Sunday, June 15th, 2025 homily on Psalm 8 and Romans 5:1-5 for Trinity Sunday and Peace with Justice Sunday by Pastor Galen
“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 8:4-5
A Pale Blue Dot
Several weeks ago, I was in Ocean City, MD, for a couple of days for work. One morning, I woke up early to watch the sun rise over the ocean. As I stared out across the vast ocean, I felt so small in comparison. You’ve probably had a similar feeling if you’ve ever stared up at the night sky away from the city lights, or looked across a mountain range or desert landscape.
King David expresses this same sentiment in Psalm 8 when he says, “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?” (Psalm 8:3-4). Or as it says in The Message paraphrase of Scripture, “I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry, Moon and stars mounted in their settings. Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, Why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way?” (Psalm 8:3-4 MSG).
Indian mystic Sadhguru (b. 1957) said something similar when he said that humans are “just a speck of dust in the universe.” American planetary scientist Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996) took it a step further when he famously pointed at a pale blue dot depicting Earth in a photo taken by Voyager 1, saying, “Look…at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us…Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.”
After considering the vastness of the universe and the grandeur of the world God created, we might expect David to say, then, that our human existence is meaningless by comparison. Sagan seems to go down this path when he says that all “Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.” Sadhguru, too, said that “If you understand the context of your existence, you will naturally become silent.”
Crowned with Glory and Honor
But David takes things in a different direction. After asking, “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?”, he says, “Yet you have made them a little lower than God” (or in some translations, ”angels” or heavenly beings”), “and crowned them with glory and honor.” (Psalm 8:4-5).
David then goes on to talk about the great responsibility that God has bestowed upon human beings, saying, “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.” (Psalm 8:6-8).
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
Rather than looking at the grandeur of the universe and concluding that humans are worthless worms by comparison, David is instead struck by the vastness of the power and responsibility that God has bestowed upon us as humans in commanding us to steward and care for our vast and beautiful world.
We see this command in Genesis chapters 1, where God created the earth and sky and all of the plants and animals. Then God created humans and “blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth’” (Genesis 1:28). Of course, the words “subdue” and “dominion” here are not a license to hurt or abuse the earth and its inhabitants, but rather a mandate to care for the world and everything in it, just as political and religious leaders are called to serve and care for and protect the people that they lead.
We see an example of this in the creation story found in Genesis chapter 2, where God planted a garden called Eden and then took the first human, Adam, “and put him in the garden…to till it and keep it.” (Genesis 2:15).
Indeed, God has given us great powers, but as it has often been said, “with great power comes great responsibility.”
If we look at the flow of Psalm 8, then: David looks at the vastness of the universe, and the glory and splendor of Creation, and that leads him to glorify and praise God, our Creator (Psalm 8:1-3). David then looks at himself and humanity in comparison to the glory and majesty and splendor of God and God’s creation, and he wonders to himself why God even cares about us? (Psalm 8:4). But he’s blown away by the reality that God not only cares about us, but that God has gifted us and bestowed upon us as humans the power and responsibility of stewarding and caring for God’s creation (Psalm 8:5-8). And that then leads him to conclude by once again praising God, saying, “O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8:9).
We Have Not Been Left to Our Own Devices
Now, there is something assumed here in Psalm 8 that, while not explicitly stated, leads David to praise our God at the end of this Psalm. And that is that God has not left us alone to our own devices. After all, it would not be so great if God had created this vast and beautiful universe and put us in charge, and then walked away, leaving us “holding the bag” to “fend for ourselves” and to figure it out on our own.
But God is not the “divine watchmaker” as so many of the founding fathers of our nation assumed, who set the universe in motion but no longer intervenes in its affairs. Rather, God is actively at work in our world, guiding us and directing us, empowering us and equipping us to carry out the great responsibilities that we have been given.
The Method
We see examples of God providing guidance and direction throughout Scripture, including right away in Genesis chapter 2, where God gave the first humans guidance and direction about what they could eat and what they couldn’t eat in the Garden of Eden. And even when humans rebelled and ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that they were not supposed to eat from, God sought them out, and gave them animal skins to cover the shame that they experienced because of their rebellion.
God then gave them more instructions. Laws to govern the way they interacted with one another. Commandments that were for their own protection and their own good. Laws that would have helped them create a just and peaceful society. Laws to help ensure that there was enough food for everyone, and that everyone was treated with the dignity and respect that they deserved. Laws that instructed them to care for the most vulnerable in their society, such as the widows and foreigners and orphans. God gave them saws that put limits on our natural human proclivity toward violence and revenge. God even gave us laws that mandated that we rest one day each week, so that we do not run ourselves ragged trying to fulfill our God-given responsibilities!
I like to refer to all of this as “The Method.” The Bible provides us with the method for how to live our lives in such a way that we are healthy, and happy, and whole. Imagine for a moment if everyone in the world simply followed the Ten Commandments. The world would certainly be a much better place to live if everyone worshiped God, and refrained from stealing and lying, and killing, and if everyone was faithful to their spouse and honored their parents, and didn’t covet the things that belonged to their neighbors.
But alas, no matter how hard we try, we as humans just can’t seem to do the right thing all of the time. The tendency that we have as humans to put ourselves first at the expense of others, our temptations to lie to cover up our mistakes, and to blame others — it’s like a snowball that keeps getting bigger and bigger. The harder we try, the more we mess up.
But once again, God did not leave us to our own devices. God sent judges and prophets in the Old Testament, and filled them with God’s Spirit, to speak God’s words to the people and to call them back to God.
The Model
But God didn’t stop there. Because of God’s great love and care for the world, God took on flesh (see John 1:14) and sent us God’s only Son, Jesus, to live among us and show us the way to God. In Jesus, God presented to us a model and gave us an example of how we ought to live our lives. If everyone lived the way Jesus showed us how to live, and if everyone loved others the way Jesus loved, this world would certainly be a much more just and peaceful world!
The Means
But again, Jesus did not just give us a method or model for how we should live our lives. He also gave us the means by which we can be forgiven and redeemed and made whole, and by which we can make the world a better place when he died on the cross to take the punishment for our sins and wrongdoings and rose again victoriously three days later, conquering sin and death and hell and the grave.
After Jesus ascended back into heaven, he sent his Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth and to empower us to carry out the responsibilities that we have been given.
The Apostle Paul puts it this way in Romans 5, “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God” (Romans 5:1-2).
This does not mean, of course, that our lives are perfect or that we never go through difficult times, as the Apostle Paul acknowledges. We experience trials and tribulations, we experience hardships and sufferings. But even our sufferings can be redeemed, since Paul points out that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5). God’s love, poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. How beautiful is that?
Conclusion
We as humans are not simply robots, programmed to do whatever we are told. Nor are we powerless to effect change in the world. We have, in fact, been given great power, and with it, great responsibility. But we have not been left on our own. We have been given the method, the model, and the means by which we can fulfill our calling to make this world a more just and peaceful place.
So may we look to God for our source of strength and hope. May we follow the method and model that God gave us in Jesus Christ, and may we open ourselves up to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit working in us and through us to do the work to which we have been called.
Amen!
Questions for Personal Reflection in Response to Today’s Sermon:
- When was the last time you felt small in the face of creation—looking at the stars, the ocean, or mountains? What emotions did that stir in you?
- How does Psalm 8 shape your understanding of your place in the universe?
- Do you ever feel insignificant? How do you reconcile that with the idea that God has “crowned you with glory and honor”?
- In what ways are you exercising the responsibility God has given you to care for creation and others?
- Where might God be calling you to step more fully into your role as a steward of God’s world?
Hampden United Methodist Church 