Psalm 8:1-9 (NRSV)
Read Psalm 8:1-9 on biblegateway.com
Verse 1O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.
Verse 2Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.
Verse 3When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;
Verse 4what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
Verse 5Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.
Verse 6You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet,
Verse 7all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
Verse 8the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
Verse 9O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Devotion
God’s majestic creation is celebrated in the entire community of humanity, singled out as “crowned with glory and honor.” Thirty some years ago I served an inner city congregation whose church’s main work was serving people of that poor neighborhood lunches several days a week. Though challenging at times, the benefits of that service were boundless.
This psalm is a reminder of grace—God’s free gift of love for all people. There is no list we can complete to be worthy of that grace. It is as if God says you have dignity, you are worthy, you are loved, you are mine. That love is for all of God’s creation—for you and me and especially those people we are tempted to think of as less than ourselves.
Thank God all people are created in the very image of God. What a great God who has created us and who makes every one of us worthy of that love!
Prayer
To you, O God, we pray and praise you that you have made us a little lower than yourself. Help us to welcome and love as sisters and brothers all those whom you created as a part of the human community.
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