Genesis 1:24-27
The land animals other than humankind have their own attention and blessing. But then man is made in God’s image. The cultural context of the writing is one which abhors any idea of a humanly-fashioned image of God (e.g. Exodus 20:4). Man, instead, is made in the image of God: a living, breathing, social entity. This is linked directly to his stewardship of the rest of the creation. Man is to be God’s responsible representative, standing for God and bearing his character in the world.
If the passage looks toward humanity’s care for the rest of creation, it should be a no-brainer that humans care for one another, a forgone prerequisite. Something, it is painfully obvious on this date, has gone horribly, horribly wrong.
Prayer:
God, why is your image so distorted? Would you turn hearts to you, toward the new man, the first-born of a new creation? Turn me nearer to you and to be part with others of what it is to be your image, as I welcome your Son more fully to be your new life in me. Amen.
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some thougts:
* i don't know how well this translates from hebrew, but in english, the previous creative acts use the phrases "Let there be..." or "Let the land produce...', etc., as if god were directing from afar, whereas this final act is "Let us make" which is immensely more personal, foretshadowing god-as-artisan in genesis 2:7.
* also curious is the use of "us" -- i take it this is not the royal 'we' but harkens to the community god is creating, though it also brings to mind god-in-three-persons.
* i blogged some observations awhile back about gender and stewwarship as represented in this passage, but i didn't really draw any conclusions, and i don't need to know, for the conclusions are present in the spirit of the community, as witnessed here in our pastor's blog.
* 'created in god's image' -- i wonder how that came about. i believe in darwinian evolution as much as i believe in celluar mitosis or the earth goes around the sun, all wondrous examples of god's creation alive and singing. so i wonder how human society evolved, human consciousness evolved, and human conscience evolved. at what point in our 4 milion evolution as hominids did we flesh out in god's image? perhaps we're still evolving, still assuming the form...
* 'Something, it is painfully obvious on this date, has gone horribly, horribly wrong.' that has chilled me all day long. is this what eve thought as she wept over the filial murder of her son? or the prophets of judah who saw god's altar in the city of david defiled? or mary as she watched jesus nailed to the cross? or the baker in london as plague killed two-thirds of his family and fires razed the city to the ground? or montezuma's people as a handful of spaniards killed their leader and obliterated a civilization? or... or... or...
don't look now, but there's more coming. for sure.
'you get bigger as you grow' sang bruce cockburn, one of my favorite modern-day prophets on my favourite cockburn album, humans:
You get bigger as you go
News reruns -- dawn comes rainbow
evolution is long, god's plan is even longer, but sometimes a human night of despair seems longest of all.
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