1.3 Commitment
STAGE 1: Facing Reality
IMAGES OF GOD’S BEAUTY
AFFIRMING MASTERPIECES
COMMITMENT
Aim: To affirm and defend the dignity of human beings.
Reading
Celebrating the dignity of human beings (Psalm 8):
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 honour. 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!
Comment
Psalm 8 begins and ends with the same statement: “O Lord, our Sovereign,how majestic is your name in all the earth!” That makes it the unmistakably main statement. Everything else serves this.
The Lord, our Lord, is not a tribal god or a territorial deity; he is majestic and supreme over all the earth and his splendour is above the heavens. Moreover, God’s majesty is manifest in the glory of his supreme creation – the human being. The truth that follows from this vision brings us to realise various consequences, such as:
- We cannot worship and glorify the majesty of God while treating his supreme creation with contempt –whatever colour or age that creation might be.
- We cannot starve the poor or abandon the aged and glorify the majesty of God.
- We cannot kill the unborn human and glorify the majesty of God.
- We cannot lynch the black human and glorify the majesty of God.
- We cannot treat human pregnancy like a disease and glorify the majesty of God.
- We cannot treat the mixing of human races like a pestilence and glorify the majesty of God.
Personal Reflection and Sharing
What course of action am I called to commit myself to in order to affirm and defend the dignity of God’s “supreme creation”, the human beings?
[1-3] CALL RESPONSE COMMITMENT PRAYER