Genesis 1:26-31

Not very long ago I had to write a paper for one of my classes.  In my haste to leave home and get there however, I neglected to staple it together.  Obviously, this isn't a major issue, but I didn't want to turn it in to the professor in a loose pile.  Not only is it inconvient, but one runs the risk that a page, or two, or three might be lost.

The class was being held in the Psychol building and I was running late to class coming from an appointment in the Psychol center.  I couldn't see the person I had just met with and decided to ask anyone there for a staple.  It was after 5:00 so the only people there are the student clinicians, there aren't any office staff at that hour and all the other offices nearby were closed.  I stood by the door for a minute or so with something of an expectant look on my face, meeting the eyes of those who were standing nearby, hoping that one of them would acknowledge me from behind the glass.  After a minute or two of not getting a response, I pantomimed using a stapler as I didn't know how well they could here through the glass, to one
particular person.  His reaction was less than enthused, but after a moment of thought he seemed to realize that he couldn't ignore my plea without being absolutely rude.  His hesistence spoke volumes, as did his questioning my status of being there, if I was a student or in therapy, I don't remember which.

I slid my paper under the glass to him and he begrudginly stapled it.  The staple didn't go through properly but he felt that he had fulfilled his obligation to deal with me and slid it back to me.  I was annoyed enough at his behavior as well as feeling uncomfortable for apparently presuming too much to ask for a staple, that I demurely accepted the inadequate stapling job and hustled upstairs to class.  

As I sat in class I became increasingly annoyed at the attitude of the clinician and the way he begrudged me a staple.  I decided that I was going to buy a box of staples and give them to the Psych office with a note explaining why I was donating them and that I expected that they would treat the next 5000 requests for staples with courtesy and respect.  I gave the staples and the letter to the therapist I meet with.  He in turn gave the letter to his supervisor and I don't know what has happened from there.

I thought that it was over and done with, but this week, my therapist asked me about it again.  He had listened to the tape of our last session and was struck by the deep chord that the event had apparantly struck in me.  As I thought about it, I realized that I was still bothered about it and I figured out why.

Initially, I thought that it was just annoyance over being hasseled over a staple worth around two one-hundreths of a cent.  That means about a penny for 50 of them.  Why should it have bothered him to give me a staple?!  It wasn't even coming out of his pocket!

I came to realize, however, that what bothered me was the way he treated me.  The irony of the situation is incredible.  One of the things that evokes the most intense pain and anger in me is to be treated as less than human.  Here I was, in the Psychology clinic of the Fuller Psychology program, a place where people go to find healing and compassion from a Christian perspective, and I was treated like an annoying insect not worth the time of such a small amount of help.  The irony of it all.  Here was a person being trained to help people with their needs and struggles, and it was beneath him to actually help someone with such a base and insignificant need.  I wasn't a brother in Christ, I wasn't even a person, I was an annoyance, an inconvience.

I expect you are wondering what this has to do with the first chapter of Genesis, the creation narrative, and in particular, the creation of man.  It has everything to do with it.  Follow me and I will show you.
   
There is as scholar by the name of D J A Cline who contends that the preposition used in the phrase "in the image of God" would be better translated to be "as the image of God."  Since most of us here will have
studied some Hebrew, I will mention something of the argument.  In Hebrew, the preposition #bet# is normally translated as "in" or "with".  But it also carries the meaning of "as", "in the essence of."

The translation using the word "in" suggests that somewhere within God there is an image that we were made to conform to.  But what if we were made to be the image.  No longer is it an issue of God taking a cookie cutter and forming us all to certain perameters.  The arguments that have come down through the centuries from people like Augustine and Calvin become so much chaff in the wind.  The big theological discussions on this point suggest that the image is gone from us, or at least so damaged and tarnished so as to be unrecognizable.  Yet I wonder, would God have made us to be his image on earth and not taken into account the Fall that was to come?  I cannot believe this to be the case.  I believe that God created us to be his
image and planned for this to last through the Fall and into the New Creation.  Why do I believe this? Personally, I don't see how Jesus, who was in all ways human, could have been perfect if he did not have the image of God within him.  Yes, Jesus was divine as well as human, but how could a human reveal the person of God lest he was the image of God still, as a human?

Let us think about that "as" for a moment, we are made #as# the image of God.  To understand the significance of this we need to think first about how the author and his reader's would have understood this idea.  In middle-eastern culture it was believed that the various gods actually lived in their
images.  Their images were their dwelling place.  Sometimes these are constructed images, such as the asherah poles in Canaan, sometimes kings and rulers were considered to be the image of the God.  These kings were considered to have the god dwelling within them.  With the god inside of them, they were effectively that god and were treated as such.  A more contemporary way of thinking about this is to look at the international ambassadorial system.  Ambassador's are expected to be treated as though they were the ruler they represent.  A "sin" against one of them is considered to be a "sin" against the person they represent.  

The author of Genesis, whether Moses or someone else, would have known about this understanding and chose to use it intentionally.  Why?  This is what we have to ask ourselves.  Why would the writer want his
readers to have this association with human creation.  

What does it mean to be the image of God?  Why are we the image of God?   Who is there to look upon us and say, "Oh, neat, that's the image of God."  There are two groups to which God announces himself:  ourselves and creation.  God told us to fill the earth and subdue it.  He told us to "rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."  The other kings of the middle-east were considered to be the image of their god and were therefore expected to rule over their lands.  Their authority was determined by the "fact" so to speak that they were their god and ruled because of that.  God, as the creator of the world is its rightful ruler.  God created us as his image and expects us to rule his creation in his stead.  We are to be his stewards, the caretakers of this planet.  We are to treat this world in the same way that God would, with courtesy and respect.  Anything less than that is a failure to live up to the charge that God has given us.

Second, God created us to be his image to each other.  God created us with the expectation that we would be able to look at each other and see him!  We are the image of God to those we meet on the street, in our offices, and those we share supper with, and they, in turn, are the image of God for us.  Jesus had a clear understanding of this.  Not only did he have a mission to bring salvation to us through his death and resurrection, until that time, he was God's image among us.  He was the direct revelation of God of himself.  This is clear from the Bible.  If all Jesus had to do was die and be resurrected then everything else is unimportant.  Why then, was so much written about his life.  The premise of studying the Bible, and in particular the Gospels, is to see God revealed in Jesus.  And that is just what Jesus went about doing.

So what does this have to do with a staple?  Everything.  The story I told you at the beginning clearly illustrates what happens when we lose track of the fact that we are the image of God.  I am the image of God.  Willie is the Image of God.  Jennifer is the image of God.  If I do anything to you that would be a sin against God if I did it to God, then I have done just that, sinned against God in doing what I did to you.  If I say that Dr. Pannell is not as valuable as I am because he is black, or for any other reason, then I have sinned against God because Dr. Pannell is #THE# image of God, and in being the image of God, he is in effect, God.  In seeing me as an annoyance, the man in the Psych center sinned against God.  He failed to see the image of God in me and to respond accordingly.  This is the challenge that we all face and frequently fail so miserably at.

Actually, the challenge is two-fold.  Not only are we to be alert and to recognize the image of God that is in all of us, but we are also to be alert to allowing God's image to be seen in us.  I haven't found an answer yet, but I wonder if I did something that day in the Counseling office that somehow veiled the image of God so that the other man couldn't have seen God in me.  It is easy to point our fingers and say that the other person is failing to recognize the image of God in us, but in fairness, can we honestly say that
we were presenting God's image in a way that would encourage love and worship?  Can we honestly say that we are consistantly looking for the image of God in others and working to draw that image out.

I exhort you then, to go out from here and seek the image of God in others.  Go and present yourself as the image of God, as though you were God, which you are as his ambassador.  But be careful, do this in the same
humility that Jesus had, knowing that it is only by the power and especially the grace of God that you do so.

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