In God's Image

The creation of human beings according to Genesis:

Then God said, Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 

So God created mankind in his own image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.

A great deal has been written about the theological significance of humans being created "in the image of God." Specifically, the claim that all human beings are images of God was a radical anti-imperial claim. Consider images during the time of the biblical writings. Whose images were made and why? 

In the Old Testament images were made of "gods" like Pharaoh or the Babylonian kings. In the New Testament images were made of "sons of god" like the Caesars. Common people did not have their images made. They did not see their images on coins or in public statuary. They did not have mirrors. Being "the image of god" was something only rulers, kings, Caesars, and emperors could claim.

And into this milieu Genesis speaks a subversive word. All human beings, men and women, are images of God. More, these same images "rule" just like the Caesars and Pharaohs!

Here was a universalizing and democratization of the image of God, again, in one sense a celebration of God's smallness. And one can only imagine the affront this caused ruling elites, the blasphemy, and the effect it must have had on the self-perceptions of the downtrodden listening to the stirring and subversive message of Genesis 1.

In an age of selfies and inundation about our "image" perhaps we have lost this original gift: the awareness that we are reflections of God in this world and co-agents in creation. So, what does it mean to be created in God's image? 

The Hebrew root of the Latin phrase for image of God—imago Dei—means image, shadow or likeness of God. We are a snapshot or facsimile of God. At the very least this means humans occupy a higher place in the created order because we alone are imprinted with godlike characteristics. Our godlikeness is the path to our greatest fulfillment. We will feel the greatest pleasure and wholeness when who God made us to be is fully developed and expressed.

Our godlikeness can also be a pitfall, because in our hubris, our sin, we often confuse being like God with being God.  We fail in being fair and compassionate stewards of creation and of our brothers and sisters.

When we fully grasp what it means to bear God's image, we are at once struck with the grandeur of our possibilities and the tragedy of our unrealized potential, our failed responsibilities. To be fully human is to fully reflect God's creative, spiritual, intelligent, communicative, relational, moral and purposeful capacities, and to do so holistically and synergistically. 

Furthermore, though all humans possess these godlike capacities, each of us has the potential to express them distinctively, because God's image has been imprinted uniquely on each of us. 

How in Lent can we get in touch with this blessing, this responsibility, this unique posture to our very being?

A prayer from Walter Brueggemann:

You are the God who creates and recreates,

who judges and delivers,

who calls by name and makes new.

This much we gladly confess in praise and thanksgiving.

This must we trust and affirm...

only to ponder the chance that we are too glib,

that we say more than we mean,

that we say  more

that we can in fact risk.

We make our gingerly confession in a world filled

with those who cynically acknowledge none but themselves...

and we are their fellow travelers

with those who in vulnerability have no chance

but prayer to you...

and we stand in solidarity with them.

Thus we ask, beyond our critical reservations,

that you be your powerful, active, sovereign self.

Give us eyes to see your wonders around us;

Give us hearts to live into your risky miracles;

Give us tongues to praise you beyond doubt.

For it is to you, only you, that we turn on behalf of the world

that waits in its deathliness for your act of life.

Amen.