Names are such personal and beautiful things. Our name may be among the very first words we ever hear, and the names and nicknames our loved ones give to us stick with us and warm our hearts in ways very few other things can do. My grandpa used to call me “baby doll,” and even though he’s been gone for many years, I can still hear his voice in my mind calling me this special name he made for me, and it simultaneously brings a feeling of love into my heart and a tear to my eyes. 

Names are also fascinating because until recently, it was believed that humans were the only living creatures to create unique names for themselves. I think this goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden when God gives Adam the job of naming all of the animals in the created world. When I think of the creativity this beautiful assignment must have taken, it makes me wish I could’ve been a fly on the wall to see each name taking shape. And after Eve was created, Adam created the name “woman,” to highlight the unique relationship between him and this new human being in the world.

Last week, I came across a fascinating article about elephants in which a team of two international research groups suggested that elephants create unique names for each other. More than this, elephants appear to be able to recognize the sounds of their names–responding enthusiastically when hearing their own name, and ignoring the sounds when a different elephant’s name was called. This skill of using names was mostly observed in adult elephants, which might mean it takes time to learn the skill of deciphering sounds and remembering names, but imagine it: for all these years, elephants may have been speaking to each other by name, and we humans thought they were just making noise. Isn’t this world such a fascinating and mind-boggling place?

I recently learned a new slang phrase that has been rolling around in my mind ever since I heard it. The phrase is “touch grass,” and it is often used as a way to tell someone they need to snap back to reality. You might say it to someone as a way of saying, “Hey, get off the computer, or put the phone down, and get some fresh perspective.” It’s not said with the nicest tone of voice a lot of the time, but I think there’s something underneath the sentiment that’s true. We live in a world so filled with technological advances, with Artificial Intelligence purporting to be able to generate almost anything we could ever need, and we might begin to think we know it all. Or, at least we are pretty sure we can figure anything out if we just put in the time and the effort.

In both of our Scripture passages for this morning, we get told to “touch grass,” to take a look at the natural world and gain some perspective. We are reminded that we need to cultivate a sense of awe and wonder because this world is too marvelous to comprehend because it was created by the One who is above our understanding. Or, as Walt Whitman famously wrote, “A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.”

This morning, we have in front of us two passages of Scripture that bring the created world, nature, front and center, and in both passages, the immensity of creation leaves the people with a hushed, awe-filled silence. Let’s start with Job.

Most of the time when we talk about the person of Job in the Bible, we talk about his suffering. We talk about the way he lost everything even though he was a righteous and good man, and we talk about the way his friends were only good friends to him for the first seven days as Job grieved. After seven days of silent presence with their friend, Job’s friends begin to blame him for his suffering, and this painful exchange between Job and his friends occupies most of the book. The whole time Job is accused, he does not blame God. He also defends his own honor. He does eventually cry out to God asking for an explanation. He says this at the beginning of Job 23: “Today also my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy despite my groaning. Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling! I would lay my case before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. I would learn what he would answer me, 

and understand what he would say to me.” And can we blame him? He has lost everything, even the support of his friends, and he did nothing to deserve it. 

But, I want you to pay close attention to the pronouns in verses 4 and 5: “I would lay my case before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. I would learn what he would answer me.” Our passage from chapter 38 takes the pronouns of chapter 23 and reverses them. God says to Job, “Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.” Do you hear that difference? The questions God asks Job for the next three chapters draw from the mystery of the creation and ask Job, “Do you understand all this? Were you there when this was created?” 

God asks Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know!” He asks Job about the storehouse of snow and hail, about how long it takes for mountain goats to give birth, and how each of the constellations were formed and placed in the sky, about the cruel parenting habits of the mother ostrich and God’s power to command the lightning in the sky. God asks Job about the mighty sea monsters, who would have been the biggest fear of anyone having to travel on the sea, monsters who were created by and subject to God’s command. Job, overwhelmed by God’s immensity and by all of the things Job does not understand, responds to God, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”

Job’s reaction reminds me of the disciples in the storm at sea. They are in a panic–after all, they are about to die! Jesus, who had been asleep, is roused by his panicking disciples. In the Greek it says Jesus rebuked the wind and demanded a still silence for the waters of chaos. When the water is stilled, the disciples react with great awe, saying to each other, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Both Job and the disciples have to “touch grass,” they have to reconnect with the reality of the power of the created world and the amazing truth that God made all of it and holds it all together. The masterfulness of God who created all of it takes hold of them, fills them with awe, and gives them a fresh perspective on life and the world.

We are facing a crisis in our world today. Well, we are probably facing a multitude of crises, but one of them is especially near and dear to my heart. Did you know my generation was the first one to grow up with the internet, but also the last one to spend enough of our growing up without it that we remember life before everyone was connected by the web? I remember having to put money in a phone to call my mom from the swimming pool, but I also quickly caught on to sending emails, looking up information online, and the advent of social media. 

My generation is raising kids who never knew life before the world wide web, before a smartphone was in every hand, kids who have had an incredibly different childhood than the one we had. If we were bored, we went outside. Our entertainment was largely self-imagined. We grew up running barefoot through the grass and meeting up with our friends at the park. We grew up connected to creation. 

Author Richard Louv focuses on what happens in the lives of kids as they become increasingly disconnected from the outside world in his book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. In this book, he shares all kinds of research about the way connection with nature helps kids’s physical and mental health, but he also zeroes in on spiritual health and on the role of faith communities in reconnecting kids (and adults) to nature. He quotes Paul Gorman, founder and director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment as saying this: “The extent to which we separate our children from creation is the extent to which we separate them from the creator–from God.”

This is a powerful claim, but it is one I believe to be true–and not just for kids, but for adults too. Did you know the average American spends an average of 7 hours 3 minutes a day online? If you add that up, the average American will spend about 17 years of their life online. Some of those hours might be necessary, especially in today’s world where so many jobs are reliant on screens. But, much of that time is mindless–time we “kill” when we are bored instead of time we invest in creativity, in relating to other people, in spending time outside.

Now, lest we are too hard on today’s kids–or even on today’s parents–we have to acknowledge the reality that entire industries exist to try and keep all of us connected to the digital world. Aza Raskin, a former employee of Mozilla and Jawbone once told a journalist “Behind every screen on your phone, there are generally like literally a thousand engineers who have worked on this thing to make it maximally addicting.” And Raskin should know. He used to be one of those engineers. Aza Raskin developed a technology that refreshes and reloads while you are scrolling, so there is never an interruption to your mindless surfing. This “infinite scrolling” mechanism makes it possible to stay online for hours without even thinking about it, a mechanism Raskin now regrets having invented.

One of the most pressing challenges facing us today–both as individual people and as a church–is the challenge of connecting with creation so that we can recover our sense of awe and wonder. We need to touch grass, to get away from the pull of the digital world, so that we can feel grass under our feet and soil between our fingers. This challenge goes hand-in-hand with working against the crisis of loneliness in our community. When we are connected online only, we may think we have all the social connection we need, when in reality we are starving for community.

This is one reason I love when we have outdoor services. I know setting up outside and changing the routine can be a lot of work, but something happens when we are outside. We feel the breeze, we hear the birds, we feel the movement of air, we see things we normally rush right past. Even when those little things are a distraction from time to time, the distraction is a holy interruption, rather than the kind of distraction we get when our phone buzzes in the middle of dinner.

My challenge to you for the week is to spend at least ten minutes connecting to the created world each day, even if you sit in a chair outside your front door. If you can’t get outside, maybe open a window and commit to observing for ten minutes. As you do this, let your mind wander. Thank God for what you are seeing. Pray for people impacted by the weather. Listen and see how many unique bird calls you hear. And then take a moment to write down a thought or observation you have. When we do this, we are allowing ourselves to remember our own names.

Names are one of the most intimate and personal things about each of us, and that goes all the way back to the beginning. In Genesis 1:26 it says this, “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.’” The word translated as man or humankind in this verse is the word “Adam,” but do you know what that word means? In Hebrew, the word “Adamah” means “land,” “ground,” or “soil.” Adam is the earthy one, the one made from the dust of the ground. Just like the elephants perk up their ears and dance with excitement when they hear their own names, our hearts and spirits do the same thing when we reclaim our existence as people of the soil, people created lovingly from the ground by God.

Friends, let’s get out there and touch grass, so that our minds might be opened and our mouths proclaim, “Who is this that even the wind and the seas obey him?”