The Image of God: Part 3

In 2005, over 20 years ago, I was asked to preach at my church for Laity Sunday. It was really the first time I had ever preached, and I was nervous. I was so nervous that I wouldn’t call it preaching – I said I was “giving a talk.”  The sermon scripture was the same Gospel passage we read today, and the title of my sermon was “God wants you.” In my mind it referred to the posters of Uncle Sam during World War II, where Uncle Sam is pointing out to the people, saying, “I want you…” 

At the time, my church posted sermon titles and preacher names on a sign outside the church for the people driving down Fifth Avenue in Huntington to see, I assume with the idea that sermon titles and/or preacher names would draw people into worship (I doubt that works, but there you go). I was driving down Fifth Avenue one day that week and saw the sermon title: God wants you, Kim Matthews.

Isaiah 49:15-16 says this:

Can a woman forget her nursing child
or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even these might forget,
yet I will not forget you.
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands;

We are created in the image of God, and God has inscribed us on the palms of God’s hands.  If I can see the coin in Jesus’s hand marked with the pompous statement that a man is god, then how much more can I imagine the hand of God, marked with love of us.

Jesus is in Jerusalem.  He has said he must suffer at the hands of the elders and chief priests and be killed. Imagine for a moment the crucifixion marks on the palms of his hands, marked by the divine love God has for us.

What belongs to God? We do. What are the things we should give to God?

In this same chapter of Matthew, in the third conflict story, Jesus tells a Pharisee, a lawyer, in answer to the question “What is the greatest commandment.”

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

What belongs to God? What should we give to God? All that we are: our heart, our soul, our mind, and loving our neighbors as ourselves.

It’s not a simple answer Jesus gives – it’s a complicated, messy, and difficult answer, but it is one that defines the church.

Very often the truth is that we want to only love the people we want to love and we want to ignore everyone else – to not even think about them. We want to devote ourselves – our soul, so to speak – only to our own interests and priorities. But who is made in the image of God? Who is inscribed on the palms of God? I am. You are. But not only us – everyone is. In another story, a lawyer – what is it with lawyers? – asks Jesus “Who is my neighbor?”

Who is our neighbor? Everyone who is created in the image of God. Everyone who is inscribed on the palms of God. Everyone. 

Even the person we never think about. Even the person we would ignore when we walk down the street. Even the person we are afraid of or who we are angry with.  

Jesus doesn’t provide a simple answer. It’s a complicated, messy, and difficult – for us – answer.

I’ve said twice now that Jesus’s answer is one that defines the church. What does his answer mean for the body of Christ?