Today, we continue our focus on God’s creation -- both the act of creation and the things created -- by taking a look at humanity, that is, all the people who inhabit God’s creation. Picking up our reading in the book of Genesis where we left off last week (Genesis 1:26-28), we see that following the creation of the Earth itself, the skies, the seas, the sun, moon, and stars, the plants and all living creatures, God creates humanity. If you’ve been following along, you know that this is a continuation of the same day on which God created all the animals on land. On the fifth day of creation, God created the creatures of the sea and the birds of the air. Now on the sixth day, so far, God has created all of the wildlife on land -- the cattle and livestock, the crawling things, and all manner of animals. And seeing that it was good and pleasing, God continued by creating humans.
As I mentioned last week, if we consider our science books, this tale of creation from the beginning of Genesis continues to follow the same pattern. The Earth forms, the seas pull back from the land. Life begins in the chaos of the waters, eventually climbing out onto the land, first filling the land with plants followed eventually by the animals. And finally, humans became a part of the world. The same story with roughly the same sequence, all leading up to the birth of humanity.
Like everything else that exists on this Earth, we are a part of creation. The Earth is our home as surely as it is the home of the squirrels in the trees, the fishes of the seas, or the birds of the air. We were made as a part of creation. We are even given a blessing similar to the one given to the creatures of the seas and the birds of the air before us. “Be fertile and multiply….”
But there is also something distinctly different about the creation of humanity. The very first verse of today’s reading makes this clear. Our reading begins with God saying, “Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us so that they may take charge…” (Genesis 1:26, CEB). The creation of humanity is the first part of creation to be explicitly made in God’s image. Humanity is also the first part of creation to be tasked with authority over the rest of creation.
As we look through various translations of these verses, the words may change, but the meaning we have taken from them has often been the same. The Hebrew here includes two different words, often interpreted with very similar meanings. Humanity is created to take charge of the earth and to master the earth. In other translations, we might read rule, have dominion over, or even subjugate. When we hear these words, we have a pretty good sense of what they mean to us based on our experience of them. These commands here have been used by believers for centuries as justification to do pretty much whatever we want to the natural landscape. We can take whatever resources we want, be as destructive as we like, because God basically commands us to take charge or rule over the earth and to master or subjugate it. As long as it is serving humanity, that is all that matters, right?
But I can’t help but feel that this is a) extremely self-centered and narcissistic and b) completely ignores the part of this chapter that we read last week. God just spent five and a half days creating all of existence -- the seas and lands, all of the plants, the creatures of our world. All along the way, God frequently pauses to look at how good and pleasing it is. Does it make sense for God to then create humans and say “conquer this beautiful thing I have created and crush it under your own rule”? It would be like saying it would be okay for the Louvre to take a magic marker and draw a mustache on the “Mona Lisa” or giving cans of spray paint to visitors to the Sistine Chapel and inviting them to add a bit of graffiti to the ceiling during their visit.
God created a work of art and made us a part of it. It seems highly unlikely that God meant for us to come in and tear the place down.
In order to understand exactly what it is that God does mean here, it is important for us to go back to the beginning of this first verse. “Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us so that they may take charge….” What does it mean to take charge or to rule in God’s image? How does God master or subjugate the world that has been created? Is that what our rule of the Earth looks like?
When it comes to ruling over this world and all that is a part of it, we must remember that the image of God is tied to that act of ruling. We are called to rule the rest of creation according to God’s example. Is God’s authority over our lives one of love and benevolence or tyranny and violence? How then should we treat the rest of creation of which we are a part?
What does it mean to be created in the image of God? What is the divine spark within us that causes us to resemble God? God has just spent time crafting and creating a good and beautiful world. A whole cosmos, even. Surely our creation in the same image is not one of hate and destruction and violence.
Verse 27 here is one of my favorites, and it really helps me to wrestle with this idea of the divine image that we carry. “God created humanity in God’s own image, in the divine image God created them, male and female God created them” (Genesis 1:27, CEB). I fear that sometimes when we hear this verse, we interpret this to mean a physical image -- “I look like God” -- except that we usually flip it around -- “God looks like me.” And when one group of people takes it upon themselves to rule over another group of people, no matter the criteria used to separate them and mark them as "other," suddenly God becomes defined in the image of those who rule, who subjugate, who take charge. The act of taking charge is taken as proof of the divine image. Isn’t this pretty much exactly how kingship works in many cultures? The king rules by divine authority. Their taking control is proof of the divine image within them.
But I'm not convinced that this is what the text tells us. It tells us first that all of humanity is created in God’s image. God created humanity in God’s image, not any one single man (the Hebrew use of the singular male notwithstanding). Even if we want to read this as God creating a single man, it is from that single man that all of the rest of humanity is descended, all in the image of God.
But it really can’t mean it that way since the verse ends “male and female God created them” (this, too, is found in the Hebrew). It is not simply a single man that God created. God created them, male and female. Both created in the image of God.
At this point, all the arguments that God is male and that men therefore should naturally rule over everyone else can be tossed out the window. After all, if we want to somehow imply that the image of God is about a physical image or resemblance, what does it mean for both male and female to be in the image of God? Feel free to ponder that thought for a moment. Perhaps in some ways that can be helpful for us as we consider the people who are so often pushed to the margins or outright denied the right to exist in our modern world. If God is both male and female, who are those in our world who are actually closest to the “image” of God?
Maybe now it is easier for us to accept that perhaps our resemblance to the divine is not about some sort of physical appearance, but about how we live and move on this earth. How we act towards one another and the rest of creation. How we create things that are good and beautiful. How we love and care for all that is around us.
It also means that the act of loving God is intimately tied to the act of loving those who carry the image of God within them. And our reading today makes it clear that all of humanity is created in the image of God -- not just certain races, not just certain genders, not even just certain beliefs. All are created in God’s image.
What does that mean for how we live with one another?
Treat one another?
Care for one another?
Love one another?
To help us consider what this looks like, we are going to close with a familiar hymn today. "Here I Am, Lord" is written as a dialogue between us and God. In the words of this hymn, God speaks of the acts of creation, of all that God has done, and of the many needs that still fill this world. And we respond with a willingness to act out of the divine image within us, to love those we encounter along the way, and to help them meet the needs that they have.