Image of God

Tuesday May 20th, Genesis 1: Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." We don’t quite get the image part and we really don’t get the responsible part. Being made in the image of God does not mean that we “look” like God or that God “looks” like us. If that were the case then the next question would be which one of “us” does God look like? Is God handsome like me, or ugly like my enemies? You can see where this sort of questioning can lead, and it isn’t pretty. We are made in the image of God in that we can love, we can care, we can give and we can nurture. Being responsible for our brothers and sisters on this earth as well as the rest of the creation we still have a little trouble with. Were the Germans and Japanese we bombed during WWII created in the image of God? Are the Jews who were so brutally destroyed in the camps created in the image of God? Are the Iraqis we bombed in shock and awe and the Iranians we are now trying to find a way to bomb created in the image of God? The answer of course is yes. Perhaps someday the people of the earth will grow up enough to recognize that being called into creation is being called into relationship and therefore we need to find some other way to solve conflicts. The solution is not about pointing fingers but joining hands.