Touching

             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 honor. 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 8:1-9)

          On Valentine’s Day, 1990, Voyager I took a picture of Earth from 3.7 billion miles away. For some, looking at that picture is about seeing how small and vulnerable our home is. For others, it’s about seeing how insignificant and worthless it, and by extension we are. I’ve also heard people who mock the Biblical description of man because it degrades man by saying we’re made from the dust or dirt. Those same folks may be the ones who are impressed by the following comment:

Our Sun is a second- or third-generation star. All of the rocky and metallic material we stand on, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes were produced billions of years ago in the interior of a red giant star. We are made of star-stuff. (Carl Sagan).

            They’re also likely to forget that according to evolutionary theory, we first came into being in primordial ooze. Returning to the quote, we came out of ooze that was made up of the corpse dust or smoke from giant balls of gas and plasma exploding. Not exactly a step up from “the dust of the earth.” The main difference is that creation involves someone or something making choices about what happened to the dust, while evolution involves nothing but chance. There is no dignity in evolution. We are no better than pond scum and any pretense that we are better is hubris.

          But according to today’s passage, though we may look at the pale blue dot in the picture and at the many other pictures of the universe, and in awe, wonder what possible place we have in it, dusty as we are. But the truth, as described in the passage, is that we are a little lower than angels. We’re crowned with glory and honor. We have the job of overseeing the world and all the creatures in it.

          We have not done a good job but that may not be the first point we need to notice. What does your hierarchy look like? According to today’s passage, it should  look something like this:

God

Angels

Man

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.

          Now, just how much space do you put between the various levels? I would tend to put God about 93 billion lightyears (the size of the universe) above angels. That’s still probably too close, but we need a visual. According to the passage, man is only a little lower than angels, but above animals. Now, in comparison to 93 billion light years, 93 million miles (the distance from the sun to the Earth) is insignificant. The question of how little a little lower is. The distance from the Sun to the Earth is small even compared with the distance from Earth to the Voyager I in 1990. And if we were to claim that animals are 9.3 miles lower than humans, or 93, 930, or 9.3 million miles, the point is that we were created to be a little lower than the angels, and to rule over the animals. The next question to consider is how far below the flocks, herds, animals, birds, and fish the plants are, and how far below the plants whatever additional levels of creation you care to posit exist.

          No matter how many levels, or how far apart the levels are, the key remains that man is only a little lower than angels. We aren’t vermin. We aren’t the scum of the earth. Even the basest human is still only a little lower than the angels, and above the animals.

          There’s part of me that argues with this passage. Instead of making it about how wonderful God is and what an amazing gift He has given us in making us only a little lower than the angels, it becomes a “one-downmanship” competition in which we look at ourselves and each other and call God a liar. But the thing that seems to be helping me fit where we belong in the hierarchy is to take my place within the hierarchy. As I learn how to function as higher than the animals and as their lord, I get too busy or involved to focus on where I fit in the rankings and, I think, more willing to accept my place because where I am matters.

          None of that really deals with what about the passage and the view God has of me described within touches me. The touch isn’t a pat on the head or the back. It’s more like the touch of a physical therapist wiggling my kneecap around and pulling the bones of my knee apart just a little so that maybe, with exercise, my knee will function more as it’s  supposed to.