God of beauty and love, help us to grow further into your image in which we are made. Amen.
When you look in the mirror, what do you see? For a lot of reasons, many people have a complicated relationship with the image they see in the mirror. As we heard in our Collect, the opening prayer for the week, we ask for God to help us to “pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal.” It’s a prayer that asks God to help us focus on the things that matter most and let go of the things that aren’t so important. And so when you look in the mirror, there are two ways to see your reflection.
One is through that temporal lens – where we maybe notice what our hair looks like or how big our muscles are. But these physical things are temporal, meaning that they are fading away and decaying. As we are reminded on Ash Wednesday – we are made from the dust of the earth and we shall return dust. So to focus on the temporal things is to miss the bigger, and more important, picture.
The other way to look in a mirror is through the window of the eternal – to see ourselves the way that God sees us. When I asked that opening question about what you see in the mirror, I’m sure we were all thinking of a lot of different things. But if I were to ask, “When God looks at you, what does God see?” I’d hope that we’d all have pretty much the same answer: God sees a beloved child who is a part of God’s image.
That answer about being made and loved in the image of God was the focus of this past week’s Music & Arts Camp at St. Luke’s. It was a great week with 40 children, both from St. Luke’s and the Salisbury community. I want to use this opportunity to thank Caroline Stephenson for the many hours of planning and coordinating that went into making it such a great week. Your ministry is so valuable and appreciated. And our great musical leadership was provided by Stephen Williams. The children received not only great musical instruction, but were surrounded by the beauty of music which reminds us of God’s love for us all. Thank you both.
We are loved and made in the image of God. That’s the point of this sermon, it was the theme of our Music & Arts Camp, and it is the foundation of our faith. The place where we see this on full display is in the Holy Eucharist, Communion, which is at the heart of our worship. What we do on Sundays is modeled on the way that Jesus feeds the 5,000. There are four actions that we heard about in the reading from John and as we look at each of these, we’ll see something about what it means to be made in the image of the God who is love. These four actions are both the plot of the Gospel story and the pattern of Communion: take, bless, break, and give.
First, Jesus takes the loaves that were given to him just as the clergy takes the bread and wine that are presented from the congregation. In order to take, Jesus noticed the needs of the people. He saw that they were hungry and he also saw that they had among them five loaves and two fish. Aren’t you glad that we base Communion on the Last Supper which mentions bread and wine instead of on this story? Can you imagine if you got a wafer of bread and a small sardine?
Another way to say that Jesus takes the bread is to say that he gathers it up together, which is what it means to be the image of God. You and I, in and of ourselves, are not the image of God. There is only one person who has the fullness of God’s image, and that is Jesus. Instead, together, we are made in the image of God. We should never say “I am made in the image of God” because it can lead us into the temptation of making God in our image instead of the other way around. If nothing about faith is challenging, if we are never surprised by God then that’s a sure sign that we are worshipping an idol of our own making as opposed to the Living God.
Instead, “we are made in the image of God” is the way to speak about this. When it comes to our faith, it’s always in the plural, not singular. That doesn’t mean that faith isn’t personal, but it is never private. It’s always about all of us. This is the wisdom we learn from African theologians who speak about ubuntu – the idea that “I am because we are” “or that “there is no me without a we.” We are gathered together in God’s love and all together, we are the image of God. Each of us is something like a mosaic tile or a puzzle piece. We all add something, we are all part of something bigger, we all are needed, we all have a place, we all belong, and together we are the image of God. Therefore, the purpose and mission of the Church is to always be making room for people, strangers and friends, neighbors and enemies, to gather together at the Table of God’s love.
The next action is that Jesus offers a blessing – a prayer of thanksgiving. A blessing can be something formal like “May the Lord bless you and keep you” or it can be something like “I really appreciate how kind you were to that person.” A blessing is speaking well of someone for the purpose of building them up. Beloved, we need more words of blessing in our society. So much of our discourse is about tearing people down, pointing out their flaws, and gossiping. Instead, the example that Jesus gives us is that, as image-bearers, we are to build up and bless with our words.
This is what Jesus does on the Cross – he doesn’t say “You’re wrong about me” or “You’ll pay for this.” No, he says “Father, forgive.” Blessing is about recognizing the image of God in each other and treating each other with dignity and respect. Too often we judge ourselves based on our intentions and others by their actions. What if we gave the benefit of the doubt to others? Just as we’re not at our best when we’re stressed, hungry, or hot, the same is true for others. A little bit of grace goes a long way.
Having offered the words of blessing, Jesus then breaks the bread, which is why we make a dramatic show of breaking the Communion bread, echoing the way that Jesus stretched out his arms in love and was broken on the Cross. In order for bread to be shared, it must be broken. Why this is the case, I don’t know. In God’s infinite wisdom, suffering is not a tragedy, it is not an inconvenience, rather brokenness is the fertile soil of love.
CS Lewis, who wrote the Narnia books, once said “To love is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one. Wrap is carefully around with hobbies and luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
Jesus shows us that the way of love is the way of the Cross. Because we dare to take the risk of love, we are opened to the possibility of abundant life – having meaning, purpose, and joy as we live in the image of God. But this is risky business – and so some people avoid faith. It’s not so much that they don’t believe in God or a higher power, it’s that the vulnerability of love can be scary and overwhelming. At our best, the Church is a place where we can dare to love, where we practice being broken, where we rehearse forgiveness, where we trust in Resurrection newness. We are made in the image of God, gathered together as the beloved community of God – which means we don’t need to have all the answers, have everything figured out, or have our lives put together. We can be broken and rely on the grace of God and the gifts of the community to hold us together.
Lastly, the bread is given, satisfying the needs of the people. This final action tells us something very important about what it means for us to be made in the image of God. We are participants in the economy of love. It’s like the water cycle that we learn about in school – precipitation falls, giving life and growth to Creation, and then it evaporates and becomes precipitation again. To flourish as God intends for us is to participate in this cycle of love in which we not only receive grace, mercy, and peace from God, but we share it. It’s been said that love grows not by hoarding it, but by giving it away. And the same is true for generosity, grace, and forgiveness.
When we receive a gift, it becomes greater as we pass it on. When we are forgiven, that freedom deepens as we forgive others. When we are loved, it becomes more beautiful as we love others. In the reading from Ephesians, we heard a lovely prayer that we might be able to comprehend the breadth, length, height, and depth of God’s love for us, the love that holds us together in God’s image. And we come to comprehend the awesomeness of this love by sharing it.
Giving is how Jesus shows us that we live as image-bearers. Because when we are unable to give, we become closed off and fearful. This is why we heard that the people wanted to force Jesus to be their king. They didn’t want to share this power, they wanted to keep it for themselves. The people were imagining how powerful their army could be if they always had a supply of self-replenishing food; or imaging how much of a profit they could make – no more wasting time and resources planting crops and fishing, they could just show up to the markets and sell the food they got for free.
Jesus resists this and shows us how God’s economy works – through giving. It’s an essential spiritual discipline: give some of your money away. Give it to a church or charity, that’s up to you. But if you are unable to give away 5-10% of your income, then you are captive to it. The same thing is true of our time – if we can never make time to be quiet, or come to church, or volunteer in the community, well, that tells us that we’re overly focused on those temporal things instead of the eternal things. Jesus gives his life for us so that we might know just how deeply we are loved, and as those made in the image of God, we are likewise made to give, which is why it is more blessed to give than to receive and why it feels so fulfilling to give.
This church is filled with beautiful images in stained glass and icons. Icons are intended to help us see more deeply, to see things eternal in the midst of things temporal. We are made in the image of God – meaning that we are an icon to the world. We are made to reflect the love out of which we are made. We are given the holy work of showing the world that reconciliation is possible, that hope is never a mistake, and that love is what we are made with and for. So the next time you look in the mirror, or at anyone else, remember that you are seeing a beloved and beautiful part of the image of God.
