Living in the Middle

May 1, 2011

Joint Worship at St. Matthew's AME Church

Psalm 8; Philippians 2:5-11

Life in the middle.  Have you ever thought about life in the middle?  I think we are called to life in the middle.  Today I’d like to explore with you what life is like in the middle.  Of course this begs the question, in the middle of what?  Or perhaps, the middle of when?  Or even, the middle of who?

I’ve spent this week living in the middle of Psalm 8.  Psalms are poetic and musical, and filled with images.  Images that evoke emotions; images that stimulate our imaginations; images that move us beyond the ordinary.

As I pondered this psalm, I found myself captured by all kinds of images.  I was drawn to the image of wet glue in between two tiles.  When the tiles are pulled apart, the wet glue in the middle is pulled in multiple directions – some stuck to one tile, some stuck to the other.  It’s messy. It’s unpredictable.  Sometimes I think life in the middle is like wet glue.

I also imagined living in the middle as being like a rubber band between two fingers.  The rubber band can be stretched in healthy ways, but can also be stretched to the breaking point!  Perhaps life in the middle is like a rubber band – there are many times of healthy growth, as we stretch our lives in new ways.  But there is also that point where there is too much tension and the rubber band snaps.

As these images kept coming to me, I thought about life in the middle of a trash compactor.  Now that is an uncomfortable place to live!  It is dirty and smelly, and when the compactor gets turned on everything inside gets crushed!  Sometimes life in the middle is like that – oppressive and crushing.

As I reflected on these images, I wondered why these images of living in the middle are largely negative.  Why have I landed in this place of discomfort – this place of great tension – after reflecting on Psalm 8 this week?  After all, it is a beautiful psalm filled with praises to the God of all creation.  And yet, I kept running into the tension in the middle.  Listen for this tension:  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? (v. 3-4)

It is hard to imagine the heavens as the psalmist would have seen them – filled with stars, providing light in the midst of deep darkness.  We live in a world were we produce so much light that we obscure most of the heavenly light.  Several years ago I was visiting my family in Arizona.  One night we all piled into a car and drove out to the middle of nowhere to star gaze.  The comet Hale-Bopp filled part of the sky, and the Milky Way truly looked like a band of white across the sky.   There were so many stars I couldn’t pick out the Big Dipper or Orion or Cassiopeia – constellations I can see here on any cloudless night.  There really are no words to describe how small I felt.  This is the sky the psalmist would have gazed at, wondering “what are humans that God notices them?”  Who are we that God cares for us?

Today we have even more amazing images of the heavens sent back to us from the Hubble telescope.  The images of galaxies and nebulas and black holes are astonishingly beautiful.  “When I look to your heavens, the work of your fingers...”  I imagine God’s fingers carefully crafting these astonishing places in our vast universe.  One breathtaking image from Hubble is that of a star nursery – yes, a nursery!  Millions of stars being birthed in the midst of this protective “cloud” – what a wondrous sight!

Then we return to earth and humanity – and we seem so small, so insignificant. What are human beings that you are mindful of them? If we go back to the creation story in Genesis we are reminded that we are dust. “The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (2:7).  Without God’s breath of life, we are dust.  We are nothing.

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? (v. 3-4)

And yet... the psalmist goes on: “Yet you have made [humans] 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” (v. 5-6).

These verses pull me straight into the middle – into this place of tension and discomfort where we live.  This place that is between the wonders of God’s astonishing creation, and the memory that we are dust.  This is the place God has placed us – a little lower than God, yet in charge of God’s creation.  Here we are – in the world, yet not of the world.  It is a place of great responsibility; and a place where we so often feel utterly helpless.  We live in the awkwardness of this middle.  And yet, we so often miss this reality.

We read that God has made us just a little lower than God, and we either hear that we are just like God or we hear that we are dust.  We tend to push for the extremes instead of embracing the middle.

At one extreme, humans live as if we are just like God.  We have found incredible ways to create and sustain life, and equally incredible ways to destroy it.  Like God’s stellar nurseries, we feel we’ve tapped into God’s creative power as we do research with stem cells, or build atom bombs – and in many ways we have.  At this extreme we feel certain that, like God, we have got this world under control.

At the other extreme, humans feel caught by situations beyond our control, helpless.  We feel as if God is not at all mindful of us.  Just think of the tornadoes that swept across the south this week, ravaging communities and killing hundreds.  Where is this God who cares for us?  Or consider broken relationships, lost jobs, loved ones who make bad decisions... Who is this God who created the heavens in all their beauty and yet seems absent from the messiness of our lives?  What does it mean that God crowned us with glory and honor when all these bad things happen?

The truth is, we actually live in this middle, between these two extremes.  There are times when we tap into God’s creative power and there are times when we feel utterly helpless.  We feel the tension of living in the middle, and often we rebel against the middle.  And yet God has called us to this middle; God has given us dominion over all of creation. 

I struggle with the language of dominion.  God has given humanity dominion over all the works of God’s hands.  The psalmist links dominion with putting all things under the feet of humans.  This creates a vivid image for me of humans treading and trampling all things, the way a herd of cattle tramples grass – giving no heed to what is being trampled.  Some Christians have interpreted dominion in this way, trampling not just the earth and the animals that roam upon the earth, but other humans as well.  While this is deeply disturbing, I don’t think this has always been done in malice.  It reflects our struggles with understanding what it means to be in the middle.

For example, I think of the way the European conquerors trampled the natives of the New World and the slaves brought over from Africa – believing they were civilizing and Christianizing the New World as they trampled and crushed old customs, and practices, and beliefs.  They didn’t see that this was an extreme understanding of dominion.  Rather they thought that they had God-given solutions – they believed they could create a better world.

As Christians, I think that we have sometimes swung to the other extreme, so afraid of trampling others that we do absolutely nothing.  We are reluctant to share the gospel with others for fear of offending them.  We are unwilling to confront injustice and racism and economic disparity in our communities for a myriad of reasons that often come down to fear.  We are uncertain of how to respond to environmental concerns... It is as if we have forgotten that our God is the God who created the heavens and the earth.  Our God has invited us to be caretakers of all of God’s creation.

God is calling us to a place of great tension and discomfort – a place we should not shy away from – this place in the middle, between the two extremes.  This is a messy place where some people are crushed and others snap under the pressure.  This is an awkward place where we don’t have all the answers.  This is a place of awesome responsibility.

In the middle we remember that God is God and we are not.  We recognize that God has chosen to share God’s power with us, and that this calls us to step gently as we seek to love and nurture and sustain everything God has put under our feet.  In the middle, we feel the tension of longing for power versus wanting to live humbly.  We recognize our daily struggle to trust in God rather than giving in to fear.  We long to know how to live faithfully in this place in the middle between the first creation and the new creation.  Yet sometimes we get so lost in the middle, in the messiness, that we lose sight of where we are.

Let’s step back and regain our perspective.  Look at this beautiful psalm.  It starts and ends with praise!  “O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”  “O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”  Like book ends, reminding us that no matter how challenging life in the middle can be, we are always called to begin and end with praise.  Like a sandwich made with two slices of the bread of life – adding flavor and grace to our lives in the middle.  Like the hands of God – our Lord and Sovereign – holding us and protecting us and loving us as we live in the middle.  

But there’s more good news.  Jesus gets what life in the middle is like.  From the Philippians Christ hymn we affirm that Jesus Christ, “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, and being born in human likeness” (2:6-7).  He has lived in the middle – fully human and fully God.  Jesus knows what it feels like to stand in the middle between a broken world and the healing/creating power of God. Jesus knows how uncomfortable and messy life can be. It led to death on a cross.

Yet, in Christ’s death we find overwhelming, undeserved forgiveness.  And in Christ’s resurrection we find new life.  And in this Easter season we live as those who have found new life in Jesus and yet still see the brokenness of this world.  Remember, Jesus knows the pain and struggles and challenges and temptations of life in the middle.  He sent his Holy Spirit to give us life and guide us in all truth as we live in the middle.  And when we step back and look, we realize that our Heavenly Father is holding us in his hands and will not let us fall.  So no matter what life throws at us, let us embrace a life that begins and ends with praise! “O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”  In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.