God's Image in our community

Human beings are undeniable social creatures, with the exception of a few recluses we do not live alone and we seek out the company of others.
Is this something that has evolved in us as a matter of survival or is something more basic more essential to our very nature?
One of the central spiritual quests of all religions is to understand the nature of human being.
We seek to answer the existential question who am I?Why am I here?What is the purpose of my existence?
One of the most important ideas in the history of religion for understanding who we are as human beings is the biblical phrase “Image of God” we are created in the image of God so the writer of Genesis declares and other biblical writers affirm.
There have been a number of explanations as to what image of God means there is merit in most of the explanations but the one that I think is most helpful and most useful to us today is the one that sees the image of God as a relational term. It reflects the notion that we are social beings who find fulfilment and salvation in relationship.
God is a relational being a perfect community of three in one. Human beings were created to reflect that aspect of God. Our human potential is realised when we are in healthy relationships with God, our neighbour and the created world around about us.
The creation stories of Genesis 1 and 2 make the strong link between the plurality of God and the social nature of human being. Let us make Adam in our image, let us make them male and female. Human beings find completeness in relationship with one another and with God. The link is also clearly made with our relationship to the created order. In Genesis 1 we are to have dominion over the land, in Genesis 2 we are to tend and care for it. God who cares for us and cares for the created ordered made us to do the same and when we do so we reflect the divine image and we find fulfilment and salvation.
I love watching the Olympic Games. It is always inspiring to watch people achieve their very best at a particular endeavour. Here we see one aspect of human potential being achieved and I draw you attention to it for illustrates a point that I think is so important for us to grasp and realise the theological significance of. Human potential is almost always achieved in relationship. What I mean by this is more than just it takes a whole team to win a gold medal. I mean the motivation to achieve is social, the emotion expressed at success or failure is an expression of relationality, the pride we feel at watching a New Zealand athlete giving their all is an aspect of our social being, the way we identify with the raw effort, the share magnificence and beauty of achievement is all part of what it means for us to be social beings created in the image of God we are made to relate and everything we do bare on that essential element of our nature.
Let’s look at some special Olympic moments and consider the way they demonstrate our social being. I’m going to shoe you five athletes who had special performances at the games and achieved remarkably. In each of the situations pictures I want you to imagine something that might be a little difficult I want you to imagine that the athlete was a total recluse who achieved the same goal but did it in their own private arena. Their own pool or their own lake or their own sports stadium. Imagine that they did it all for their own satisfaction, no one ever witnessed them in training, no one ever saw them throw or lift, or run or swim or row. They did it all by themselves and completely for their own benefit. I said it would be hard to imagine perhaps ridiculous to comprehend, but I think it makes clear what I mean when I say we are social being and all we do is motivated by our social nature all our best achievements are expression of our social being.
Valerie Villi A truly charming and beautiful young woman with an extraordinary talent. Great physical strength, great determination and mental strength and a winsome personality. What did she do when she won the Gold medal? She immediately looked for her coach and fellow team members to celebrate with. She recognised that they were as much a part of her win as she was. She was connected to them in deep ways and that connection brought out her best.
German Olympic weightlifter Matthias Steiner was ecstatic after he won gold in Beijing, saying he wanted to take the title for his late wife Susann. During the winner’s ceremony, a teary-eyed Steiner took his wife’s photo out of his pocket and kissed it while standing on the podium. He held on to the picture of Susann, who died in a car accident last year, throughout the ceremony.
A strong bond that not even death can break was this man’s winning edge.
Michael Phelps’s 8 gold medal haul is unlikely to be equaled or bettered ever. But Phelps swims not as a man on his own he is part of a great swim team, he is a proud American, he has a suppotiuve family and he has battled with ADHD and is a celebrity to the ADHD community.
To most of the ADHD community, Michael Phelps’s phenomenal swimming at the Bejing Summer Olympics is a beacon of hope and inspiration “after we watch Michael Phelps, his fierce determination and single-minded focus, it is clear that even the name Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder falls short in describing just what ADHD is. Clearly Michael Phelps has no shortage of attention!”
Mahe Drysdale is a determined and gutsy athlete, his effort in the final medal race was inspirational. But he is not in that boat by himself. His parents are there with him, his partner is there with him, the whole NZ rowing fraternity is there with him, his sponsors are there the NZ public is there, a billion television viewers are there ( and it’s just a small boat). Take away all of those social networks and not only would Mahe’s efforts be meaningless, but he would not have started the race let alone finish it
Hussein Bolt the fastest man alive ever. A superb athlete who seems to make winning against the elite in sport look like a Sunday stroll. Not the most modest of athletes a very spirited young man whose gestures have upset some IOC committee members. But when you understand where Hussein has come from you can see why he is so elated at his success. The small and impoverished nation of Jamaica runs the race with Hussein, their exuberant cheering and parting on the streets of Kingston evidence of the pride they feel, the connection they feel at seeing one of their own, bone of their bone flesh of their flesh reaching his potential on the world stage.

These terrific feats of athleticism illustrate what it means to be made in the image of God. We can all achieve wonderful things by working together in community. Good community will bring out the best in every person that is a part of it.
The best possible community is the one with God at its centre and where God’s people are in good relationship with God and are in good relationships with their neighbour and are caring for the world around and about. In these circumstance human potential is realised, people achieve what they are designed to achieve, life is lived to the full.
I want tom come at this Image of God idea from another angle and as you will see end up in a similar place. In the ancient world it was common for a tribe or nation of people to be ruled by a King who live in a faraway place. To remind the people who their ruler was the king would often have his likeness carved and displayed in a public place.
Here is another image from Beijing. Mao Tze Tung the Chinese communist leader and Tyrant. During his reign his image was displayed in millions of public places thought China. Mao’s image was a constant reminder to the people of their identity and role in the People republic of China. In many ways Mao’s image was revered it was for many Chinese people the image of their god. The one who lead the people, who showed the way who embodied the spirit and championed the cause of a socialist republic.
The ancient writers of the biblical text had this concept before them when they declared that we are made in the image of God and more significantly Paul had this in mind when he declared that Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
Jesus the Son of God left the perfect community of the Holy Trinity when he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary. Jesus relationships with the Father and the Spirit were perfect, therefore he can represent them perfectly. There is no disharmony between what we see in Jesus the visible son of God and what we know by faith about God the Father and God the Spirit. Jesus is the image of the invisible God because he is perfect harmonious relations with the spirit and with the Father.
What Jesus says what Jesus does therefore reflect perfectly the will and the way of God. His being, his doing, his action, his saying are all expressions of the image of God
The glorious and wonderful thing here is that we also are made in the image of God.
But surely there is a quantum difference between me and Jesus.
In practice yes but in potential no!
We’re not perfect for sure.
We don’t love God perfectly as Jesus does
We don’t love our neighbour perfectly as Jesus does
We don’t love and care for creation perfectly as Jesus does.
But if we were perfect in each of the aspect we would be like Jesus we would be perfect images of God.
Paul writes that when we see Jesus we shall be changed and we shall be like him.
There is the end goal of each of us to be like Jesus, to reach that perfection of human being.
It seems we won’t get there this side of the grave but that it our end point that is what we are aiming for and that is where we should be heading now.
Each and every person on the planet to some degree or another bears the image of God.
It is the possibility and potential to reach human perfection by learning to love God, love neighbour and love creation.
Every person you meet has that potential and you and I have a wonderful privilege in helping people edge closer to their potential.
And here is where we come back to community and our nature as social beings. We enrich one another we build each other up by getting to know each other in the first place, by opening our lives to one another, by sharing with each our stories our gifts and talents our pain and heart ache our needs and our resources, our comfort and our care, our hope and our disappointments our doubt and our faith.
I guess that is why I kept coming back to church.
This is a place of hope and salvation.
Here we practice what it means to live as Christian people loving and caring for each other, we practice it here so we can do it out there, so that it becomes natural for us to open our lives and share our hope with others.
You are here because you are a social being, made in the image of God, you are here because in this place you find hope and faith and life. This community is filled with people just like you who are made in the image of God who long for the company of God and fellow travellers on the journey.
May God help us to be a community of his people who live to bring life and hope and faith to those around us.