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Long Blog: I'm not offended if you don't feel like reading it... A prettier version with links to the bible passages is at my blog at: http://julieannbrunson.blogspot.com
Image-bearing + Fallenness: January Living Out Theology Topic
The 4th Wednesday of last month, the Living Out Theology Group met at my house [Seneca House] to think about and discuss “Image-bearing and Fallenness.” I said I would try to blog about our discussions each month and here we are at the end of the month again and I’m finally posting. The format for our group is a short teaching time [that I taught this month] and then a longer time of discussion. So this blog is part my thoughts on the subject and part the ideas of the other folks meeting with us. Unfortunately, I can’t offer you the amazing peanut butter or butterscotch brownies that accompanied our talk, but we meet on the 4th Wednesday of every month at 7p at the Seneca House if you want to get the full experience. This week [Feb 25] is our next meeting and we will be discussing Sin + Repentance.
At the core of our beliefs is that we have been created in the image of God, that the display of that has been marred by sin, and that Jesus—in his life, death and resurrection—is in the process of freeing us from sin and restoring the image of God or Christ in our lives.
The implications of being created in the image of God are many. Genesis 1 tells us that …God created [us] in his own image, in the image of God he created [us]; male and female he created [us] (1:27). So early on we get this idea that our identities as a man or a woman is involved in our reflection of God. I’m inclined to think that one of the reasons our sexuality is so attacked, abused and distorted is that it’s so core to our identities.
Another suggested implication is later in Genesis 9:6 when God explains the reason murder requires such a harsh penalty as being because man is created in the image of God. It seems like our status as image-bearers should call us to treat each other as valuable and worthy of dignity. Jesus highlights this in Matthew 22:34-40 as he identifies love for God and for one another as the core meaning of all the law and prophets. We’re inclined to give honor to those who do something that seems good to us; God declares us worth pursuing and freeing while we are still in rebellion against him.
The presence and value of creativity is also implicit if we consider ourselves as created in the image of such a creative God. We involve art and our own music into our worship service because our creativity is big part of who we are and what we offer to the community and to the world. Our tendency is to think of creativity as being limited to art of some kind or music. True creativity includes these and more, if we think of the incredible, complex creation that God produced. In our community, there are those who are creative computer programmers [our unique website is a community offering of this], cooks [coming now into our post-vespers meals], gardeners [will be seen as we develop our community garden] and much more. As we offer these things in concert along with our spiritual and other gifts, our community itself will reflect something of who God is that will stand as a witness to the world around us.
In Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve yield to the temptation of the serpent in the garden to try to be like God, they find themselves ashamed of their nakedness and hiding from God. All of us in our own way make this same choice. We try to be our own God and we hide who we are in shame. It’s telling that Adam doesn’t say I’m hiding because I know that I disobeyed you, but because he’s naked and ashamed. Like Adam and Eve, the thing we’re most ashamed of and trying to conceal is often not our actual sin, but something that we think is wrong with who we are. Our sins and the sins perpetrated against us mar our identity. As we walk with Christ and allow him to transform us into who we’re created to be, our own sinful patterns and the impact of others sin must be peeled away. Sometimes this happens in our intimate interactions with God, but most often this happens in the context of community, where we rub against each others’ sin and get a glimpse of someone else’s true identity and encourage them toward it.
I guess another element of this battle that we’re in is that there is a larger spiritual battle that is taking place around us [Ephesians 6:10-20]. As we fight against our own choices, our struggle isn’t just against ourselves. Like Adam and Eve and the serpent, we have Satan roaming around our world looking for who he might “slurp up” [as Eric likes to interpret 1Peter 5:7-9]. Often the way this plays out is in a battle against lies that Satan perpetrates. We’re on a path of trying to hear from Jesus what’s true about ourselves, about God, about each other, about the world, and so on.
A key part of our identities is found in our gifts that we’re given when we come to faith in Jesus and the Spirit of God comes into us [Romans 12:1-7]. We’re hearing a lot about this at Vespers this month as we go through 1Corinthians 12. These are the gifts that we’re given to join together as the Body of Christ in this great spiritual battle as we usher in the kingdom of God. We use these gifts to fight for each other as believers and to fight for those who have yet to believe. Christ v. Satan or another way to say it would be the Embodiment of Truth [John 14:6-7] against the Chief Liar [John 8:45].
As we walk out of our sin and the lies that cover us and into new identity in Christ and the correlating freedom to be who we were created to be, we each display unique aspects of God. Together we are the Body of Christ; we together reflect who God is. [Colossians 3:9-10] In this process, we seem to vacillate between feeling like we have nothing to offer and thinking more highly of our selves and our gifts than we ought.
If a man thinks himself great, I show him his wretchedness
If he thinks himself wretched, I show him his greatness
And continue to contradict him
Until he realizes
He is an unfathomable beast.
[Pascal, VII. Pensées, #130, alternate translation]
We need a community to help us see the full picture of God. We need people to be honest about their Fallenness and willing to invite each other on a path to repentance. This requires that our community be a safe place to confess sin and explore who God created us to be. When left to ourselves, it’s difficult to see our actual sin and not just the surface shame. We need people working in concert with God to help us. This requires a deep authenticity [especially in us leader-types] that understands that we’re all in this sin-boat together. When we can see past our judgments and love our brothers and sisters, we will see deeper acts of repentance and fuller expressions of the Image of God among us. But I’m getting ahead of myself; this is more for the topic we’ll cover this coming week: Sin + Repentance. | 
