First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12
November 16, 1997
The text I just read is one of the truly magnificent affirmations in the Bible. But given my fear that at least half of you missed it….while the other half of you dismissed it….let me highlight a portion by reading it again.
But someone has testified somewhere: “What are human beings that you are mindful of them….or mortals, that you care for them. You have made them, for a little while, lower than the angels. You have crowned them with glory and honor. You have subjected all things under their feet.”
For the biblical scholars among us (of which there are a few), this probably sounds familiar, given that it is a direct quote from the 8th Psalm. But the author of the Letter to the Hebrews seems to have forgotten that, because he begins by saying: “Someone has testified somewhere.” But that “someone” was the Psalmist…and that “somewhere” was the 8th Psalm.
Now I don’t know about you, but it makes me feel good to know that this author can’t remember who said what, elsewhere in the scriptures. Because that happens to me all the time. One of you will approach me with a snippet of scripture. Sometimes you will quote it perfectly. Other times you will twist it, so as to render it barely recognizable. Then you will ask: “Who said that?” Or “Where can I find that?” And you’ll expect me to know.
Or you’ll come to me and say: “What do you have to say about Leviticus 6:12?” As if I’m supposed to know, without looking it up, what it says in Leviticus 6:12. And while I know as much Bible as anybody in the room, there’s a lot I don’t know….can’t place….and misidentify, when I can place it. Which can be darned embarrassing. Until I remember that this author can’t remember the words of Psalm 8 either….and has to resort to saying: “I’ve seen it somewhere.”
But not only can’t he locate this passage, he quotes it wrong. He says: “We are created a little lower than the angels.” But the 8th Psalm says: “We are created a little lower than God.” Yet, though the words differ, the sentiment is the same. What it says is that we are created for great things. “For a little while,” we are less than the angels. But, at some time, we shall be greater than the angels. Meaning that we are on our way….as human beings….to being greater than we ever imagined. In spite of all the falling down and screwing up that is part-and-parcel of our human lot, the Bible never lets us forget that greatness is possible for us….and expected of us.
It is the actualization of that potential, of course, that gives rise to civilizations. And great civilizations….in spite of their flaws….are resplendent with monuments to the human spirit. You can see them in architecture and the arts. You can see them in writing and religion. And, most recently, you have seen them in science. Tomorrow we will be talking about the computer as a remarkable testimony to human powers. I sometimes exaggerate my computer illiteracy for laughs. But while I am not a hands-on user, I am a born-again appreciator. I know what computers can do….will do….are already doing. I see the worlds they are opening, the bridges they are building and the connections they are making.
When, in the span of an hour, my wife can get a printout of my friend’s sermon in San Diego and find a relative from the year 1415 in Bern, Switzerland, I know there are bountiful blessings down this road, and that traveling it is something we were not only meant to do, but created to do. For the computer is simply an extension of our God-given brain. And it is not too big a stretch to say that if we are called to love God with all our mind, the computer will significantly….albeit not automatically….enhance our ability to do so.
Hebrews says that we are to have all things in subjection to us. Which we will accomplish, to a greater extent than ever before, through the computer. Whether I like it or not….understand it or not….use it or not….the computer will be, because it can be. And the only question left to the church is not “to what limit?” but “for what purpose?”.
But 800 years ago, in the age of faith, the great cathedrals represented a similar breakthrough. In an achievement as marvelous as the invention of the computer chip, architects and craftsmen discovered how to allow walls and ceilings to climb to unprecedented heights, thereby creating huge spaces for stained glass windows which flooded light into this sacred space. The cathedral was, for the age of faith, what the computer has been to the age of science….a crowning achievement of the age.
But every so often, somebody will criticize the construction of cathedrals. It happens all the time. People travel to countries where cathedrals are prominent (particularly in Latin America) and talk about how much money cathedrals cost and how that money could have been expended differently.
My friend, Mark Trotter, talked with a man who came into his sanctuary several years ago. The ceiling in Mark’s sanctuary maxes out at 70 feet. Said the man: “There’s a lot of wasted space up there. It must cost a fortune to heat (and cool). Why don’t you drop the ceiling, build a second story and rent it out? You could earn some money in here.”
There was a period in architecture that said all spaces in buildings must be “of human dimension.” But what is the human dimension? What those architects meant by “human dimension” was ten-foot ceilings. What the Bible means by “human dimension” is infinite space. Mark Trotter writes:
It seems to me that if you confine human beings to finite space, you are saying something about what you believe the dimensions of human life to be. You are saying that life is contained in this small, finite, limited space we experience now. That is what human life is all about. But if you build great cathedrals, you are saying that human life is not bound by this time and space. You are saying that we can soar to dimensions beyond those that can be seen and experienced here. We belong here. But we don’t belong here only. We belong to something much greater than can be seen and experienced here.
Here’s a test. Let me ask you this. Where do you feel most human….in a closet, or in a cathedral? If you answer “in a closet,” then there’s something the matter with you spiritually.
Many years ago, Dorothy Thompson wrote an article about architecture. She had seen a government manual for the construction of public buildings. It contained a specification that no ceiling should ever be above 12 feet. That way, no one would feel insignificant. But Dorothy Thompson took off from there. She recalled her days as a European correspondent in World War II. She watched American soldiers visit cathedrals all over the European theater. She saw them awestruck in Salisbury, emotional in Canterbury, and prayerful in St. Peter’s. She wrote: “They were not feeling insignificant. On the contrary, many of them were awakening, for the first time, to aspirations and dreams they never knew they had.”
What is the human dimension? “Thou has created us, for a little while, lower than the angels.” “For a little while,” because our final destiny is to be greater than the angels….which is greater than any of us can comprehend. But don’t take that the wrong way. We’re not talking prideful language here. We’re talking creation language here. This is not us thumping our chests and crying: “Look at me.” This is God sticking his finger into our chests and saying: “Look at you.”
Which sheds new light, doesn’t it, on the phrase: “Hey, we’re only human.” I would hope that, as a Christian, you get a little bit sick to your stomach, each time you hear that. Let me illustrate.
Sunday after Sunday, the soprano glides over the octaves….every note clear as the morning dew. Then one Sunday her voice cracks, causing her to slide off the note, and causing somebody else to say: “Well, she’s only human.” Perhaps. But if that be so, what was she on all those other Sundays when she was trilling like a mockingbird?
Or consider grandma the baker. Every cake, seven inches tall. Every cake, fluffy….airy….angely ….melting in the mouth. Then one day (who knows why….maybe grandchildren running through the kitchen….or peeking in the oven), out comes grandma’s cake, looking like the sole of your shoe. “Only human,” someone says. To be sure. But what was grandma when the cakes were tall?
And then there’s the shortstop….lithe….lean….limber….gobbling up grounders….over to second….on to first (bingo-bango-bongo, two for the price of one)….231 consecutive times without a miss. One day he can’t get it out of his glove. When he finally jerks it loose, he kicks it into center field. Two runners score. A big flashing “E” lights up the scoreboard. Proves he’s human, doesn’t it? Except what word does that leave to define who he was….and what he did….231 times previous? He was “human” then, too. Wasn’t he? Why do we only speak of someone’s being “human” once we have spotted a mistake or discerned a character flaw? Instead, why not try this? The next time somebody congratulates you….the next time somebody praises you….the next time somebody commends you for doing something extremely well….why not say: “What did you expect? After all, I’m human.”
I hope you feel that way when you come into this sanctuary. For the very nature of our building should say something about who we are as human beings. We are born as children of God….with great dignity….and with greater potential. Therefore, when we enter this sanctuary we ought to feel that way. And when we leave this sanctuary, we ought to behave that way.
There’s a new cathedral about to be constructed in Los Angeles. The diocese of Los Angeles hired the Spanish architect Jose Rafael Moneo to be the architect. Groundbreaking took place a few short weeks ago. But the building will not be completed before the millenium. There were models of the cathedral at the groundbreaking. After viewing one of the models, a reviewer wrote: “Moneo is creating an alternative world to the everyday urban world that surrounds the cathedral….a testimony to the grandeur of the human spirit….an antidote to a world that is increasingly spiritually empty.”
Then he used this phrase. “The cathedral, set in the midst of the secular city, will be an enclave of resistance.” Which is an amazing phrase. And which should be part of the mission statement of every church. For that’s what this place should be….an enclave of resistance against everything that diminishes human life. We are here to testify by the caring of our community…. by the power of our Word….by the passion of our singing….and by the structure of our sanctuary….that we are born for great things. We are created “a little lower than the angels.” But one day, in God’s good time, even that shortcoming will be reversed. Every time we come into this building, we ought to be reminded of that.
Several weeks ago, one of the great writers of our time passed from our midst. Drained by two years’ worth of dialysis, James Michener disconnected his frail body and quietly reclined into the gracious arms of death, thus bringing to an end an incredible career of writing. Michener’s first book, Tales of the South Pacific, was not written until he was 40 years of age. It came about because of a life-altering incident. On a stormy night in the South Pacific, he was a passenger in a plane that was unable to land. When the pilot finally put it on the ground, Michener walked the length of the runway and swore an oath that he would live out the rest of his life as if he were a great man. Not that he would be a great man, because he never thought in those terms. But he vowed that he would give himself to something larger and would strive to make the world in which he found himself a better place.
For the next fifty-some years of his life, Michener honored that commitment. In his book, The World is My Home, he expanded on this effort.
A charge can be lodged against me that I am a knee-jerk liberal, for I confess to that sin. When I find that a widow with three children has been left penniless, my knee jerks. When I learn that funds for a library have been slashed to the vanishing point, my knee jerks. When I find that a playground for children is being closed, while a bowling alley for grown men is being opened, my knee jerks. When ill-informed persons cut back on teachers’ salaries and hot lunches for school kids, my knee jerks. When the free flow of ideas is restricted….when health services are denied to certain segments of the population….when universities double their fees….and when all the universities in Texas graduate two teachers qualified to teach calculus, but more than 500 trained to coach football, my knee jerks.
When I have been dead ten years and a family comes to tend the flowers on the grave next to mine, if they should talk about the latest pitiful inequity plaguing their town, they will hear a rattling from my grave, leading them to say: “That’s Jim again. His knee is still jerking.”
But not everybody is a Michener. Some people are a Michele. She is sitting in my office, talking about the religious dimension of recovering from heroin addiction. Clean, again. Back to work, again. Enrolled in a 12-step program, again. Vowing to make it this time, again.
What does she need from me?
Job? No.
Referral? No.
Therapy? No.
Identity? Yes.
So I tell her (in as many different ways as I can think of): “Michele, you have felt like crap. You have lived like crap. But you are not crap. You are a child of God. You are a joint heir with Christ. You are a ‘smidgen’ lower than the angels….temporarily. You are a citizen of the Kingdom whom God has destined for greatness. Go be that person.”
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Note: This sermon owes a debt of gratitude to several people. Mark Trotter, in his usual brilliant style, raised the issue of space and the “human dimension” in a sermon entitled: “An Enclave of Resistance.” Rodney Wilmoth alerted me to the words and witness of James Michener. And Fred Craddock first unwrapped the phrase: “Hey, we’re only human.”
