Once Upon a Time Things Were Bigger

Text: Psalm 8

Once upon a time we were bigger. A lot bigger.

In the time of Moses, in the time of Jesus, even up to the time of Martin Luther, we were bigger. Human beings could walk from one end of the universe to the other. One end being the west coasts of Africa and Britain, the other end being the east coasts of Asia. Humans could cross the universe on foot in less than a year. And did. Luke tells us in the book of Acts that people came to Palestine to hear about Jesus from every place under heaven

Once upon a time we were younger. A lot younger.

In the time of Moses, Jesus, and Luther, we could count back through the generations of humankind to the very beginning of the universe. Your grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s … and so forth … was Adam. Lots of generations, but numerable. Possible. Traceable. They are listed in the Bible—if you allow for a little glitch here and a little nip and tuck there— from Adam to Jesus. If you lay all these generations end to end, you get to about 6,000 years for the age of the universe, or about 300 grandparent’s grandparents. Not so many. We could celebrate its anniversary without feeling too foolish.

The world was old, but not that old. The heavens were far, but not that far. The cosmos was big, but not that big. It was all sort of human-sized. Something humans could feel comfortable with. Awe-inspiring, magnificent, but comprehensible. Roomy.

How big, in this universe, could God be? How far away could God be? Not too big, not too far. Big enough to serve you, small enough to know you. Small enough to wander about in the garden of Eden. Small enough to have conversations with Abraham and Moses. Small enough to make a deal, a covenant, with a wandering tribe of nomads and freed slaves. Big enough to fill every space; but space was little. Ageless enough to be of all time; but long ago was not so long ago.

What are mere mortals that you should be mindful of them, human beings that you should care for them? The psalm asks. We share our grandparents’ sense of wonder at this. We seem to be especially blessed by our creator. We are a little confused these days about what it means to have dominion (not domination) over the animals and things of the earth, but we cannot deny that we are the beneficiaries of what seems to be a benevolent and generous giver. Other creatures have given up their lives and their coats for us. We do speak and name things and by language gain control over things. Human beings have prospered so far, and there are many of us. The world has been good to us. Why is that? God of the heavens and the moon and the stars is mindful of us and cares for us, so the psalm says. Why is that? God was powerful, and God was caring. But there was not so much on God’s plate as there is now.

We know now that everything is bigger and older than we can imagine. We can talk about it, but we cannot imagine it. And in the scale of the universe, we are much closer to the smallest thing than the largest thing. And the whole history of human beings is not as long as a click in a symphony. If you were distracted for an instant, in the life and breadth of the universe, you would miss us. We can talk about that too, but we cannot imagine it.

What are mere mortals that you should be mindful of them, human beings that you should care for them? In the face of our tiny-ness, we can agree with the psalm that it is amazing and we can praise God that God should mind and care for us. But now that we know how much there is, it seems sometimes to us that the effort God makes to do so is also unimaginable. God knows all there is to know. It seems too much.

So, in response some people deny that God exists. And some declare that even if God does exist, God is not, cannot be, mindful of us. And some say they it doesn’t matter what they think because it will not affect how they live one way or the other.

Followers of Jesus say that God became human. Became human while remaining God. Immanuel, we say, God with us. Human-sized and short-lived. But I’m not sure that that helps with this particular quandary. Does God become other things in other places in the wide universe? Is there a Jesus-like God for the fish and for the proteins in a cell and for the galaxies. And if not, why do we alone get Jesus?

Abraham Joshua Heschel, a wonderful and faithful thinker, says that the start or the ground of our relationship with God begins with our sense of the ineffable. Indescribable and inexpressible. We stand in awe in the universe—a Psalm 8 sized one or a modern gigantic one—and we are amazed. We marvel at our own existence and the blessing we seem to have. We are filled with wonder and we are filled with thanksgiving. We agree with the pslam. What are mere mortals that we should be blessed? That we should have life at all?

In one sense, in this sense, the nature of God is not really our concern. The size of the universe and the God that creates, fills, and runs it is not germane. The psalm does not ask, What is God that God should be mindful of us? It asks, who are we? I spoke at funeral yesterday and started out saying that I wanted to talk about me. I didn’t mean to say this—it just kind of popped out—and it was a little embarrassing, as it was not about me, as we say. It was about Alma. But what I meant was that it was about my response to her. I couldn’t really say what was going on from her point of view in our relationship. Just my point of view. That she was gracious to me and kind and attentive and make me feel cared for. When we talk about God, we can talk only about ourselves. What are mere mortals that God should be mindful of us?

When the disciples turn away the little children, Jesus gets upset. Do not stop the children, he says. Let them come. To come to God as children does not mean we have to be uncritical and unquestioning or be especially lovable. Children are often critical, skeptical, and hard to take. But children are rightly the center of their own universe. They are grateful and demanding in one package. Everything for them is ineffable.

Of course we will try to understand how God is and works. But how we imagine God changes in the course of our lives as well as in the course of history in the world. We can get all tied up in knots if we try to base our faith on that understanding. What we know for certain is what the children knew when they approached Jesus. God invites us in. And we are blessed.