pointing fingers

Tuesday June 17^th, Genesis 1, Image of God: 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 of God part and we really don’t get the responsibility for creation 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 earth on which we all live is what 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 death camps created in the image of God? Are the Iraqis we bombed in shock and awe 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.  There will be conflicts, but we need to mature enough to be able to live in conflict.  The solution is not about pointing fingers but joining hands.