Healing Rays of Righteousness

Read Jeremiah 1:4-8

 “Dignity” is defined as “inherent nobility and worth; the state or quality of being worthy of respect” in our dictionaries, but seems to have been far removed from our daily thought and practice.  When it comes to the practice of affirming and protecting the dignity of others, it seems our society has largely lost its heart and way.  We find it so easy and, sadly, popular to “trash” those we don’t like or with whom we disagree.  Political conversations have deteriorated into such sickening trash talking about opponents that any possibility of learning truthful facts about a person or situation is almost non-existent.  Unfortunately, this childish, prejudiced, and disrespectful name-calling has become the normal character of our American culture in both secular and religious arenas.

For that reason, I urgently invite us all to hear again God’s word to Jeremiah and reclaim the dignity with which God created and gave birth to each and every one of us.

God was about to send Jeremiah as a prophet into a culture that had lost all reverence for human life.  They were corrupting themselves with the most flagrant disregard for human dignity.  In calling Jeremiah to this unglamorous and frightening lifework as prophet to his own people, he said, “I formed you in the womb.” 

With our small and limited understandings we imagine our conception as only a biological event between our parents.  Yet God’s words to Jeremiah should cause us to rethink the deeper truths surrounding the origins and purposes of our birth into this world.

In pondering these words, we learn that you and I are created and formed with a divine glory which is infinitely more than just being biological children of humankind. The Psalmist acknowledges this glory when he praises God, saying “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Ps. 139:13-14)

But listen carefully as you reread God’s words to Jeremiah.  Our conception and birth is not our real beginning of existence, nor will our death be the end.  God said, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.”

Wow!  What a mind-boggling, heart-stirring thought for us to ponder.  Think about it.  Before the day and moment of our conception, God knew us.  God dignified us by thinking and calling us into existence.  God names you and me in his mind and dignifies each of us with a special purpose and plan.  It’s hard to imagine that even before our mothers lovingly cradled us in their arms, God wrapped his greater arms around us and whispered his uniquely designed purpose and plan into each of our soon-to-be created selves.

Again the Psalmist acknowledges this glorious truth in his praise to God, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.  How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!” (Ps. 139:16-17)

Such awesome truth lifts our eyes to a loving God and brings healing to our discouraged and downcast spirits. This is good news indeed, but there is more.  If this is true and believe it is, then there follows another, possibly more difficult truth, which is equally important to accept and live out in our relationship with others.

The true reality is that what God did in bringing me and you into existence, he does for every other human being in our world.  It is important that we let this truth continually permeate the deepest recesses of our minds and hearts in all or our relationships and conversations.  For if we don’t, it becomes easy to not accept and dignify their God-given personhood.

In my years of ministry as pastor and chaplain, I’ve encountered many individuals who do not live up to the dignity God instilled in them at their birth.  And neither do they live up to God’s purpose, plan, and potential for them.  And I have also ministered to many who struggle with a low self-esteem and worthlessness, largely because they never heard nor experienced God’s dignifying affirmation through the human beings that work, play, and worship with them.  Do you hear me?

I sincerely believe we can change our churches, communities, and world by resolving to be more earnest in our efforts to dignify the personhood of all others in our conversations and actions regardless of their race, religion, politics, or nationality, even as our creator God does.