God’s love. We don’t live up to God’s law. Our hearts are hard. We’re the creation who fail to follow the owner’s manual. We turn away from God and try to make it on our own, pretending we somehow don’t need God.

We break relationships. Jesus talks about divorce in this reading as a pretty clear example of brokenness. I want to be very careful how I say this. Divorce is a symptom of the brokenness in the world.

It’s always a sad thing, a broken promise. But at the same time, it’s sometimes the best thing that can happen in a broken situation. Sometimes divorce is the right thing, the most faithful thing to do, for you, maybe for your spouse, maybe for your family. And that itself is a symptom of the brokenness in our world.

There’s a lot going on in this teaching about divorce that I’m not going into today. It’s actually remarkable in that society that Jesus puts the blame in divorce on the husband instead of just the wife. Also, a big part of the problem with divorce was that it often left the woman in particular in poverty, so it’s an economic justice issue as well. In fact, that’s still a problem today – The single biggest cause of new poverty in the United States is divorce.

And Jesus cares about the people left in poverty. He cares about the powerless, the poor, the ones like little children with no power to help themselves. That’s the point!

Because that’s you and me. On a scale of us to God, look where we are. What are we, that God should be mindful of us? And yet, God has come to be with us, giving us forgiven sinners eternal life, and joining us to God’s family.

Read the last verse of Psalm 8 with me – it’s a repeat of the first verse, starting and ending with a perspective of praise and worship.

Starting and ending with the focus on God.

Verse 10: “O Lord our Lord, how exalted is your name in all the world!”
Amen