6th October 2024
Reflection with readings below
What is the role of humans, of men and women? For what purpose have we been created? What is our role, our calling, towards each other, and towards other creatures?
The writings of Genesis tell us that all creatures including humans were created to protect and tend the earth – and in particular to protect and tend the Garden of Eden planted by God. In this task we – humans and creatures – have been created to help each other to live and work in harmony, fulfilling the will of God. That is the purpose for which we have been created.
Humans were created by God as male and female, men and women, to be partners – partners who will love and support each other so closely and intimately that they be comes as two halves of one.
Psalm 8 looks at the vastness of the cosmos in all its glory and majesty, complexity and beauty, and asks what is a mere human in comparison? And yet says the Psalmist we are most highly, indeed supremely valued and treasured by God! Further the Psalmist describes how God has placed the creatures of the field, of the air and of the seas, under our feet – but for what purpose? To celebrate the glory and majesty of God’s name!
So humans have been created both to protect and tend the earth in partnership with all other creatures, and to praise God’s name through our relationship with those creatures.
The writer of Hebrews also takes note of the glory and majesty that is attached to God – indeed the writer quotes from Psalm 8 – and sees that glory and majesty reflected in Christ. And that the reflection of God’s glory and majesty reveals that creation is sustained through the power of his works.
This leads the writer of Hebrews to suggest that the Psalmist’s words refer not to all humans but to that unique human in whom all things are made perfect. Look around, the state of the world where it is subjected to the dominion of most humans is a not a place of perfection. But where it is subject to the dominion of Jesus Christ, a different story can be told. And indeed when we talk of the salvation of the world – its healing and restoration – we are anticipating that state of being that will exist when the power and glory of Jesus has been fully established here on earth. And that is the salvation that makes us as brothers and sisters of Christ and so thus the Psalmist will not be wrong in describing humans as crowned with God’s glory and honour.
The final paragraph from today’s gospel tells us what we should be like as humans. Rather than being self important, wanting to be in charge, wanting to be seen as the person with power, we should be child-like – accepting our dependency on God our parent, looking with awe and wonder at the world around us, sharing joy, being open to new ideas. To be child-like is to be as Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden – enjoying being part of creation rather than attempting to over-ride it, to live within the earth’s boundaries.
Genesis 2:18-24
The Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called Woman,
for out of Man this one was taken.”
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Psalm 8
1
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2
Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
3
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
4
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
5
Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honour.
6
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
7
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
8
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
9
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12
Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. But someone has testified somewhere,
“What are human beings that you are mindful of them,
or mortals, that you care for them?
You have made them for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned them with glory and honour,
subjecting all things under their feet.”
Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, saying,
“I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters,
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.”
Mark 10:2-16
Some Pharisees came, and to test Jesus they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
The Green Tau 