On this Homecoming Sunday, it’s good for us to take a moment and ground ourselves again in the fundamentals of who we are. We are creatures of the dust, mudlings, if you will—first formed from the dirt of the earth, and filled with the Spirit of God. Together, this earthiness and this breathiness makes us who we are, living beings created and made alive in the image of God. Now, to be sure, this is no scientific accounting of where we as human beings came from, but that’s simply the point of the creation stories, either in the first or the second chapters of the Bible. They are not science expositions. They are etiological myths—or in other words, accounts explaining something, be it natural or social, and where it comes from.
The Genesis creation accounts don’t set about to explain how things go there, but rather why? Why is everything here? What does it matter? To what end? What’s the purpose? These are questions, largely, that historical science doesn’t set out to tackle—and really, it shouldn’t. These are questions, at the bare minimum, that have ethical implications, but more importantly for our shared life together as people, and as a planet shared with flora and fauna and every other aspect of existence, they’re questions that have metaphysical, or relational and interpersonal, implications. And for us who call our Christians, disciples of Jesus, these questions are most importantly spiritual questions. These stories help us understand our role in the grand scheme of God’s design for life and what it means for us in our day-to-day lives—much more than any scientific explanation might sanitize and distance us from any sort of responsibility for our actions. And so it does us well to consider today, on this Homecoming Sunday, what it means for us to return home, to return to the basics, of who we are…and what our purpose is. Keep that in mind today as we go forward.
Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Almost every kid at some point in their childhood has an imaginary friend. Now—this imaginary friend is very real. Imaginary doesn’t mean it’s not real—unless, of course, you’re a mathematician talking of imaginary numbers versus real numbers, but that’s a whole other issue. No—imaginary doesn’t mean that something isn’t real, especially in the case of imaginary friends. In fact, imaginary friends are important in the development of children. Social scientists have shown that imaginary friends foster creativity and empathy in children. They provide a safe space to explore emotions and practice social interactions, aiding in cognitive and emotional development. In other words, imaginary friends are important for children as they become creative, empathetic people able to work in collaboration with others with, hopefully, some level of emotional intelligence.
We can’t underplay the importance that imaginary friends play in the development of creativity in children. We often talk about how children have such vivid imaginations, and how sometimes—tragically, we often say—as we grow older, we “lose our imagination.” That can be attributed to a whole host of reasons, not the least of which being buffeted with issue after issue that demands problem-solving around concrete, immediate issues.
Imagination is first and foremost the work of the mind, and when confronted with a problem that is concrete and immediate right in front of us, we can’t necessarily always dedicate energy to thinking about all possible creative solutions—even if more creative solutions might in fact prove better than the concrete and immediate solutions we feel foisted upon us by the situation. Imagination is something that needs cultivating, something that needs encouraging, something that needs nurturing to thrive, and sometimes the demands of our fast-paced lives just don’t allow for cultivating, encouraging, and nurturing. And to be frank, that’s the tragedy. It’s tragedy that what we call life kills what might arguably be the very mark of God’s likeness within us…
“Let us make humankind in our image,” God says today from the first reading, “according to our likeness.” The text goes on to tell us that God does just that—God created us human beings; he created us godlike, reflecting his own nature. For millennia, we have wrestled with what these words mean. Some have used the lines that follow to oppress people—“male and female he created them,” using and abusing these sacred words of promise to push people down who don’t fit into some binary construct of who people are.
Such a reading of these beautiful, poetic Hebrew words is a misuse and honestly, sinful. They create separation between God and his creation, as is the very nature of sin. These words simply mean, simply and plainly, that humanity, in all its manifestations, from male to female, and everything in between, embodies and reflects the likeness, the goodness, the holiness of God. Each and every human being, all of us—you are created in the image of God. And this sets us apart from the rest of God’s creaturely creations. But what does that mean?
Well, as we just said, we’ve been wrestling with that question for millennia. When we hear the word “image,” we think of something we can look at. Rightly so. Images are indeed things that we can look at. But thinking that we look like God is way too reductionistic when we consider that we are, each of us, made in the image of God. For that matter, what does God look like if each of us is made to look like God?
How is it possible, then, if we look like God, that God looks both male and female? If we each look like God, or flipped around, God looks like each of us, how is possible that God has white skin and black skin? How is possible that God has brown eyes and blue eyes? Red hair or no hair? Six-pack abs or two hundred extra pounds? Perhaps we are all created modeled on an ideal that reflects God’s image. No—that is not the text, and it’s akin to the serpent’s first deceit in the garden. The text is plain as day here—“God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them.” We, each and every one us, is created in the image of God—not some approximation or reflection of a platonic ideal. And so therefore, being made in the image of God means something other than looking like God.
Today, piggybacking off the creation account that as a rabbi he would’ve been intimately acquainted with, Jesus tells his disciples, Jesus tells us, “be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” This teaching, especially following as it does on his difficult teaching about the radical interconnectedness of human relationship, highlights the radicality of what it means to be made in the image of God. For God there is no distinction in humanity, in those who are made in his image, and so therefore there shouldn’t be any distinction among us either. We who know and believe that all life is sacred, we who believe that each human life is sacrosanct and inviolable—we must regard everyone, no matter who they are, as someone utterly worthy of God’s love…and utterly worthy of our love. Those whom God has chosen to love we cannot do any less. The servant is not greater than the master…
And so, to bear the image of God is to love as God loves—utterly, completely, without reservation, without distinction, without any strings attached. To love as God loves requires us to use our imagination…as God first used his imagination to design all of creation. To love as God loves requires our imagination about what might be accomplished in a world filled with love that knows no bounds, a world filled with the love of Jesus—what that world could look like.
We live in a world that cherishes and prizes renown and esteems success. We glory in it. When I was a kid, my uncle, a truck driver who barely can read, encouraged me study hard so I could go to college and get a “good job.” By “good job,” he meant something where I didn’t have to do physical labor and of course, where I made lots of money. Parents may say they will be satisfied if their child is happy in their life, whatever they become, but there’s no doubt that every parent has a nagging inclination where they want their kid to grow up to and be successful and perhaps even achieve, as if it’s some prize or goal, an esteemed profession like a doctor or lawyer. And don’t misunderstand. Doctors and lawyers are good, necessary professions, and they deserve our respect and honor, but they are no better than any other profession, no more deserving of respect and honor than any other job that contributes to the wonderful tapestry of vocations God has envisioned for each and every one of us made in his image.
Imagine if you will a world where a truck driver doesn’t have to say to his nephew, “Grow up and get a ‘good job’”—as if being a truck driver is such a vulgar job. Where would we be if truck drivers didn’t deliver groceries, clothing, or toilet paper to stores? Imagine if you will a world where social workers were valued for all the hard hours they put in helping children in abusive homes find stability with people who will care for them? Imagine if you will a world where people who help those recovering from addiction or reentering life after incarceration had the necessary resources to do their work without having to listen to such intolerant, narrow-minded remarks as, “Those people will just turn right around to drugs again,” or “Those people will just end up back in jail again anyhow.” Imagine if you will a world where librarians can freely open the minds of people, especially children, to ideas, those that reinforce their understanding and those that challenge their understanding, so that we come to live in a world where we think critically and consider creative, empathetic solutions to the grave problems facing us as a human race more immediately than we do now—especially with the cutthroat backbiting and showboating that infects our world today. Imagine if you will a world where a young girl doesn’t have to worry about coming out as gay for fear of losing his father’s love. Imagine a world where children don’t have to go home and wonder if they’ll have dinner or not because, unbeknownst to them, mom and dad have to make the choice between groceries or paying the utility bill. Imagine if you will a world that is the way that God designed it to be…Imagine if you will…
God has created us in his image—and gifted us with the ability to creatively and empathetically be his hands and feet in the world that desperately, desperately needs creativity and empathy. God has created us in his image—and chosen us, among all his creaturely creatures, to be his hands and feet in the world he made, to have dominion—that is, to reflect our Lord—to steward his creation as he would do. God has created us in his image—an image that sets us apart and empowers us to see, to imagine in our mind’s eye and make real with our hands a world that conforms to the original design that God first made for us and for all things. God has created us in his image and sends us forth to love and serve the world, as he sent his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, into the world to love and serve us. As God in Jesus, the very likeness of God in human likeness among us, loved and served us, so now that same Jesus, God as man among us, sends us to love and serve in his name, using our hands to do his work.
We are created in the image of God—let us live lives that reflect that very image in all we do. Called by love, fed by the Word, caring for all…
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Rev'd Daniel W. Spigelmyer, Jr. 