The Message, June 15, 2025: "Breathing God," Psalm 8
Author: Rev. Scott W. Cousineau
June 17, 2025
“Breathing God”
A Message by Rev. Scott W. Cousineau
Psalm 8
Yesterday morning, I awoke an
anxiety-ridden mess. I woke before the sun came up with thoughts … worries …
swirling around in my head, and my stomach in knots. As I mentioned in our prayer
requests last Sunday, I officiated the graveside funeral service for William
Verrill yesterday afternoon.
What were the thoughts or worries swirling
in my head?
Did I pick out the right words and
sentiments for the family?
I have never been to Sapling Hill
Cemetery before? Will I be able to find it?
I have never really spent much time
in Gorham. How long will it take me to get there? Will there be a lot of
traffic?
Will the rain stop in time? Will the
ground be wet? Muddy?
Shirley asked for two hymns for the
service: ‘In the Garden’ and ‘How Great Thou Art.’ There will not be any
musicians or a choir, just me with my cellphone and a Bluetooth speaker. Will
there be any strong singers there? Will I be singing a solo?
Will there be any place to put the
Bluetooth speaker? How many copies of the hymns should I make?
Around and around and around they went
….
Oh yeah … I have not written my
sermon yet. What am I going to say? What about my Children’s Message?
Naturally, I left for the cemetery
much earlier than I needed to, but being late for a graveside service is just
unacceptable. Both my mind and my stomach whirled and swirled as I drove. My
entire focus was on the road and on my GPS giving me directions.
As you may have guessed … and as I
fully expected … everything went fine. I found my way to the cemetery. It is
right on the main road. The service went fine. The weather cleared. The singing
… well … there were only about a dozen or so people, so I let Alan Jackson take
the lead on that.
As I drove home, I still had the
lyrics from ‘How Great Thou Art’ filling my heart and my mind and my soul.
O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the *worlds thy hands have made,
I see the stars, I hear the *rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed:
Refrain:
Then sings my soul, my Savior God,
to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!
When through the woods and forest
glades I wander
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees,
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur,
And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze:
And I breathed. I breathed deeply. I
breathed in God. I breathed in God’s Holy Spirit. I breathed in God’s wonderful
peace.
The ride home was completely
different. The sun began to break through the clouds. I enjoyed the lush,
verdant scenery; a hundred different shades of green. I saw the adorable
cottage-like houses and their beautiful gardens in their front yards that I
missed on the drive there. I saw the rolling meadows and fields of the farms,
and the sea of yellow and purple flowers swaying amongst the grasses. There
were a couple of different moments in which I felt like a baby that had just
discovered for the first time that I had feet … or toes … or fingers!
And to give you more insight into
the way that my brain works … the commercial jingle for Foxwoods Resort and Casino
popped into my head. I have never been to Foxwoods and the only words from the
jingle that I could remember were “… the wonder of it all!” Thankfully, I
quickly caught myself, and my thoughts turned to Psalm 8.
Psalm 8 is the first Song of Praise
in the psalter. The previous seven psalms are songs of salvation. But as we
just heard, those verses sing of God’s glory and majesty. And unlike many of
the psalms which were written for communal singing … communal worship … this
psalm was written for the individual. This is a personal song of praise. It is
the only song in the Hebrew scriptures that was addressed directly TO God. It
was not ABOUT God, the psalmist sang this song to God.
All of these centuries later, we
have no idea what the psalmist was going through. We do not know what he was
experiencing. Was he having a difficult day? Was he having a glorious day? We
do not know why he needed to remind himself of the majesty and glory of God.
But we can understand it for ourselves.
How many of us travel through life
the way that I spent my morning yesterday? How many of us walk past the wonder
or completely miss the awe because we are so caught up in our stress, or
anxiety, or trauma, or just plain busy-ness? How many of us completely miss
seeing the purple, or the yellow, or the pink, the stars or the sunset?
The psalm reminds us to stop … and breathe
… and take it all in.
Another confession. I giggled as I
typed that last line about breathing because the cemetery was right next to a
working farm with cows and chickens. There were moments when breathing was a
very … earthy … experience. However, I will say that it was not necessarily an unpleasant
experience. The aroma brought me back to my childhood to a time when we lived
next to a farm.
But yes … stop and breathe.
Experience what God has made. Experience that world with the eyes and heart and
mind of that babe, or toddler, or ‘suckling’ … that infant; the ones for whom
everything is new and exciting and fascinating.
There are some cousins or siblings
of the faith for whom faith is dour and gloomy. It is about punishment, pain
and suffering. I am of the mind that on our side of the family faith has a
strong sense of wonder and awe. And there are those who believe that faith must
have wonder and awe in order to be a genuine faith. Certainly, the psalmist
likely falls into that group. After all, the opening line of his song of praise
is: “O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
He did not say, “Hey there, Ordinary and Average. You are okay by me.”
You may already be aware that the
Hebrew word ‘adam,’ which we pronounce as ‘Adam’ in Genesis, means ‘man’
or ‘human.’ You may not know that there is a second word in Hebrew for human.
It is ‘enosh.’ But enosh has a slightly different meaning or
connotation than adam. Enosh refers to the human being who lives
their lives fully aware of the mystery of God’s loving care for the world. Enosh is also used to refer to those who are aware of their frailty and their
mortality.
Enosh is the word that the
psalmist chose to use in his song of praise. Just like adam, God created enosh in God’s own image. Enosh understands the miracle and the mystery
of Creation and is completely aware of humanity’s role and place in the created
world.
Enosh created in God’s image,
but a little lower than the celestial beings have a special role to play.
Created in God’s image, humans are to share in what God does. God creates … we
create. God cares … we care. We tend. We are God’s “agents” in the created world.
God calmed the Chaos and called forth life and light. We care for the creation.
We maintain and sustain.
The psalmist laid out a hierarchical
order with God at the top … Supreme … Sovereign. We are the agents, the
administrators, of God’s sovereignty. We are both the created and the
caretaker. In the worldview of the day in which the psalmist wrote, kinship had
a normative and ideal dimension and understanding. “Dominion” had a relational
component and involved responsibility.
Glory belonged to the ruler, the
sovereign … BUT … the ruling was to be for the benefit of the ruled. Therefore,
as God’s agents or administrators, we care for Creation to benefit Creation,
NOT to benefit ourselves. The dominion to which we are called has as its core
serving that which God created.
When I sat down several weeks ago to
do my worship planning and I decided upon the title for this message …
“Breathing God” … I had in mind that image that I shared earlier. One of my
colleagues in seminary was a Buddhist. On several afternoons, we sat on one of
the benches on the common at Andover Newton and just breathed. As a Buddhist, his
breathing was part of his meditation practice. Breathe in … breathe out. Focus
on the breath.
As a Christian, breathing was
prayer. Breathe in … breathe out. Breathe God in … breathe in God’s Spirit …
breathe in God’s peace … and breathe out our worries … breathe out our fears …
breathe out our burdens. Breathe in God … breathe out pain. Breathe in God …
breathe out sorrow …
In the weeks since selecting this
title for my message, I came to see it in terms of God’s activity. God breathes
in and God breathes out. God is dynamic and organic. God is living and
breathing. God’s Breath hovered over the waters and brought forth life. God’s
Breath … God’s Spirit … still gives life and always will.
God breathes. Made in God’s image we
breathe.
God loves. Made in God’s image we
love.
As we consider all of the events of
the world around us, we need to breathe God. God needs to be the very essence
of who we are. God needs to be the very essence of what we are. God needs to be
the very essence of what we do.
Let us breathe God in. Let us
breathe God out into the world. Created in the image of God to care for, and to
serve, and to love. Let us breathe … God. Amen.
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