Psalm 104:24-35 Leviathan, Because, Why Not?

The Leviathan, a mythical sea creature in the Old Testament.

Mister Trash Wheel, one of my favorite heroes of the Baltimore Harbor.

Observation: Psalm 104 is one of my favorites, because it poetically describes God's relationship with the creation. The psalmist praises God's wisdom in making and feeding all things, and when the time is right, taking away the breath of life, and creating new life. In all this, God knows what God is doing. An interesting piece of this particular creation psalm is the mention of the sea, which was not generally viewed by Old Testament writers as a friendly or useful place. It was a symbol of chaos, a wild and frightening unknown, full of all manner of deadly things. Yet still it's created and sustained by God, God is Lord over it, and God knows exactly what God is doing in creating and recreating the sea. But sometimes, apparently, God just wants to have fun. Depending on the translation, verse 26 reads, "and the Leviathan, whom you formed to sport in it" or "the Leviathan, which your formed for the sport of it." So either God made a giant sea monster which the Israelites know next to nothing about, whose sole purpose in life is to hang out and have fun, or God made a giant sea monster which the Israelites know next to nothing about, because God was hanging out and having fun. Either way, God doesn't just create out of a sense of duty or compulsion. God creates because it's fun. 

Application: Generally in this age of climate change, conversations we have about our relationship to the earth tend to be pretty serious. That's completely understandable. The stakes are very high, and we'll only get one planet. But at the same time, for modern people paying attention, there are a hundred urgent, pressing, serious, ongoing conversations that we need to be having, and they're all interconnected, with no easy solutions, yet we can't afford not to have everyone engaged in working together on moving them forward. It can get very daunting. 

That's why I love "Mister Trash Wheel," one of the newest heroes of Baltimore's Harbor. He's a funny little barge, complete with googley eyes, who happens to have a trash-collecting conveyor belt in his mouth that pulls trash from the water. He has already removed thousands of pounds of trash from the harbor, but just as importantly, he's fun. People like him...at least I do. 

The Bible says God made the Leviathan, and presumably other creatures, "for fun." Not because they're useful to humans, or for some grand eternal purpose, but because it just made the creation a more fun place. As we continue the very serious conversation about how we, created in God's image, can care for the other creations of God, let's not forget: the creation can be a pretty fun place. Let's not take ourselves so seriously that the Leviathan, and his new buddy Mister Trash Wheel, have all the fun. 

Prayer: God, help me restore and care for your creation, by delighting in it, as you do. Amen.