“The Very Spitting Image" - sermon given at Millbrook United Methodist Church, 11/21/2010
Texts: Genesis 1:26a and 27 and Colossians 1:11-20.
May God's words alone be spoken, may God's words alone be heard. Amen.
For several years, before I moved down here to New Jersey, I had an established after church routine. I would go to brunch with a few other congregants, where I would without fail order the same meal every time. So steady was our routine, that the waitress would anticipate our arrival, and would have our table prepared and our coffee poured. After our meal, I would pick up a copy of the New York Times (not an easy paper to find in rural Maine), and then spend the afternoon reading and doing the crossword puzzle, which I was fortunate to complete now and then.
On one particular Sunday, while waiting for brunch, sharing a laugh with these friends from church, and looking forward to the crossword puzzle, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see an elderly woman, stooped over and hands curled around a walker, dressed in a bright, baggy sweater. She could hardly contain her excitement as she said: “You’re Billy Dodge’s son! You’re the spitting image!”
“Guilty as charged,” I said, perplexed and a little annoyed her announcement. She explained that dad was one of her pupils when he was in middle school, and I looked JUST like him. She went on to tell about how mischievous he was, always causing trouble for the sake of it, and I admitted to myself that perhaps the proverbial apple didn’t fall too far from the tree. I had never seen this woman before, but she recognized me, because she saw something familiar; she saw the image of my father.
Well, this incident has faded into the recesses of my memory, but every time I hear this Genesis text, it comes rushing back. "The Lord God said, `Let us create human beings in our image. Male and female, God created them.'” This passage was written at a time when this particular community had a very negative self-image. The Jews that resided in the ancient northern Kingdom of Judah had been hauled away from their homeland to Babylon. They had suffered terribly; they had been separated from everything that gave them power and strength and identity; things had fallen apart and their center had given way. A very great theological, spiritual writer, the unknown author of this portion of Genesis, simply called "The Priestly Writer" -- wanted to remind people that despite their captivity and separation from their identity, they bore the image of God in their very being. "And the Lord God created them, male and female."
In a way, what the passage is saying is, "I'd know that face anywhere. You are the very image of the one who has birthed you, who has made you, who has nurtured you. Your identity is in your image." Consider, just briefly, what this would mean for our society, a society that is always trying to sell us on the image that we need in order to be acceptable -- the latest beauty products; the most fashionable clothes or electronic gadgets; the most prestigious awards or college diplomas; in other words, what you have to buy or achieve in order to be somebody. What this passage says is that you are already someone very special, and you didn’t have to do or buy anything. “You are the very spitting image of God."
The letter to the church in Colossae was written sometime in the middle to end of the first century, and it too talks about identity and image-bearing. Whether Paul himself actually wrote the letter or not is disputed. It wasn’t uncommon for an author to assume an authoritative identity (like Paul) for her or himself when writing such a letter. So, whether this was written by Paul or not really doesn’t matter; if it wasn’t consequential to the Colossians, it shouldn’t hinder our reception of the text.
It seems the Colossians were incorporating elements and practices into their community other than what Paul had instructed, and, with a mixture of self-righteousness jealousy and religious authority, the author attempts to correct this behavior. So, we have this portion of text, this heady and confusing doctrinal statement about the supremacy and singularity of Christ.
These sorts of texts, ones that seem esoteric and difficult to understand, and, if we are honest, irrelevant to our busy, complicated lives, beg the question: so what? What sort of contribution can this text make to our lives, to our collective experience, that is meaningful in a tangible way? Especially this part of Colossians, with all its weird theological statements about Christ being the image of God- why not just leave this to the Biblical scholars and theologians, and instead think about an easier, more readily applicable text, like the Sermon on the Mount, or one of Jesus’ parables?
No, we cannot ignore these passages. To do so is perilous; we risk an incomplete and stunted faith. We may not like what we find in these Biblical texts; Pauline texts might offend our contemporary sensibilities, especially when the author says women are to remain silent in church or that marriage is for those unable to control their sexual desires. However, we must resist setting them aside. If we are to call ourselves Christians, these texts are part of our identity, like it or not; they are part of our image.
There is a story about a kindergarten teacher who was walking around observing her classroom of children while they were drawing pictures. As she got to one girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was. The girl replied, "I'm drawing God." The teacher paused and said, "But nobody knows what God looks like." Without looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, "They will in a minute."
Today, on Christ the King Sunday, we are reminded that “Christ is the image of the invisible God,” and it is this statement from Colossians that I want to focus on. In 1986, the town of Fosteria, OH, made the national news when a local resident saw an image of Christ on the rusting side of a soybean oil storage tank. Daniel Midland was suddenly on the religion page. Hundreds of cars lined Route 12 on those steamy August evenings, full of curiosity seekers waiting to sneak a peek. As one local named Jimmy noted, "It’s real. The image looks like me, but I’ve always had long hair and a beard."
Funny and ridiculous as this incident is, I think this gets at something very important and telling. With more profundity than he may have ever realized, Jimmy spoke for all of us who unwittingly like, or, perhaps need, to see Christ reflecting the image of our own lives. We find ourselves in a similar situation to those Jews carried off into Babylonian captivity. We identify with the poet W.B. Yeats, who wrote of a world where “things fall apart, the center cannot hold.” We long for cohesion, we want something to tell us who we are, we want a version of God that bears some meaning for us. If we are honest, we are always looking for a way to reorder our jumbled lives and hold meaning together in the face of chaos.
In the image of God, we, can find a way to repair the fallen apart things, to regain our center. To bear the image of God is to see ourselves differently, but not just ourselves. It is to see everyone else differently as well. C.S. Lewis said "There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal." That’s because the image of God is indelibly stamped on everyone. Sometimes this is very difficult for us. We see someone who is really different from us and we think of them as the stranger, the alien, and we become very frightened by them. Whatever the perceived difference might be, they bear this image of God just as unmistakably as we. And, sometimes it is not always because someone is just different. We may fail to see that even those we love are the very image of the God who made them.
This is why the early church, particularly the writer of Colossians, said of Jesus, "He is the very image of the invisible God." What they meant by that is when we look at Jesus and we see Him feeding the hungry, we see the image of God in action. When we look at Jesus and see Him healing somebody who is broken and in need, we see the image of God in action. When each one of us works for justice and peace, we are the image of God in action.
In the Old Testament, in Genesis, in the same book where we get first get this idea of the image of God, we read in a later chapter a very moving story of where the image of God is present in someone. As you may recall, Jacob and Esau were brothers. Jacob was a cheat and a scoundrel, and he had cheated his older brother Esau out of the birthright and inheritance which was his. Then Jacob had gone off and lived away for many, many years. He had raised a family; he had become a wealthy man, and he returned home to meet Esau. He was very frightened, very scared, of how Esau would receive him.
The night before they were to meet again, Jacob sent his household and a procession of gifts to his brother, maybe hoping to soften him up a little bit. Then he lay down by the side of the Jabbok River, and he wrestled with the angel of God. The next morning, he came face to face with his brother. What did his brother do? His brother came up to him, embraced him, kissed him, and welcomed him home. During Jacob’s life, several things fell apart; however, at this moment, he gained that clarity that we so often seek, and his jumbled life was reordered. He said to Esau, "Truly, to see your face is like seeing the face of God for with such kindness have you received me.”
Imagine a world where all of us looked at everyone and said, "Why, I'd know that face anywhere. It is the very spitting image of the God who made us all.” That would truly be something to be thankful for. May it be so. Amen
© Evan W. Dodge, 2010.
