Psalm 139      Should Humans Have Wings?

Rev. David Holwick  D                             SANCTITY OF LIFE SUNDAY

First Baptist Church

Ledgewood, New Jersey                            

January 27, 2002

Psalm 139:7-18


SHOULD HUMANS HAVE WINGS?



        SERMON SUMMARY:  A quirky sermon - some loved it, others

           didn't.  (Younger members tended to like it.)  Tries to

           raise important questions about body image and the

           possibilities for inner and outer change.



  I. When can you have wings?

      A. You can sign up for the Christmas pageant.

          1) Two versions - white cardboard or deluxe feathers. (hold up)

          2) One of these years we should fix up some wires and pulleys

                and let them REALLY fly.


      B. You can visit plastic surgeon Joe Rosen.

             Rosen is famous for his skill in reconstructive surgery.

                He wants to go beyond noses and liposuction.

                Why not stretch what humans can be?

             Dr. Rosen wants to create human wings.  Literally.

                It would take some doing to be flight-ready, but wings

                   are do-able.

                Think "Batman".


             One man asked Rosen to transform him into a lizard.

                - Split tongue, bumps on head...


             Rosen says:


                "The body is a conduit for the soul, at least

                    historically speaking.

                 When you change what you look like, you change who

                    you are."


             What holds him back?

                Our culture's Judeo-Christian conservatism.


             Many think Dr. Rosen is a nut-case.

                He thinks he is on the cutting edge of society.

                I think he is correct.

             We are re-inventing what it means to be human.

                In so many areas, we are already playing God.

                                                                   #20766


II. Traditional Christian view of humans.

      A. God made us.

          1) God has an order in creation.

          2) Humans are not an accident.

          3) We are not self-inventing animals.


      B. We are good (though warped).

          1) Humans are sinful but not evil.

          2) We are capable of much good.

          3) We have creative ability, just like our Maker.


      C. We should accept ourselves as God made us.

          1) Bible's teaching on worth of our bodies.

              a) We are "fearfully and wonderfully made."

              b) All humans worth in God's eyes.

              c) Ugly, poor, stupid are just as valued.


          2) Even birth defects have a place in God's plan.

              a) God's answer to Moses' non-eloquence.    Exod 4:11

              b) Jesus' answer to man born blind.         John 9:3


          3) Outward physical appearance doesn't matter to God.

              a) Outer beauty is deceptive.

                  1> It's what is inside that counts.

              b) Isaiah 3:16-22 and 1 Timothy 2:9-10 on false adornment.


      D. We should only change what has been warped by sin.

          1) Repentance more important than sculpting body.

          2) We reach our potential when we attain God's image and

                plan for us.


III. Don't we already change ourselves?

      A. Dr. Rosen's point:

            "We have always altered ourselves, for beauty or for power."


      B. Diets, makeup, etc.


      C. Education.

          1) Some sign kids for elite private schools before they are

                even born.  SAT prep courses...


      D. Cars and airplanes.

          1) If God didn't want us to fly, why allow this knowledge?


IV. Incredible power is in our hands.

      A. The unfolding drama of genetics.


          1) 1932 New York Times article on genetics, found in Rev.

               Earles' (pastor 1916-58) Genesis commentary in church

                  library:


             (Mendel's papers had been discovered 30 years previously.)


             "Genetics has accumulated sufficient knowledge ... to

                 furnish us with the means for creating a perfect race

                    of men, physically and spiritually, if the peoples

                       of the world only realized it and wanted it.


             "But while the outlook is dark for the present, the time

                 may come ... when natural selection will be replaced

                    by human selection."

                                                      New York Times

                                                      August 28, 1932

                                                      William L. Laurence


          2) What they envisioned, we can now do.

          3) Cloning debate.

              a) Choose sex - available now.  (Controversial fertility

                    clinic policy)

              b) Choose eye color or intelligence of your baby.

                  1> Would you do it?  (of course not)

                  2> What if EVERYONE ELSE in your town was?


      B. Looming weirdness.

          1) Spikes and metal implants in skulls.

          2) Limb amputation in England.

              a) Nothing wrong with limbs - people just feel wrong

                    having them.

              b) A local doctor is amputating so they won't do it

                    themselves.

              c) Could this become a fad?

          3) Sex-change operations.

              a) An accepted category in civil rights.

              b) Two-for-one:


                 Reuters reports that a Hungarian husband and wife in

                    the western city of Szekesfehervar have decided

                       literally to trade places.

                 Each underwent a sex change operation at the local

                    hospital in September.


                 Hospital staff had to take the transsexual couple home

                    secretly to avoid a throng of journalists trying to

                       interview them.


                             http://www.uhuh.com/education/hwsexcha.htm


          4) What was perverse yesterday is accepted today and will be

                the norm tomorrow.


      C. Should we limit ourselves to the average?

          1) Plastic surgery restores to an average ideal of beauty.

          2) Why not stretch the boundaries and explore possibilities?

          3) "Plastic surgery changes the soul."


  V. Consequences of our ability to manipulate ourselves.

      A. Obsession with our bodies leads to illness.

          1) Bulemia and anorexia.


      B. Low self worth and feeling of inferiority.


      C. Nothing seems constant.

          1) We always strive, never seem to arrive.

          2) Article - people remake themselves several times in life.

              a) Conversions of author.

                  1> John Walker Lindh's mom...

              b) Is our faith, or physical features, just a passing fad?

          3) We change more than ever.


             Philosopher Robert Lipson says until recently, no more than

                a single major shift in beliefs was likely to occur in

                   a lifetime.

             And that one would be long remembered for its conflict and

                soul searching.

             But today it is not unusual for several such shifts to take

                place within a year or even a month.

             The change may come in the area of politics, religion,

                personal relationships.


             Quite rare is the man or woman who has gone through life

                holding firmly to a single ideological vision.

             More usual is a tendency toward ideological fragments, bits

                and pieces of belief systems that allow for shifts and

                   revisions.

                                                                   #20766


VI. Christians should know who they are.

      A. Put less emphasis on outer beauty and intelligence.

          1) Inner beauty is where it's at - Trinka is a great example.

          2) Praise this in the ones you love.


      B. Uphold the basic worth of all humans.

          1) Christians should be true multiculturalists.

              a) God accepts people from all cultures.

              b) So should we.

          2) Our worth is derived from God.

              a) It is not from what we produce.

              b) The unborn have as much worth as an adult in God's eyes.


      C. Don't play God with human alterations.

          1) We must accept some limits for our own good.

          2) Restore but don't embelish.


      D. You are what you think.

          1) Rosen and "limb maps" in brain.

              a) Research shows if you attach a new limb, your brain

                    produces new wiring for it.

              b) Add a wing, and you will end up with a "winged brain."

          2) If you use your brain differently, you can live differently.

              a) Think about what is positive in life.   Phil 4:8

              b) Stay away from what is negative and unwholesome.


VII. We never need wings.

      A. Wings on angels are an ancient image.

          1) Mesopotamian, Eygptian, and Greek art.


      B. Bible never mentions wings on people.  Or angels!

          1) Special heavenly creatures have wings.

              a) Cherubim in temple's Holy of Holies.

              b) Ezekiel's vision.

              c) These creatures represent all living things.

          2) Angels look pretty much like us.

              a) They appear to be human.

              b) They arrive, disappear, rise, come down, all without

                    wings.


      C. In God's presence we glow with his glory.

          1) The glow is what makes heaven special.

          2) And we will fly - without wings.



=========================================================================

SOURCE FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:


#20766  "A Radical Plastic Surgeon Wants To Give You Wings," by Lauren

            Slater, Harper's Magazine, July 2001, page 57.  A fascinating

            article - see my summary below.


This and 20,000 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,

absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html

=========================================================================


HOLWICK'S ILLUSTRATION COLLECTION        Number: 20766

SOURCE: Harper's Magazine

TITLE: A Radical Plastic Surgeon Wants To Give You Wings

AUTHOR: Lauren Slater, Edited By Rev. David Holwick

PAGE: 57

DATE: July 2001


ILLUSTRATION:

"Plastic surgery changes the soul."  - Joe Rosen


Joe Rosen is a world-famous plastic surgeon, and an odd man. His

specialty doesn't get much respect but in 2000 more than 1.3 million

people had cosmetic surgery by certified surgeons, an increase of 227

percent since 1992 (these numbers do not include medically necessary or

reconstructive surgeries.)  The number of men receiving nose jobs has

increased 141 percent since 1997.  These figures alone point to the

tremendous popularity and increasing acceptance of body alteration, and

suggest that the slippery slope from something as bizarre as eyelid

tucks to something more bizarre, like wings, may be shorter than we

think.


Human wings is precisely what Rosen wants to create.  He has already

been asked to turn a man into a lizard.  He says, "I don't have any

problem with altering the human form.  We do it all the time.  It is

only our Judeo-Christian conservatism that makes us think this is wrong.

Who doesn't try to send their children to the best schools, in the hopes

of altering them? Who objects to a Palm Pilot, a thing we clasp to our

bodies, with which we receive rapid electronic signals?  Who doesn't

surround themselves with a metal shell and travel at death-defying

speeds?  We have always altered ourselves, for beauty or for power, and

so long as we are not causing harm what makes us think we should stop?

...  Why do we only value the average? Why are plastic surgeons

dedicated only to restoring our current notions of the conventional, as

opposed to letting people explore, if they want, what the possibilities

are? ... Human flesh is infinitely malleable. People say cosmetic

surgery is frivolous - boobs and noses. But it's so much more than that!

The body is a conduit for the soul, at least historically speaking. When

you change what you look like, you change who you are."


Socialite Jocelyne Wildenstein has dedicated much of her life to turning

herself into a cat, via plastic surgery.  She has had her lips enlarge

and her face pulled back at the eyes to simulate a feline appearance.

Is she a freak or the cutting edge of the future?


Carl Elliott, a bioethicist and associate professor at the University of

Minnesota, recently wrote in THE ATLANTIC about a strange new "trend" of

perfectly healthy folks who desire nothing more than to have a limb

amputated, and about the British doctor who has undertaken this surgery,

believing that if he doesn't amputate the patients will do it

themselves, which could lead to gangrene.  Elliott wonders whether

amputation obsession will morph into another psychiatric diagnosis,

whether, like hysteria, it will "catch on." The metaphor of contagion is

an interesting one.  Multiple- personality disorder "caught on";

hysteria caught on.  Why then might not an unquenchable desire for wings

or fins catch on, too?


Lauren Slater tries to ascertain clearly, logically, what so bothers

people about Rosen's ideas.  At first glance, it might seem fairly

obvious.  For crying out loud, wings.  That's playing God.  We should

not play God.  We should not reach for the stars.  Myth after myth has

shown us the dangers of doing so - Icarus, the Tower of Babel; absolute

power corrupts absolutely. Bill Joy, chief scientist at Sun

Microsystems, says, as our technological capabilities expand, "a

sequence of small, individually sensible advances leads to an

accumulation of great power, and concomitantly, great danger." Rosen's

response to this: "So are we supposed to stop advancing?  And who says

it's bad to play God?  We already alter the course of God's 'will' in

hundreds of ways.  When we use antibiotics to combat the flu, when we

figure out a way to wipe smallpox off the very face of the earth, surely

we're altering the natural course of things.  Who says the natural

course of things is even right?  Maybe God isn't good."


Another objection has to do with the idea of proteanism. Proteus, a

minor mythological figure, could shape-shift at will, being alternately

a tiger, a lizard, a fire, a flood. Robert Lifton has explored how

Proteus has become a symbol for human beings in our time.  Lacking

traditions, supportive institutions, a set of historically rooted

symbols, we have lost any sense of coherence and connection.  Today it

is not uncommon for a human being to shift belief systems several times

in a lifetime, and with relatively little psychological discomfort.  We

move on.  We remarry.  Our protean abilities clearly have their upsides.

We are flexible and creative. But the downside is, there is no psychic

stability, no substantive self, nothing really meaty and authentic.  We

sense this about ourselves.  We know we are superficial, all breadth and

no depth.  Rosen's work embodies this tendency, literally.  He desires

to make incarnate the identity diffusion so common to our culture. Rosen

is in our face making us face up to the fact that the inner and outer

connections have crumbled.  In our ability to be everything, are we also

nothing?


Over and over again, from the Middle Ages on, when the theologian Pico

wrote, in a direct and influential challenge to the Platonic idea of

essential forms - "We have given you, Adam, no visage proper to

yourself, nor endowment properly your own ... trace for yourself the

lineaments of your own nature ... in order that you, as the free and

proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in the form you may

prefer.... [W]ho then will not look with awe upon this our chameleon..."

- over and over, since those words at least, we as human beings have

fretted about the question of whether there is anything fixed at our

core, any set of unalterable traits that make us who we were and are and

always will be.


Lifton writes, "Until relatively recently, no more than a single major

ideological shift was likely to occur in a lifetime, and that one would

be long remembered for its conflict and soul searching.  But today it is

not unusual for several such shifts to take place within a year or even

a month, whether in the realm of politics, religion, aesthetic values,

personal relationships. ... Quite rare is the man or woman who has gone

through life holding firmly to a single ideological vision.  More usual

is a tendency toward ideological fragments, bits and pieces of belief

systems that allow for shifts, revisions, and recombination."


What Lifton has observed in the psyche Rosen wants to make manifest in

the body.  When Slater asked Rosen, "So, do you believe we are just in

essence protean, that there is nothing fundamental, or core, to being

human?"  He said, "Lauren, I am a scientist.  My original interests were

in nerves.  The answer to your question may lie in how our nervous

systems operate."  Human beings have limb maps in their brains.  When a

person loses a limb - say, the right arm - this portion of the neural

map fades away.  Similarly, when we gain a limb, the brain almost

immediately senses it and goes about hooking it up via neural

representation.  Rosen explains, "If I were to attach a third thumb,

your brain would map it.  Our bodies change our brains, and our brains

are infinitely moldable.  If I were to give you wings, you would

develop, literally, a winged brain."  Plastic surgery changes the soul.

To the extent that we believe our souls are part of our brains, Rosen is

right.


Slater once read that a fetus does not scar.  Fetal skin repairs itself

seamlessly, evidence of damage sinking back into blackness.  Plastic

surgery, for all its incredible advances, has not yet been able to

figure out how to replicate this mysterious fetal ability in the full-

born human.  Plastic surgery can give us wings and maybe even let us

sing like loons, but it cannot stop scarring.  This is oddly comforting

to her.


__________________


Comment by Jeff Champlin in "A Winged Brain":


Beyond praising the beauty that emerges in the place of lost ideals,

Rosen asserts the importance of creating beauty, of sculpting new life

forms.  His dream of winged humans embodies a new potentiality, a new

hope for the creation of a humanity that values the diversity of life to

such an extent that it wishes even to increase the variety and multiply

the complexity of this diversity.




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