Gifts from God
October 8, 2006, Proper 22B
Gen. 2:18-24; Ps,
8; Heb. 1:1-4, 2:5-12; Mark 10:2-16
In our second lesson today, we hear
the phrase, "What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that
you care for him? You made him a little
lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor and put everything
under his feet." Heb
2:6-8 This is a quote from Psalm 8 and
it harkens back to our first lesson - They intertwine and help us see the
creation of humankind in an enlightened way.
From our first lesson we hear…
Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. Gen 2:19-20
God brought forth the animals for
Adam to name and to determine how they were going to be a part of his life. God
gave the man the ability to name everything.
In primitive times, naming was an important process having profound
implications. A given object, place or
being had to be evaluated, and a relationship discovered. A significance had to be determined. Some of examples of naming in the Old Testament
are:
When Abraham was preparing to sacrifice his son Isaac, the Lord told him not to do it and there was a ram caught in the thicket. So Abraham called that place 'Jehovah-Jireh,' (which means The LORD Will Provide.) And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided." Gen 22:14
Isaac named
his second son Jacob (it means
"he grasps the heel" - or "deceiver"), because he was
holding his twin brother's heel when he was born. Gen
25:26
After
having a dream from God, Jacob called that place where he was sleeping,
Hannah named her son Samuel - which means "heard of God" because God heard her prayer and answered it. Samuel 1:20
To give you
an example of the implications of naming:
Rachel died giving birth to her second son, - as she died, she named her
son Ben-Oni (which means "son of my trouble"). But his father named
him Benjamin (which means "son of my right hand.") Gen
35:18 Different people, different
relationship and perspective.
People have been naming things ever
since. If you invent or discover
something, then you usually get the privilege of naming it. That name might be descriptive, or it might
be egotistical, or it might hold other significance,
We have the ability to name other
things in this life - those things that affect our lives - we have the ability
and the responsibility to name them and to determine what significance they
have for our lives. One of the quotes I
ran across that really hit me was: "Two men looked out through prison
bars. One saw mud; the other
stars."
Wanting to use that quote, I
searched for the author and found it attributed to the mother of a young WW2
bride, to Robert Louis Stevenson, to his
mother and to Oscar Wilde. Further
research discovered that is was attributed to the Rev. Canon Frederick
Langbridge in "A Cluster of Quiet Thoughts" published in a British
Religious Tract. The only other things
I found out were that he was a poet and clergyman, he lived from 1849 to 1923,
and that he apparently wrote verse for a greeting card company in
"Two
men looked out through prison bars. One
saw mud; the other stars."
Two men, same scene, but one pair
of eyes chose to look down to the lowest and dirtiest dimension of what is
there, while the other chose to look up to the heights of glory. Part of this difference is how we view life
in general. Do we regard our existence
as a gift or as entitlement?
What causes two people to see the
same scene so differently? Unlike the
mud and stars they view, the two people behind the bars (and all of us) have
been given the gift of interpretation. We
have been given the ability, not only to perceive objects, but also to assess
those objects and assign them a given value in relation to our lives. In other words, we have been given the
ability to name them.
Naming is a Three-fold
process. First we have to discover the
nature of the object, place or being.
Next we determine what significance it has for our life. And last, how are we going to react to it in
light of the first two steps. This is
not just a gift or ability, but it is a responsibility.
I have the responsibility to
"name" whatever touches or becomes a part of my life. We have all been given this ability to
"name" that which touches or becomes a part of our lives. This
ability to name represents human freedom and creativity of the highest
sort. I am not free to determine the
shape of realities beyond myself - for they have a life and existence of their
own. But I am free to decide what significance those particular realities
are going to have for me.
We don't live life in a vacuum and
being human means being in relationship - with God, with the world around us,
and with each other. If we back up to
verse 7 in the second chapter of Genesis, we find God made the man from the dust of
the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man
became a living being. God got his hands
dirty creating us - and we have a relationship with God whether we want it or
not. But we determine what that relationship is going to be.
A friend sent me an email one day
that I really liked. It said, "EVEN
WHEN YOU CAN'T SEE HIM...GOD IS THERE."
Very similar to a plaque at a friend's house, "Bidden or unbidden,
God is present." God is always
there - we can ignore him, pretend he doesn't exist, fight him through our own
pride and ego… Or we can acknowledge his
presence and accept his will in our lives.
I have a daily prayer sheet I
handed out to the students at Sam Houston while I was there. In that prayer sheet was a daily
affirmation. It acknowledges…
God has a
plan for this day - and this plan includes me.
I am an
idea in the mind of God, in the process of unfolding.
It goes on
to say: As a child of God:
I
appreciate myself as His creation.
I do not put myself down in
any way.
I love people.
I forgive those who have hurt
me.
Forgive me, Lord, for the pain
I have caused in others.
I am in harmony with all
living things.
It acknowledges that God is
sovereign - in control - and that we are to live our lives in partnership with
him. Some people seem to try to live
their lives in spite of God. It's really
hard to be in charge of the world - to try to make everything come out the way
you want it to. Life is much easier when
we leave the tough stuff up to God and then we can concentrate on living our
lives in harmony with him and his creation.
If we look at verse 15 in Genesis
2, we find, "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden
to work it and take care of it."
But he didn't just plop the man down there and leave him. He gave him instructions and then realized
that it was not good for the man to be alone and that he needed help. So God made the animals and brought them to
the man to determine what significance each animal would have for him. God gave the man authority and responsibility
in naming the animals.
And no suitable helper was found
for the man, so God created woman, taken out of man, a part of man, equal in
every way. What had been missing was a
companion. Human beings become fully human, not by themselves, but in community. But even after the community was established,
God did not leave them alone. He
remained active in their life - but he didn't smother them, or control them. He gave them free will and the ability to
name what touched their lives.
Remember that scripture we started
out with from our second lesson? "What is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory
and honor and put everything under his feet." Heb 2:6-8
God created us for his own joy, to
have someone to love, to care for. Like
any parent, God takes pleasure in the accomplishments of his children. So much so that when we (as a race) fell into
trouble and needed more help - God once more 'got his hands dirty' - he came down
from heaven and became 'incarnate' - took on a human body to live and die as
one of us. And it is through Jesus
Christ that we receive power to do all things.
If we look back at our original
question - how do two people see life so differently - there is more than just
the ability to name what touches us. An
important factor is our starting vantage point or the beginning assumption we
have about life itself. Do we consider
life to be a gift? Or do we consider it
to be a right, as in the spirit of entitlement?
My favorite comic strip is Rose is
Rose. One strip showed the little boy
Pasquale talking to his guardian angel, and he says, "When a person is
born, he should be issued tickets to all the rides and attractions." The guardian angel replies, "What rides
and attractions? The world is not a big
amusement park." Pasquale replies,
"Oh, this is worse than I thought…”:
Unfortunately there are a lot of people out there who feel the same way
- they think the world owes them a living..
They keep finding themselves disappointed over and over when the things
they think should happen, don't materialize.
I had a neighbor back in Alvin -
actually one I really liked, but "Judy" is one of these people who
talks constantly and always has an opinion on everything. I began to wonder at one point why she ever
went on vacation. I never saw her come
back from vacation without complaining about everything. She complained about the food, the
accommodations, the prices, the attractions/activities, about the road
conditions, about - well, you name it, she complained about it. I always wanted to say, "Judy, why don't
you just stay at home?"
I was always so grateful to get
away for an actually vacation, that I found everything delightful. Sam is about the same way - and I'm really
glad or he really could have gotten awfully mad at me any number of times. One time in particular was when the kids were
young and we were driving up the
God has given us a gift in Jesus
Christ - a reason and way to look at life - through the eyes of God - of
Jesus. Part of the morning devotional I
gave the students addresses this gift.
5.
I accept Christ's gift of the Abundant Life in me today:
Health in my mind, body and
spirit.
Success with personal
relationships.
Inspiration for my creative
endeavors.
Especially for the projects I
am now undertaking.
Since God has crowned us with glory
- accept it and benefit from it. When God created us, he created us from the
mud, but he created us for the stars.
They are ours if we just reach out and take them - not a right, but a
gift.
*************************************************************
One thing concerning gifts I want
to mention before I close - the first lesson ends with the man saying, "This
at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh… A man leaves his father and his mother and
cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." About the gift of a companion that God has
given me in this life, I feel very blessed, and I have always considered Sam to
be a gift from God. I never cease to
marvel at how blessed I am to have him for a husband. One of the things we do is to acknowledge our
love for each other - often. It's part
of the concrete that holds our marriage together.
Have you seen the movie, Fiddler on
the Roof? There's a lot of joy in that
movie. But there's also a point of
question, where the central character, Tevye, is puzzling over the fact that
his daughters do not want to marry the men he has chosen for them. Instead they want to marry men they
love. This is a new concept for the
dairyman and so he begins to think about his own marriage.
He turns to his own wife, Golde,
and says,
"`Do
you love me?'
"`Do I
what?'
"`Do
you love me?'
"`What
kind of question is that?' Asks Golde. `Go lie down. You must have
indigestion.'
"`Golde,
I'm asking you a question--do you love me?'
"`Do I
love you? For twenty-five years I've washed your clothes, cooked your meals,
cleaned your house, given you children, milked the cow. After twenty-five years,
why talk of love right now?'
"`Golde,
the first time I met you was our wedding day, I was scared, I wondered if we
would get on together. But my father and mother said we'd learn to love each
other. And now I'm asking, Golde, do you love me?'
"`Do I
love him? For twenty-five years I've lived with him, fought with him, starved
with him. Twenty-five years my bed is his. If that's not love, what is?'
"`Then
you love me?'
"`I
suppose I do.' "
`And I
suppose I love you, too.'
Tevye and Golde then sing together
and this is their song: `It doesn't change a thing, But even so, After
twenty-five years, It's nice to know.'"
The companions God places in our
lives (they may
be spouse or child or friend…) but they are gifts, not luck or a
right. When God created us, he created
us from the mud, but he created us for the stars, and he gave us companions to
share them with. They are ours if we
just reach out and take them - not a right, but pure gift.
Please feel free to email me with any comments or
questions at nan@doerrworks.com