(This was originally a sermon preached for our Ecochurch Service, on 28th July, 2024. I have edited the introduction, but the body of the text is largely identical. If you would like to watch the sermon, you can find it here.)
Biblical texts: Genesis 1:26-2:4, Ephesians 3:14-21, John 6:16-21.
For many of us, an important current issue is how we, as a church community, and individually, can protect this world we’re a part of. So in this brief sermon, I want to look at the two texts we’ve chosen, because they’re a fundamental part of the way we view both ourselves, and the world.
In Genesis 1, we read of God creating the world in 6 days, and we learn that as humans have been made in the image of God. So far, so good. But not only that, in addition God has given us ‘dominion’ over the fish, birds, animals etc. If you were going to write a religious book, you’ve got to admit that’s a pretty bold start. The world was created by God, we are made in God’s image, and we are sent forth to be fruitful and multiply, and have dominion.
Right there in the first chapter you have the basis for our understanding of humans as unique image bearers, a foundational belief that aids our reflection on who we are, a text that you can argue eventually gives rise to our understanding of human rights. Good news right? And it’s followed by this language of dominion, which at least in the last couple of hundred years, helps rubber stamp the destruction and decimation of the earth. In fact, it’s ended up threatening our own existence. We might think, understandably, those verses are a big problem. What I’d like to do today, in the next 5 minutes, is to begin to rescue those verses, and help us to rethink our place in God’s creation, for the benefit of both ourselves and the world in which we live.
First, language about the image of God was common in creation stories in the ancient world, but it almost always referred to the King. The King was God’s representative on earth, God’s image, charged with representing him. God is the ruler, the King his representative, and the rest of us are of little importance. But the writer of Genesis boldly uses this language about humans. God is still clearly in charge, but ALL humans are made in God’s image; we are all God’s representatives, we are all charged with doing God’s will. When Genesis talks about being made in God’s image, we’re talking here about our vocation, our calling as humans, to represent God well. How are we able to do that? Well, in Genesis 2 we read that God breathes his spirit into us, that is what gives us life, that is how we’re enabled to represent God.
God is still in charge, but ALL humans are made in God’s image.
Second, we are used to thinking of God’s creation in Genesis as perfect, but that’s not what Genesis says. Again and again we hear the familiar refrain, ‘God saw that it was good.’ But it’s also clear there is room for progress. As humans we are charged to go out, to be fruitful and multiply. And again, another refrain we hear is this, ‘There was morning, and there was evening, the first day, second day, etc.’ But not so on the seventh day, and there is a tradition in Jewish thought that recognises that the seventh day of creation never ends. Instead, God invites humans into the task of helping creation, ordering it, empowering it. It is our duty as image bearers to aid creation, and for that purpose God has given us skills and abilities he has not given other animals. Our actions can help and encourage the flourishing of all life. Amazingly, in God’s economy, our helping creation as a whole will benefit us too. We are, after all, a part of that creation.
Third, and finally, language of power can be unnerving, but if we want to get a glimpse of how we might exercise this power, then we have one place to look, Christ himself. Genesis tells us we are made in the image of God, but as Paul reminds us in Colossians 1:15, Christ is THE image. Just as God the father creates and then invites us to work with him, so too Jesus’s way of leading and rule is not to exercise power over, but to serve others, to show compassion and mercy, and to work for the benefit of others. There’s a brief passage in the gospels (Mark 10:35-45), where James and John ask to be seated next to Jesus in heaven, in the places of honour and power. Jesus reprimands them, and instead points them to a different way of understanding power and influence. His way of leadership is not to lord it over others, not to exercise tyrannical rule, but to be a servant. It is a very different way to lead, to look out for the needs of those around us, and to aid them. In light of our Gospel reading today, which shows the immense power Jesus had in calming the storm (John 6:16-21), that way of leading is even more astounding.
But this doesn’t often seem like the sort of world we live in. Can we really imagine a place where lives of service, of compassion, of putting others first, will really make the difference? If we take our reading from Ephesians 3:14-21 seriously, I think that’s exactly what we must hope for. God is able to do far more than we might hope or imagine, but only by his power at work within us. This re-orientation of our lives, of our very selves, will not happen through simple striving. It will happen as we join with God, become collaborators in the work of his Kingdom, and allow him to work in and through us.
We, as individuals and as a community, are made in the image of God, we are given the tremendous privilege of joining with God in the continuing formation of the world we live in. It is a gift, and when we use that gift as servants rather than Kings and Queens, the whole world benefits.
So, as we move into the next weeks and months, may you recognise and embrace your God given place in this world, may you use your God given power for the good of all, and may you follow Jesus’s example of servanthood. Amen.