IMAGO DEI (Image of God)

I gave Peter this idea last February. Even though I was repeatedly encouraging, just like all my other advice, he was slow to act on it. Finally, he has it written, and, with my fine editorial touch, we offer this for you to ponder.

 

In 1970, the American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in America elected to ordain women. I doubt that any of those voting really understood the implications and ramifications of that decision, but the world was about to turn; and the turn changed the way we think about Church, society, and the way we relate to God and one another. This decision to ordain women led to some seismic shifts that partially led to the forming of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and initiated a broader view of the Imago Dei, the image of God for God’s people. In the process, I assert, we have become better as believers and as people in general.

 

By the time I began seminary in 1992, women comprised half of my class within the newly formed ELCA, yet many congregations, although they may have intellectually supported the idea of women’s ordination, were resistant to call a woman as their pastor.

 

At the same time, there were still articles being written in some conservative Lutheran journals concerning women’s ordination and the Imago Dei. I recall the concern of one article was that pastors were to be the Imago Dei for the congregation, i.e., Jesus had a penis and women do not. Therefore, women could not be the Imago Dei for the congregation and should not be ordained.

 

This is nonsense. God’s diverse presence reflects the wondrous and complex world we live in. Trying to entrap God in maleness denies the feminine images of God in the Old Testament, and insisting on God’s maleness revealed to us in Jesus as God’s preferred leadership model denies the role of women’s leadership in the early Church. For the ELCA, as for the Israelites, it took some years wandering in the wilderness, but eventually the Church stopped murmuring about the leeks and melons in Egypt.

 

This shift in our Imago Dei understanding did not stop with women. In the 80’s the idea that the Imago Dei meant that pastors needed to be fully able-bodied changed as well. Increasingly, people living with disabilities came to the Church and said, “We too are called to serve.” Now the Church again had to deal with who could be considered for ordination.

About this time, the Church also considered its understanding of pastors of color and the Imago Dei.  White pastors served many congregations of color, but could pastors of color serve white congregations?  Can more than just white, able-bodied people reflect the Imago Dei for all congregations?

 

By the time the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed in 1990, further consideration needed to be made. If the Imago Dei included women, people living with various disabilities, Black, White, Asian, Native American, Latino, Arab, Palestinian, Indian, and more, could the Imago Dei include the openly LGBT (now 2SLGBTQIA+) community as well? Could it be that Jesus wasn’t only speaking pretty words, but that he meant them, when he said, “I give you a new commandment, …. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples ….” (John 13 NRSV).

 

Slowly the Church started moving toward understanding that the Imago Dei might be more elusive and inclusive than our U.S. society was comfortable with. In considering Gen. 1:26 (transliterated), “And said God (pl.), ‘Let us make man in our image according to our likeness’.”, a growing number of scholars, including parish pastors, no longer hear God speaking in royal we language nor in specifically Trinitarian language. They hear God literally using us to describe the Imago Dei, God’s image/likeness, as variegated, multi-abled, multi-gendered, multi-lingual. We are the Imago Dei. God is truly beyond our imaginings and beyond our limitations, and all humankind, with our many shadings, our many abilities, our many physical challenges, our many languages, and manifest in all genders, represents the Imago Dei. God is God and we are not, but we are all God’s reflection in the world.

 

As the ELCA entertained a more diverse Imago Dei and what that might mean for its congregations, while continuing to be the “whitest” denomination in the U.S., our civil society, especially large businesses, engaged a practice of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). This understanding of DEI—diversity, equity, and inclusion—speaks to an understanding within the Abrahamic religions of God being active in history. As God was an active partner in the freeing of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and Babylon, so God continues to be active in our lives today.

 

When we recognize God’s activity in all people we meet and in all we do, it becomes increasingly difficult to deny the Imago Dei in all the world. Pushing the Imago Dei question further, I assert the new more diverse representation of the Imago Dei can lead us to a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive society. God is working in the midst of our secular society to break down the walls of polarizing judgment and replacing them with the acceptance of the many images of God, building relationships of trust. Potentially, this is the kingdom of heaven that has drawn near (Matt. 4:17, 10:7).

 

As a Christian in the Lutheran tradition, I can claim that Christ’s presence (Imago Dei) continues to be revealed to us in our neighbor as we are called to be Christ to our neighbors.  In this relationship of being the revealed and the revealer of the Imago Dei, we are called to love and serve our neighbor thereby celebrating our diversity, seeking equity (and justice) for all, and welcoming all into the inclusivity (welcoming wholeness) known in God’s presence, the DEI of Imago Dei.

 

Wrestling in this way with the diversity of the Imago Dei and its call for equity and inclusive community, tests and emboldens our ability and willingness to recognize God’s active presence in our current political maelstrom. As I see God active in Cyrus rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem and restoring the sacred vessels to it (Ez. 1), I also see God’s activity of DEI in desegregating our schools, the civil rights movement, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the abolishment of the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, and women’s equality. This vision of Imago DEI activity in the world reveals a glimmering hope of a kingdom/rule of heavenly peace.

 

Our witness to the diversity of the Imago Dei when speaking of human rights and the dignity of human life without regard to gender, disability, or race, stands against that of those who obfuscate God’s image of wholeness by opposing DEI policies and claiming the meaning as being division, exclusion, and indoctrination (Ron DeSantis). Currently, many try to limit God’s presence while pandering to the privilege of the few, for example, Wisconsin and other states are slashing the cost of DEI from their budgets.

 

It is always difficult to embrace new ideas, but this concept of DEI is not new. Scripture tells us that we should care for the widow, the orphan, the stranger, (Lev. 19:34, Deut. 24:17-18, Ps. 82:3, James 1:26), and the poor (Lev. 19:10, Lev. 23:22, Deut. 15:7-9). We are not to put stumbling blocks before the blind or revile the deaf (Lev. 19:14). We are to build communities where the lame and the maimed are honored and able to travel with us on the Holy Highway (Is. 35).

 

Indeed, our Diverse, Equitable, Inclusive God loves us enough to enter the diversity of our lives, justifies us by his grace, and includes us in his own atoning work. A much wiser person than I once said, “Either Jesus is the Messiah, and he died for all; or he wasn’t, and he died for nothing.”  My Lutheran tradition says, “Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God intends that all should be saved.”

 

From Paul’s words we understand, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? … Know in all these things that we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.” (Romans 8, NRSV)

 

So, I ask, can we delimit God’s undeserved love, freely given? Can we have life and have it abundantly without knowing the overflowing fullness of the Imago Dei? As faithful followers of Jesus, can the Imago Dei be witnessed in who we are today? Can people know that we are followers of Jesus by what we say and do?

 

It seemed like such an easy concession in 1970, but that tiny chink in our theologically, paternalistic armor has revealed the vulnerability of our chauvinistic lens through which we see a binary, male Zeus-like conqueror as our creator, redeemer, and sanctifier. In that vulnerable revelation of the Imago Dei, we see the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the queer and the straight, the variously able-bodied—we see us, and we are good. We are good enough for God to reveal Godself as one of us—truly human; valued enough to die and rise for us, that we should know eternal life, that we should hear God’s words of hope and promise anew—"given for you and all people for the forgiveness of sin.” Maybe God’s voice is more like it is in the movie Dogma rather than the voice in The Ten Commandments. Maybe God’s voice is heard in the cacophonic babel of our polyphonic world.

 

I wonder if anyone in 1970 imagined hearing God’s joyful laughter as we experience how much more God is. I wonder whether they, seeing God’s activity in the world then, could anticipate God’s activity of the Imago Dei today? And then, I wonder if we can appreciate God’s activity in our lives today?

 

Or are we afraid of what God is doing and therefore we try limiting what God is doing in our midst? Finally, who do we think we are, that we are able to limit the Imago Dei and God’s love is shown in the world?