Sermon September 9, 2012

Genesis 1:26–28

Psalm 8

Philippians 2:1–8

Mark 10:41–45

“In God's Image and Likeness”

From my childhood, I've heard very different things about being a human being, sometimes at church, sometimes at school, sometimes on television and most I don't remember exactly where I've heard them. I've heard, in some of the prayers of the elders when I was a child of our unworthiness to come to the table of our Lord. In some hymns I heard we were wretches, which I didn't understand, or worms, which I did. I heard that our bodies were miracles of life and that we were instigators of sin. I read book about how incredibly intricate and complicated are the relationships between our cells, forming tissue; between our tissue, forming organs, between our organs, forming systems and between our organ systems, forming life itself—as humans and as other living things.

Then as I progressed, I learned about the wealth of genetic information that gets passed from parent to child—in every living thing. And deeper into that code, I learned about the chemistry that makes that possible, the templates and proteins of our genes and the information between our genes that are still mysteries, yet daily scientists discover broader and more complex pieces of information that just a few years ago were completely unknown.

In today's scripture from Genesis, we hear second half of the story of the sixth movement of creation, when God spoke humanity into being. All other living things were set in motion in an echo of poetry God set humanity into motion, into fruition and purpose. According to this first story of creation in Genesis, God decided that humankind would somehow carry the image of God, in both male and female—perhaps most perfectly in relationship.

In this mysterious set of verses, God said, Let us, plurally make humankind. This plural has been understood in different ways—but it is likely that God was seen as a ruler in the midst of a royal court, speaking decrees that were instantaneously carried out. For great purpose, God set humanity within the ordered creation for a purpose, just as the rest of creation was set forth with a purpose. One was similar to all other living things—be fertile and make lots of babies. The other purpose focuses uniquely on the purpose of a being with God's image: to rule creation and it's living population. And to rule it “in God's image” as God would rule. With power, yes, that cannot be denied—and also with compassion, justice, hope, grace, responsibility and with an awareness of the purposes for which each living thing was created.

In simplistic terms, the flies and unseen bacteria to eat the dead bodies of bigger plants and animals, the spiders to eat the flies, the mice and birds to spread the seeds of the trees and other plants, other birds to eat the mice and the spiders, etc. The snakes to eat the mice and other rodents, the bigger animals to eat the smaller ones, the people to breed and recombine the plants and raise the animals that feed more people, and the flies and bacteria to reduce them all back down to reenter the food chain. We may have dominion or the responsibility to rule with the love of God, yet we, too, are an integral part of all that is and will be.

In my undergraduate education, I took a class that introduced me to the ways in which human beings had developed plants for the first time in a scientific way. I had known about modern plant breeding because I grew up in a farming community, but I didn't realize that for thousands of years human beings had been selectively breeding plants to increase the amount and kinds of food that they produced. Ten thousand years ago, corn, for instance, was once not much more than a small grass with edible seeds, now it's a very large grass that feeds millions of people and millions of animals as well. People made it what it is today, from where it began as a useful, but limited plant. Lots of other plants are like that as well. The apple also was once just a small sweet fruit, prized for that rare sweetness in nature by lots of animals. People, including the fabled Johnny Appleseed, spread the trees and bred them for larger and sweeter fruit and varieties that we know today.

In reflection of our Godly image, people have done wondrous things. We have adapted our environments to suit our needs. Instead of growing fur to protect our skins from heat or cold, we make clothing. We live in shelters to make all kinds of climate habitable. People live, at least part of the time, in climates like Antarctica and the Sahara only because we have created objects that make that possible.

In so many ways, we have shown our potential as carriers of God's image and likeness throughout the whole of creation, the whole of the universe itself. And yet, as we are all aware, we have also caused irreparable harm to some places on this planet and to some populations of plants and animals that will never live again.

In our departure from the loving and merciful, justice-filled and graceful image and likeness of God, we have abandoned many responsibilities for our fellow creatures. For thousands of years, in many cases, we may have acted out of ignorance. Whole nations in places that we now know as deserts were once forested and much more fertile than they are today. The cedars of Lebanon, were truly once a wonder—now they are a memory. Islands in Scotland and Northern England, in Ireland and other places were stripped of trees—and in some cases peat bogs harvested until they began to disappear. Much of this was done when human life was a matter of bare survival and can be understood.

Yet in recent decades, we have come to understand so much more about the role of humanity within the webs of life that span our planet. We have been shown from the point of view of ethics and science that our choices make a difference to the survival of many creatures, including the survival of our own selves as a species.

We have come to realize that our unthinking actions have considerable consequences—and that our blatant disregard and sometimes greedy actions have devastating effects on the creation that God has made and has given to all living things to live.

While I know that many of the actions we take are unthinking and done out of ignorance, I also know that people do make choices that they know are harmful to this planet and to all of the living things that depend upon it to survive. I know that individually, we don't always understand what effects our choices made, the cars we drive or the food we eat or even the clothes we wear, but corporations, governments, scientists, doctors, have the capacity to find out. We are responsible—as a whole, as the creatures that God has created with God's very own image and likeness.

We are capable of great good and great evil—both because we carry within us and upon us the power that God has given us. Scripture and experience confirms this—and we know it. We know we have choices. We can choose actions that make today easier and make tomorrow impossible. We can choose to act in ways that are inconvenient and even painful today so that many more generations of living things will not only survive, but enjoy life on this planet.

We have the choice: Psalm 8 reminds us that God has made us just a little less than angels and crowned us with the power to be honorable and gracious. And that we have been given the responsibilities of power over other living things. We are minuscule compared to the universe of stars and planets and powerful as we choose to use the power God gives us.

As I ponder human beings, the thoughts and words and phrases that I heard growing up were mostly right, even though they were often contradictory. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, knit into intricate complex organisms. At the same time, we have the potential to be destructive and unworthy of the glorious abilities we have. We carry God's image and likeness in faith and in truth. And we are given a freedom of choice as to how we use the power that gives us. Will we serve that which needs our knowledge, wisdom and protection? Will we use and abuse as we are given the power?

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Let us be the humanity that God created us to be. Amen.