Glory and Honor

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     Nigh onto fourteen years ago, I was leading a Bible study in the Psalms. We didn’t get all 150, only a handful. Psalm 8 was on the list. When we got to verses 3-5, one dear lady’s eyes welled up and she began weeping:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
    and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
    and crowned him with glory and honor.

     Why the weeping? I knew her story from way back. It was anything but glory and honor. You could probably count on one hand the number of people who had affirmed her by calling attention to her worth as a person created in the image of God. Her husband had been foremost among those who had not. The Scripture brought on a flood of grief in that moment – if glory and honor was what God planned for those made in his image, what was she?

     From the time Cain murdered his brother, dehumanizing has been a problem. What’s surprising is how pervasive the problem is. There have been the super-villains, the scant fraction of a percent who have propagated genocide and holocaust – for the rest of us, the sin of dehumanizing is ever “crouching at the door” (Genesis 4:6).

     Pop Bible quiz from Genesis 2 – Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (verse 18). What happened next? I’ve asked roughly two dozen people that question; all but one has said, “God made Eve.” Bzzzzzzzzt – wrong answer. God did put Adam into a deep sleep, took a rib from him, and made the first woman. But that was later, in verses 21-22. What happened in between?

    Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him (verses 19-20).  

     Of all the creatures on earth, not one was fit for Adam to be one flesh with; nothing less or other than a fellow image-bearer would do. Adam began to see creation God’s way (compare verses 18 and 20) when he began to see God’s image God’s way. Imagine him coming to the last animal and asking, “What else ya got?”

     The only way I’ve ever known to keep from dehumanizing is to actively humanize – to see God’s image God’s way, and set humanity above all the rest of the created order. This is not a cerebral or philosophical exercise; it exists in every “here” and every “now.” And it’s not automatic; preferences, politics, ambition – heck, the crankiness of any given day – will clamber to the top, given the least bit of a chance… just as it did with Cain. Humanizing is a constant endeavor involving mind and body, will and emotion.

     This description of active humanizing gains credence in the example Jesus sets in the Gospels. Jesus blows up systems to save people. Two thousand pigs, and the livelihoods they represented, were destroyed to deliver the Gerasene demoniac. Matthew was called right out of his tax-collecting booth. Moneychangers’ tables were turned upside-down. Sabbath rules were turned right-side up. Zacchaeus got redemption in exchange for his racketeering. And you don’t see Jesus turning aside from needy people to heal somebody’s dog or cat or canary. Imago Dei is above and beyond.

     Last week I asked you to engage the mind of Christ whenever you pick up news. How’s it going? Over the past several days, I’ve come to call it “reading the paper with Jesus.” Yes, I read actual newspapers – and I read them with Jesus, actually. He keeps me alert to the imago Dei issues in every article… to a degree I couldn’t possibly attain without him. He also keeps me alert to the imago Dei issues in my living room, bedroom (whoa, look out!), jobsites, and office. The cab of my truck has become a Holy Spirit counseling center, and I’m the client. I ask again: How’s it going?

     The super-villains of dehumanizing have simply been those who were really effective in channeling the dehumanizing propensities of many individuals into a certain direction or against a certain people group. Without the individuals, the villains have no ammo. And that’s not a difficult concept to grasp – we’re all smart enough to pick up on it – so I’m proposing an approach that’s less ethereal and much closer to home.

     Start by unabashedly setting humanity above anything else in the created order. Jesus does. I’ve heard dolphins are smart. Throw a little algebra at a dolphin. Write the problem in Sharpie on the flank of a baitfish, and you’ll have your answer tomorrow. Meanwhile, there are people all around us who are living in a deficit of glory and honor. Surely, from the abundance of God’s glory, we his people can put some into circulation.

     The lady who wept in the Bible study – I get to see her several times a year. I’m happy to report that there are several people in her life these days who discreetly and authentically bestow glory and honor on her. This is active humanizing in its purest form. And I’m thoroughly convinced Jesus is pleased.

 

 Grace and Peace (and a right-side up view of creation),

 

John