"Made for Goodness"
A Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Hilary J. Barrett
Preached at Pleasantville UCC, May 30, 2010
Psalm 8 & Proverbs 8 (selected verses)

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
 the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.
(Psalm 8:3-5)

The first time I saw the Northern Lights I was in Wisconsin.  It was late summer.  Rob and I had just moved from California to Minnesota.  I was soon to begin my theological studies at a seminary in the Twin Cities and I had driven from our new home in Minneapolis to a retreat center several hours away in rural Wisconsin.  I was to participate in a weekend retreat for students matriculating in the fall.

After a long evening of sharing and fellowship, a group of new seminarians were walking together down a dark country road when it first began: curtains of shimmering green light dancing in the distance.  It looked like the most amazing “fireworks” I had ever seen.  The whole group of us decided to lie down on the ground in the middle of a field just so we could get a better view.  There, far from the distraction of city lights, the sky was ablaze with color and a multitude of stars.  Lying there in the middle of that field there was plenty of applause and awe-struck silence as we marveled at the beauty of the night sky.

The Aurora Borealis is the name given to these magical light shows that appear in the far northern latitude.  I decided to look online for a scientific description of the event.  Apparently, the northern lights are “the result of the emissions of photons in the Earth's upper atmosphere, from ionized nitrogen atoms regaining an electron, and oxygen and nitrogen returning from an excited state to ground state.”[1] 

Yeah.  OK.  Wikipedia is great, but I think I like the Bible’s version of it better:

“The heavens are telling the glory of God.”[2]

It’s an awesome thing to witness the glory of the natural world.  Sometimes it’s easy to forget what a miracle all this really is.  Just a few degrees of difference here or there and we’d be just a little too close to the sun or just a little too far away from it.  But by God’s gracious hand, we are exactly where we are supposed to be.

O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?

Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

It really is a wonder that in a world so complex and awesome as ours, and in a universe so vast, we are not only remembered by God, but created to be (in the words of the psalmist) “a little lower than God.”

This is one of those occasions when the secular calendar of our culture intersects the sacred calendar of our faith and the result becomes a study in paradox.  Paradox is when two seemingly contradictory things are both true.  On this Memorial Day Sunday, when we remember those honored dead who have fallen in the service of their country, we are given a text from the Book of Psalms that proclaims our essential godly nature.  We are created to be ‘a little lower than God;’ we are ‘crowned with glory and honor.’  And yet – we cannot manage to figure out how to live together without resorting to the violence of war.

A couple weeks ago I opened my morning paper to a two-page spread in the New York Times: a sea of faces in small black and white squares completely filled both pages of the paper -- and with their faces, both names and cities.  Marking the 7^th anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, the two pages of photos were the faces of the fallen —members of the armed services who have so far lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.  If you Google “Faces of the Dead,” you can find an interactive link online from the New York Times which shows these photos up close.

When I saw this sea of faces, I was struck by the obvious.  They are, for the most part, so incredibly young.  I knew this, of course.  Those of you who are veterans know it far better than I.  But when you stare at the pictures of Phillip Johnson, age 19, from Hartford, Connecticut who died September 3, 2006, or Donald Oaks, age 20, from Erie, Pennsylvania who died April 3, 2003 or Zarian Wood, age 29, from Houston, Texas, who died May 16, 2010 – then there’s no getting around it.  It is, quite literally, staring you in the face.

A little lower than God.  Crowned with glory and honor.  Paradox is when two seemingly contradictory things are both true at the same time.  How is it possible that we are made, according to the psalmist, ‘a little lower than God’ and yet, on this occasion when we remember our war dead, we are – even now – a nation at war?  It is a hard thing to fathom, how we can be both things at once. 

I’m reading a book by the Archbishop Desmond Tutu called, Made for Goodness.  Desmond Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.  Two years later he was elected archbishop of Cape Town, the highest position in the Anglican Church in South Africa.  And in 1994, after the end of apartheid and the election of Nelson Mandela, Tutu was appointed as chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate apartheid-era crimes.  His policy of forgiveness and reconciliation has become an international example of conflict resolution and a trusted method of postconflict reconstruction

Desmond Tutu has gained the trust and admiration of people all over the world.  He seems to be a man of unconquerable joy.  And he writes:

I speak to audiences across the world, and I often get the same questions: “Why are you so joyful?”  “How do you keep your faith in people when you see so much injustice, oppression, and cruelty?”  “What makes you so certain that the world is going to get better?”

What these questioners really want to know is, What do I see that they’re missing?  How do I see the world and my role in it?  How do I see God?  What is the faith that drives me?  What are the spiritual practices that uphold me?  What do I see in the heart of humanity and the sweep of history that confirms my conviction that good will triumph?

This book is my answer.[3]

It’s a book I needed to read.  You may need to read it too.  It’s nothing fancy really -- just one holy man’s conviction that “we are all designed for goodness, and when we recognize that truth it makes all the difference in the world.”[4]

What I appreciate about Bishop Tutu is that he’s no Pollyanna.  For three long years he served as chairman of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  During that time he had to listen to horrific stories of abuse; he had to bear witness to some of the greatest evils that human beings can visit upon one another.  He is a man who knows how dark the darkness can be.  And yet, he hopes.  And yet, he believes in our essential goodness. 

He tells a story about a woman named Natalie, who “sits in an orphanage in Rwanda cuddling a small child to her breast…”

Natalie is a Tutsi woman.  Her family was massacred by a Hutu mob in the genocide.  The child she is holding is not her own.  It is a Hutu child.  Who knows if the child’s parents are dead or if they have been imprisoned for their part in the slaughter?  Perhaps this is the child of one of those responsible for the death of Natalie’s family.  No matter; Natalie says she is grateful to be alive.  This person in her lap is alive and in need of comfort.  This small act of love is Natalie’s act of hope.  A hug is such an ordinary gesture.  It is repeated around the world a million times a day.  Natalie’s hug offers a testimony.  The ordinary gift of a cuddle stands as witness to goodness.  The child’s goodness has not been erased by her people’s deeds.  Natalie’s goodness allows her to see, in the face of one who might be considered an enemy, a child who is a good gift from the good God.[5]

We are capable of both immense goodness and immense evil.  That is, and has always been, the truth about human nature.  If it were not so, then those who were made “in the image of God” in Genesis 2 would not – just two chapters later – become the brother Cain who slew his brother Abel out of jealousy (Genesis 4).  Lord knows we need a witness for goodness!

            The Rev. John Thomas was General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ from 1999 to 2009.  John used to serve a church up in Easton.  He’s a local boy and he definitely made his people proud.

John’s son, David, is deployed in Afghanistan.  His decision to join the National Guard surprised his parents; “another reminder to parents” John writes, “that our children will make thoughtful and good decisions that diverge significantly from the path we imagine or desire for them.”[6]  On the occasion of Memorial Day in 2008, John wrote this:

I suppose Memorial Day will always be about patriotic ceremonies and the protests that gather around the edges.  But ultimately it's about the children we send off to places of physical danger and, often, even greater moral peril…

And it makes me wonder whether, at the very least, Memorial Day ought to be a day of lament for a world so morally unimaginative that the violence of war can seem more justifiable than regrettable.[7]

O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

…
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?

Yet you have made [us] a little lower than God,
and crowned [us] with glory and honor.

We were made for goodness.  Made in the image of God.  Made a little lower than the angels and crowned with glory and honor.  We were made to bless and to be a blessing.  But we are fallen creatures.  Broken in places we, ourselves, don’t even know and cannot name.  Both things are true.  It’s a paradox.

On this Memorial Sunday, when we pause to honor the fallen, let us also acknowledge that which is fallen within us.  Let us mourn for a world “so morally unimaginative that the violence of war can seem more justifiable than regrettable.”  And let us cling to the goodness that is our God-given birthright – a good that can grow and flourish if we will but stay faithful to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established…

… I am in awe.

Amen.