Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 330

Then God said:
"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,
the birds of the air, and the cattle,
and over all the wild animals
and all the creatures that crawl on the ground."

We do well to reflect often and deeply upon what it means to be created in God's image. What child hasn't wondered what God looks like? And our answer -- "God looks like us because we're 'made in God's image.'" -- only deepens the mystery. 

But if, as some say, there is no God and we're not created in the image and likeness of God, what are we? And where did we get such authority to govern the Earth as we clearly do? More importantly, should we forget that our authority is severely limited by our abysmal ignorance and very brief lifespan, we might destroy what we never created. Then the critics would be proven right, that humankind was an evolutionary mistake. 

Children in their simplicity have sometimes supposed that, if we're created in God's image, then God must have a torso, one head, two legs and two arms. Somewhere in their teens they discover the absurdity of that notion; and that leads either to habitual skepticism about faith or a deeper appreciation of human nature. 

Dismissing childish ways and asking "What does it mean to be created in God's image?" opens a vista of unlimited possibilities:

• Like God, humans remember; and the enterprise of memory continually defies the notion of prehistory. We want to know when did we begin. Did the United States, for instance, begin with the Civil War, or the Constitution in 1789 , or 1776, or 1492? Or perhaps beginnings are entirely arbitrary and remembering is not satisfied with any set date. But that's not satisfying either and so we search for the beginning. 
• Humans create. Is that our godlike resemblance? We create more than paintings, sculpture, and music. We create buildings, roads, and bridges. We create languages, which are built of words into sentences and paragraphs and books. 
• When I think about it, sentences are amazing things! How did our ancestors discover the mechanics of nouns and verbs, and then throw in adjectives and adverbs, to fashion inspirations into communicable ideas and thoughts?  
• Anthropologists like Agustin Fuentes have shown how the human creature created itself when our common ancestors learned to cook meat. With that magic, our brains rapidly expanded until we built cities with all their interdependent complexity. And now we can't live without our cities and all the systems of human life.
• Humans experience awe and practice reverence. As Rabbi Heschel points out in his book, Man is not Alone, not only do we know much, we also know that we don't know more! We stand on the boundary between the known and unknown in awe of both. 
• Humans love and our love includes ourselves and others, friends and enemies, life, and love itself. Like God, our capacity for love is endless. Like God we can love eternally and faithfully although, unlike God, we sometimes betray our love. 

Indeed, we are like God in many ways. But we also differ: 

• God is necessary; we are not. The world could exist without us; the planets, stars, and exoplanets tell us that every time we look up. The same scientists who laud our accomplishments remind us of the odds against our being here at all;
• God has neither beginning nor end, but we know we began and vaguely remember when;
• Humans grow in grace. That is, we become more like God. But God is infinite goodness, wisdom, courage, and kindness. Despite our unlimited desire we will  never catch up with the infinite goodness of God.
• For all our learning, we know little. God's Wisdom knows and sees all things;
• We sin against God, our own nature, those around us, and our world. God does not sin for God's will is perfectly good. 
• Finally, unlike every other creature of earth, we know we were created in the image and likeness of God, fearfully, wonderfully.