God’s Agents
This sermon was preached on June 16, 2024 by Heather Weir. You can listen to it here.
In our series on being the new humanity, we have come to a chapter on agency. The authors of the book we are reading through in our small groups suggest that part of being the new humanity involves reinforcing agency.
So today we’re going to talk about being an agent. An agent is a person who has the power to act. Initially I thought of being a free agent, being able to do whatever I want. That’s exciting! Whatever! I! Want!! Freedom!!
Except I can’t just do whatever. Neither can you. Doing whatever might work some of the time, but most of the time, we are only free to act within some boundaries, within structures set up by society. If we act outside those structures, we can’t be an effective agent. Our actions will lack meaning, or our actions will have unintended consequences.
Let me give you a couple of examples:
- Language — I’m speaking to you in English this morning. If I attempted to give the sermon in Cat (meow), you would not understand I would not be acting effectively. My personal agency means that I could do this, but my actions would have little meaning.
- Yesterday I went to a dance recital. During one number, a small child was looking for her family, and they waved at her. She spotted them and enthusiastically waved When she lost sight of them, she looked until she found them again! This was her main action when she was on the stage. This meant she was at times out of place and out of step with the other dancers on the stage. It was very cute, and as her family were sitting right in front of us, we enjoyed this diversion from the dance very much. But the dancer as free agent meant that number didn’t go as planned. There was a structure for the dancers to follow, and when one was out of step and place, the whole was impacted.
Being an agent doesn’t mean we have the freedom to do whatever. Structures and boundaries give meaning and shape to our actions. Effective agents, agents who act well, who get things done, use the structures and contexts around them to give strength, meaning and shape to their actions.
How does our faith structure our actions? What kind of agents are we because of our relationship with God? Does it make any difference to the way I act in the world that I follow Jesus? Psalm 8 has some things to say to us about being human agents in God’s created world.
Psalm 8 is a well-structured poem that shows that human beings have been appointed as God’s agents. Humans, you and me, and all the other people on the planet, are God’s agents in this created world. Human beings are God’s agents in this created world. Let’s read this poem, Psalm 8 again:
1 O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; 4 what are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honour.
6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, 7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
9 O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Psalms are poems, but because we are accessing a translation of the original language, we don’t always see how the poetry part works. Poetry written in English has a rhythm and rhyme to it that is easy for English-speakers to see and hear. When an English poem is translated into another language, the rhythm and rhyme is usually lost in translation. Many of you don’t speak English as your first language, and you can probably think of a poem in your mother tongue that wouldn’t translate well into English. You might have to paraphrase it a little so that someone could understand it.
Similarly this Psalm has something called a chiastic structure to it, a structure that frames the centre of the Psalm. This structure, found in ancient Hebrew poetry emphasizes the centre and highlights that turn as the key idea of the psalm. This kind of structure is most obviously seen in English in verse 1 and verse 9 where the same line of praise to God frames the whole Psalm: O Lord, Our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! This pair of lines frames the whole poem. Leading up to and away from the centre of the poem there are other pairs of lines on either side of the centre.
The centre of the Psalm is verses 4 and 5: What are humans 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.
In these verses the Psalm turns from the first part of the Psalm, which is full of God’s dominion to the second part, which talks about the dominion God gave to humans. The Psalm moves from talking about God’s dominion, and God’s glory set above the heavens, God’s power to defeat God’s enemies and foes, God’s creative work in establishing the moon and stars in the heavens to humans and the dominion God gave these creatures over all the works of God’s hands including animals, birds, and fish. Part two reflects part one, and in the centre, God gives humans, mortals, who are made a little lower than God, glory and honour and dominion over other created beings.
The central point of Psalm 8 is this: God appoints humans as God’s agents in the created world.
So how does this work? I don’t know about you, but as I look around at the world it seems that we humans have not always done our best work as God’s agents in the created world. We don’t look after the animals, birds, and fish well, let alone looking after each other. We have often taken the gift of being God’s agents in the world and turned our backs on what God intended for the world. We tend to act in our own self-interest rather than acting with God’s interest in mind.
In Psalm 8 the centre, God appointing humans as God’s agents in the created world, is framed by praise spoken to God by humans. O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! This frame gives our role as God’s agents a context. Human agency is bounded, framed, by praise of God. When humans act without this context of praise to God, without the context of the majesty of the creator who gives humans power to act, we usurp more than God gave us. Because humans have the ongoing problem of sin – our propensity to mess things up – we constantly need to be reminded that we are acting as God’s agents, not as gods in the world. Framing our work by worship grounds us in this reality. We act as God’s agents, we are not gods. O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is you name in all the earth!
But we can’t stay in the frame. Our work, our action as God’s agents in the world, is framed by worship. We cannot abandon the work we have been given to leave it all to God. Psalm 8 clearly calls us to worship, but it also calls us to act. As we act, our vocation, our calling, the work we have been given to do is in the context of worship. Worship grounds us and sends us into the world to act as God’s agents. In the frame of worship, within the boundary of worship and the declaration of the Majesty of God, we are sent into the world to act as God’s agents.
Worship grounds us and sends us into the world to act as God’s agents. What a huge task! What on earth does it mean to be sent out into the world to act as a God-agent? How are any of us up for this?
I started this morning by showing that I can’t do whatever I want as a free agent. The structures of society, of language, of technology give me freedom to act as an agent within those structures. Structures provide boundaries and but also strength; structures are frameworks to build on. They give shape to our actions.
For this enormous task of being God’s agent in the world, we need some structure, some boundaries, a framework that we can use to think about what this might become in each of our lives, and in the life of this congregation.
Galatians 5 talks about freedom in Christ. As Christians, followers of Jesus, we have freedom. Our freedom, however, is real freedom when we are live by the Holy Spirit, who lives in us and provides structure, strength, and shape to our actions.
Galatians 5:22-23 lists the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
One more time, that’s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
As God’s agents in the created world, our actions should be empowered by the Holy Spirit. We can tell if our actions are empowered by the Holy Spirit if the fruit of the Spirit is evident as we act.
A few weeks ago, we recited a prayer together as a congregation. I don’t remember much about the prayer, but in the part that we read out together we called ourselves Agents of Reconciliation. Agents of Reconciliation. It got into my head. I wrote the phrase down immediately in the back of my sketchbook. Later as I was leaving church I joked to Elaine that I was going out into the world to be an AGENT OF RECONCILIATION. In my head it was sort of like being a secret agent or an Agent of SHIELD, that Marvel comic gang. My decision to be an Agent of Reconciliation stuck with me through my work week on and off — and thinking of myself as an AGENT OF RECONCILIATION helped me somehow in my work relationships. Things had been a bit off at work with a lot of changes in personnel, and new reporting structures. I think the Holy Spirit, working in me with that title – Agent of Reconciliation – helped me build more positive relationships that week.
So what does this have to do with the Fruit of the Spirit and being God’s agents in the world? I’d like to suggest a little exercise for us. Maybe one of the fruit of the spirit could be your Agent of God title for the week. Are you an Agent of Love? An Agent of Joy? An Agent of Peace? An Agent of Patience? An agent of Kindness? An agent of Generosity? An Agent of Faithfulness? An agent of Gentleness? An Agent of Self-Control? I’d also invite you to consider Agent of Reconciliation.
Which Agent are you? How does that title shift the way you think about your week?
When I have to do laundry, maybe reminding myself that I’m an Agent of Joy! Will help me get through the sock matching and folding.
When I’m annoyed with my colleagues at work, maybe the secret that I’m the Agent of Patience! Will give me the ability to build positive relationships instead of acting out of my petty annoyance.
How might acting as Agents of Generosity change our thinking about our economic systems? How do Agents of Peace change the way we think about conflict? How do Agents of Gentleness change the way we respond to the divisive way our world is presented to us?
What is your story? What are you anticipating in your week? What kind of Agent could you be?
In order to be truly free, we should live by the spirit. As God’s Agents in the world, the Holy Spirit living in us gives structure and shape to our actions. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.