January 19, 2025

“Fearfully and Wonderfully Made”

You’ve probably all heard about the schoolboy who was doing his homework, writing a report about his own life history.  At a loss for an appropriate introduction, he sought out his mother who was in the kitchen preparing supper.  Without warning, he asked, “Mom, how was I born?”

His mother, of course, knew that this question about human reproduction was inevitable, but she wasn’t about to deal with it while she was cooking dinner.  So she put him off with the old saw, “The stork brought you, dear.”

The boy nodded and moved to the living room where his grandmother was knitting.  Again without warning, he asked, “Grandma, how was my mother born?”

This dear lady knew the subject had to be dealt with by the boy’s parents, so wasn’t about to touch that one.  “the stork brought your mother,” she explained.

“Grandma,” the boy persisted, “how were you born?”

“The stork brought me, too,” she responded.

He thanked her, returned to his desk, and began his report with these words, “There hasn’t been a normal childbirth in our family for three generations.”

The question about where we come from was addressed repeatedly in the Hebrew scriptures.  In Genesis we are told that God created human beings from the dust of the earth.  That leitmotif is taken up in one psalm after another, nowhere more magnificently than in the passage we heard this morning from the 139^th psalm.  The composer of this magnificent work has left us with an enduring treasure, and at the climactic moment of his verbal symphony, he speaks to the Lord and offers this gem: “it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

I think the reason the ancients spoke so much about who created us is that they were awed by the profound wonder of being human.  The only way to give adequate honor to all that it means to be human is to acknowledge divine origins.  And we are, indeed, “fearfully and wonderfully made.”  St. Augustine remarked that, “People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.”¹  And I think it was Bob Hope who pointed out that in a period of twenty four hours – just one day – the heart beats 103,689 times, blood travels 168,000,000 miles through the body, we eat 3 1/2 pounds of food, drink 2.9 quarts of liquid, breathe over 23,000 times, and inhale 438 cubic feet of air.  He then concluded by saying, “Boy, I’m tired.”

But all of that is by no means the most fearful or the most wondrous of things about being human.  The things that stir my heart and send my mind whirling are things like the story of a young man we’ll call Hasan (he didn’t give his real name for security reasons).  He’s an engineer, and he was protesting for freedom in the streets of Damascus for the months.  He said, “I started protesting against my government on March 15 and I have demonstrated in Damascus and its suburbs many times since then. But I learned the lessons about tear gas on the first day of Ramadan when I joined one of three protests in the Midan, the heart of the city’s protest movement.  There were about 7,000 protesters on the streets . . . I was walking near the front of the crowd when I heard the sounds of Shahiba who had come up behind us and were attacking the rear of the crowd with batons and tear gas guns. . . . Three tear gas grenades fell right in front of me. Some protestors picked up a couple of the canisters and threw them back at the Shabiha.  A friend near me tried, but it burned his hand and he dropped it.  For about 20 seconds I couldn’t breathe and the smoke surrounded me. I felt like someone set me on fire. I felt like there was fire on every inch of my skin. I was sweating and felt a very bad taste in my tongue and throat.

I ran blindly to an alley and tried to get some fresh air into my lungs.  I was lucky that my friends and I had searched in the Internet and we knew not to rub our eyes.  One protester tossed me a can of soft drink to wash my face. I poured it all over my head. I couldn’t tell whether it was Coca-Cola or Pepsi but it helped me to recover . . .”²

Please note that before Hasan went out on the streets to protest, knowing what had been going on, he and his friends researched what to do when you are overcome by teargas.  Here’s what’s fearfully wondrous about being human: that a young man like this and thousands of others like him can hold within their hearts the precious idea of freedom, and that they can see people, gassed, arrested and carried off to be tortured, gunned down in the streets, and keep coming out to demonstrate day after day, for months on end.

Here’s what’s fearfully wondrous about being human: that a young, black pastor, filled with dread, can go to Memphis where he knows there are people determined to kill him.  And that young man can stand up in a church sanctuary and say, “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! And so I’m happy tonight.  I’m not worried about anything.  I’m not fearing any man!  Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”  That such words, that such power, that such courage and leadership could emerge from the soul of one human being is so wonderful it’s almost frightening.

Let me share with you what that same young preacher wrote in a sermon fifty years ago about what it means to be human.  He was talking about the man Jesus spoke of who decided to build new and larger barns to store up all of his crops, so that he could “eat, drink, and be merry.”  Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Jesus did not call this man a fool merely because he possessed wealth.  Jesus never made a sweeping indictment against wealth.  Rather, he condemned the misuse of wealth.  Money, like any other force such as electricity, is amoral and can be used either for good or for evil . . . . The rich man was a fool because he permitted the ends for which he lived to become confused with the means by which he lived.  The economic structure of his life absorbed his destiny.  Each of us lives in two realms, the internal and the external.  The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion.  The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live.  These include the house we live in, the car we drive, the clothes we wear, the economic resources we acquire – the material stuff we must have to exist.  There is always a danger that we will permit the means by which we live to replace the ends for which we live, the internal to become lost in the external.  The rich man was a fool because he failed to keep a line of distinction between means and ends, between structure and destiny.”³

Dr. King was keenly aware of something about the amazing artistry of being human, something that many of us pass over while we’re storing up our grains in bigger barns.  It’s a truth that I thought of while watching the birds.  Dadgie and I have been fascinated by the birds that flock to the bird feeder outside the window from our dining room.  In these winter months, it’s remarkable how many of them come, and how much they will eat.  They’re delightful creatures.  Their instincts keep them working constantly through these frigid days just to survive.  Here’s what’s fearfully wondrous about being human: that we do more, exponentially more, than survive, that we have the capacity to live for greater ends, that we have inner lives that speak to us of our destinies, that we make art, create literature, espouse morality, and can plumb the depths of the soul to make contact with divinity, the beating heart of creation itself.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of our time is told by what we do to the fearful wonder of being human.  To advertisers as well as political campaigns we are nothing more than “targets.”  To the IRS and the Social Security Administration we are just numbers.  In military campaigns human beings are “troops,” or “hostiles,” or “collateral damage.”  Maybe that’s one reason it becomes easier for soldiers to urinate on enemy corpses.  I remember having to fight for my personhood one time in the hospital.  I know nurses and hospital staff are overworked, and I know their jobs can be head spinning, to say the least.  But one afternoon, while lying in my hospital bed following a heart attack, someone came into the room to draw blood.  He never looked up from his clipboard, but simply muttered, “Are you 315a?”  I said, ‘No, last time I checked I was Mike Scott.”

One of the greatest tragedies in all of this is how we allow ourselves to be accomplices in the cheapening of humanity.  You and I fall into the trap of treating others, as well as ourselves, as nothing more than functionaries.  In this culture we are defined by what we do.  If someone asks about you, what’s your answer?  You might say, “I’m a stock broker,” or “I teach school,” or “I’m a housewife,” or “I’m retired,” which says next to nothing about you.  All the good stuff, all the stuff that matters about you is what Dr. King spoke about: the inner life of spirit, and the artistry of living, and intonations of destiny.  When a human being is reduced to a description of their function in society, then once that function is no longer being performed, they can become like a machine on which someone has pulled the plug.  They just lose power, wind down, and go out of commission.  What an incredible waste!  What a thing to do to this fearfully wondrous creation of divine inspiration!

Here’s my advice this morning.  Do not permit “the means by which you live to replace the ends for which you live.”  When you see remarkable examples of courage and moral strength (whether it’s in the news reports from Syria or in your next door neighbor, celebrate the wonder of human capacities.  Take time each day to acknowledge the artistry of your own soul and the inestimable value of your being, and to acknowledge the one who formed your inward parts, who knit you together in your mother’s womb.  For you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

¹ Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Book 10.

² http://middleeastvoices.com/2012/01/syria-witness-stories-of-allegiance-protest-and-survival/

³  Martin Luther King, Jr. Strength to Love, Harper & Row, 1963.