In many newspapers adds for various products there is often a disclaimer in very small print that says one item may be substituted for another. This happened recently in renting a car in Ireland. The contract said a Ford Focus (or similar car). When I arrived it was a Toyota Yaris. They are similar in size but not in how they run or are built.
What if we did this as expecting parents, “after the child is born we will send the child or one similar home with you.” No one would take that deal. It is silly to even think of it and yet there is a lesson in this for us all.
Scripture says from the beginning each and every person, each and everything on this Earth are made in God’s image. If that is true should we not respect each other and this Earth and treat all as if it were God. This is the first thing the organized church gets rid of, the idea that we are all in God’s image and the church does this by setting up rules to tell us who is “in” and who is “out”. Who goes to heaven and who does not.
Richard Rohr has a book, “Everything Belongs” and he makes a great point that we are all one creation. We get a choice though, we can choose to be similar to God or not. In God’s image is not a choice but a truth. When we choose to be similar to God, we behave as if we are God’s presence in the world today.
Is this not why Jesus came? Came to show us how we can be similar to God. Is that not the point of all spiritual disciplines? To become similar to Christ? I think it is exactly the point. Now let us consider this world we live in: if you are Black, Hispanic, White, LBGTQ, Male or Female then you are God’s creation and in God’s image. How can we be similar to God if we exclude even one?
This is the origin of discrimination and prejudice. When we cease to see all as God’s creation, then we make the choice of who to exclude. We then use scripture to prove some are to be excluded. What we are really doing is creating boundaries that say which similarity is “okay” and which one is not “okay”. We are dictating what is similar to God and what is not. Christ came to us all to show us what it is really like to choose to be similar to God.
These “statements of faith” or “creeds” simply reinforce the idea that no one is good enough and the image we are to be similar to is absolute perfection, which we, of course, cannot achieve. Perhaps it is time to treat all the world as God’s image and good creation and then to practice similar types of behavior that reflects that we are the Living Image of that very creator.
TMM