Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour.  You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8)

 

 

     Have you ever felt overwhelmed? I mean really overwhelmed? Overwhelmed because you've for some reason been handed a responsibility that you never imagined you'd be given, that you haven't really been prepared for and that you're convinced you're just not up to? It might be something as everyday and as routine as parenthood – but let's admit it – how many of us (especially at first) really felt up to the responsibility of nurturing and guiding an entire human life (or perhaps several human lives) for a good number of years? As commonplace as parenthood is, when you take a step out of it and look objectively at it, it's really a rather overwhelming responsibility. There are many other things that we have to face. I remember at about the age of 20 having to make all of the arrangements for the funeral of a dearly beloved uncle simply because literally all of the rest of the family who might have been turned to were out of the country and somebody had to do it. But it was overwhelming. I really had no idea what I was doing. The funeral director made a suggestion and I looked at him blankly and said “sure.” A couple of weeks ago I spoke to you about the teenagers who showed up at my door in Newfoundland on the night before the very first funeral I would ever conduct as a minister. Setting aside my complete lack of experience with exorcisms, what I didn't tell you was that the funeral was for a 28 year old woman who had died suddenly and tragically and violently and whose father was the chair of the Board of the church that I had just become the minister of less than a week before. That was overwhelming. Three years of theological college hadn't prepared me for that. My ministry experience to that point had been as an intern working under a supervisor. If things got too heavy, I could just give him a call and say “Leslie, I think I need your help.” When I got the call about that death, I have to admit that the first thought that went through my head was “I have nobody to call. What am I supposed to do?” Responsibility can be an overwhelming thing.

 

      “You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet ...” Those words are also overwhelming. Last week I was speaking of stewardship as the need for us to be prepared to give of ourselves for the sake of the other – and to do so unconditionally and without reservation and without holding anything in reserve. But stewardship is about even more than that. It's about giving – but giving can become a rather mindless thing. Pre-authorized donations out of our bank accounts are great and convenient things, but they can also mean that we give without thinking about either what we're giving or why we're giving. It just becomes mechanical. I'd say that stewardship is meant to be more than that. Real stewardship that honours God means thoughtful giving and responsible action. That's what our Psalm is hinting at this morning. If we are the rulers over all that God created and if all other created things have been placed under us, then we have been given great responsibility – and we should exercise that responsibility with great care. The proper exercise of responsibility is also stewardship. But too often we act without great care.

 

     The problem goes way back to the beginning. In our evening Bible Study a couple of weeks ago, we talked about the first chapter of the Bible – Genesis 1. Genesis 1 puts us in charge. We've been given “dominion” most translations say over creation; some say that we are to “rule over” creation. That kind of makes you feel important doesn't it. After all, as Psalm 8 told us, we have been made just “a little lower than the angels” and we have been “crowned ... with glory and honour.” That's almost enough to get us puffed up - and power without responsibility can be a very dangerous thing that makes us feel more important than we really are, and that makes us think that we have the authority to do whatever we want whenever we want, when in fact our authority is subject to God. Power exercised in ungodly and irresponsible ways can be dangerous and destructive and – to be blunt – positively evil in what it does. That's one reason why I really like what Eugene Peterson does with Genesis 1. In a translation of the Bible entitled “The Message,” Peterson offers God's instructions as “Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature so they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, and, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.” Did you hear the word “responsible.” That we are “responsible” means that we have responsibility. As powerful as we may be – as creative and unfortunately also as destructive as we may be – we are not masters of all we survey. Our authority is limited, because it comes from God; it's not ours by right. We're responsible to God for how we use (or for how we abuse) all that God has given us – whether the material possessions we have or the world that surrounds us. We are – in the words of the United Church Creed - “to live with respect in creation.” That means that creation is not ours to do with as we will; creation is ours to enjoy and to use in accordance with God's will. Those two things are very different, and I think we're supposed to be just a little overwhelmed by the authority God has given us.

 

     “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” The author of this Psalm raised a great question. When you think of the vastness of creation and the vastness of the earth we live on – what are we that God has given us such authority and such responsibility? And while we may well ask “what are we,” when you consider the state of the world and really what a poor job humanity has done at exercising our responsibility for God's creation, God probably looks upon us from time to time and asks “who do you think you are?” But the good news, I suppose, is that we are something. We're a part of what God has created. We're God's beloved children. When we make a mistake – and even if we keep making mistakes - God moves on and lets us move on by giving us another chance to finally get it right!

 

     Lynn and I recently changed our financial planner. Three years ago – just as the markets were beginning to crash in 2008 – we had met with our then financial planner. He had a very thorough meeting with us, and took a close look at the resources we had – at our RRSPs and Mutual Funds and investments and all those things that people need today to stockpile some sort of nestegg for the future. Because the market was crashing, our planner said that he was going to put half of what we had into gold, because gold was a safe investment, especially compared to the markets. It sounded like a great idea. We told him to go ahead and do it. The price of gold at that time was about $850 an ounce. Today gold is over $1600 an ounce. We made a killing – right? Actually, wrong. The financial planner we trusted with our hard-earned savings let us down. He never transferred anything into gold; he left everything where it was and we lost big time. 

 

     That's just money. We'll overcome that little challenge – hopefully with the help of a new financial planner who's more trustworthy and responsible. Money's not everything. Money's not life. I've got a roof over my head and food on my table and a bed to sleep in and a wife and daughter that I love. I'm a blessed man! Truly blessed! But I kind of understand what God's reaction to the state of the world must be. “You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.” The human race really hasn't been very responsible in how we've lived up to that responsibility. Rather than caring for creation we've tended to exploit creation. Rather than being constructive in our actions, we've all too often been destructive instead. The good news, though, is that God doesn't give up on us. God hasn't taken our responsibilities away from us. God hasn't sat us on the bench the way a hockey coach might sit a struggling defenceman on the bench. God still believes in us. God still loves us. God still trusts us with all that's His. That's an overwhelming thought. May we show that God's trust is well placed. May we be more faithful in how we live – loving each other, and, indeed, living with respect in creation in order to honour the God who created and who wants us to care for His creation. In the words of the Psalm, “Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”