2020.06.07 | Imago Dei
Imago Dei
Pastor Arlene
The Creation story found in Genesis 1 is among the best known passages in the Hebrew Bible.
Genesis 1 explains that God created the heavens and the earth, and declared them good. It describes the origins of creation, but it is not a recipe. Genesis 1 is not an attempt to describe the step-by-step process for how God “cooked up” the world, nor is Genesis 1 a scientific explanation of how the world began.
Instead, Genesis 1 describes how our ancestors in the faith understood who created the world and why.
Whether a person describes themselves as Christian or not, to live in the Western World is to be steeped in the influence of Genesis 1 and the following ideas that emanate from this passage:
God is our Creator.
Creation is inherently good.
Humans are made in the image of God.
God calls humans to be good stewards of creation.
God wants humans to live in harmony with one another and all of creation.
These five ideas are not only foundational to the Judeo-Christian faith traditions, they are foundational to the ideals expressed in Rousseauian democracy, which are embedded in the Preamble to the Declaration of Indepence. The Declaration of Independence reads as follows:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The Creation story and the Declaration of Independence share the idea that all people are created in the image of God and equal in God’s eyes. There is no hierarchy of human beings in these foundational documents--at least that’s how we intercept these documents now.
Sadly, when our nation was founded, slavery was legal. President Obama rightly stated this past Tuesday that “Slavery is America’s original sin.” It took the United States Congress 102 years to pass the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in which our federal government clearly and unequivocally defined persons who had been enslaved as fully “citizens” of our nation.
I say “full citizens,” because Congress first had to define an enslaved person as a whole person--as a 1:1 equal to a White person.
“What is the proof that humans are equal?” the opponents of the 14th Amendment asked.
The proponents answered: The proof is in Genesis 1. We are each made in the image of God.
Over the course of our 244 year history, the United States of America has had more than one row over the interpretation of imago dei and human equality, but after each go-round the Declaration of Independence has been understood in progressively more expansive and inclusive ways. And as a result, God has been glorified.
II
Fast forward now to the year 2020. Our nation is still struggling to embody the idea that we are all made in the image of God (imago dei) and are therefore equals.
Women have achieved the right to vote. We’ve received equal access to public education. Title 19 has opened locker rooms, classrooms, and in many cases, board rooms to women my age and younger.
Yet, today, in the United States of America, women are still paid on average 2-19% less than their male counterparts. So the struggle for gender equality continues.
But that’s not all, the greatest and most persistent inequities in our society continue to be racially based. Consider the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery in recent weeks.
Ahmaud Arbery was run down and executed this past February while jogging in his own neighborhood. Two of the three suspects who are charged with Ahmaud’s murder are a father-son duo (Gregory and Travis McMichael). They, along with another neighbor, William "Roddie" Bryan, Jr., chased Ahmaud in their pickup trucks, until he was exhausted, hit, and fell to the ground.
When asked by investigators why they pursued Ahmaud, the younger McMichael said that he had a “gut feeling” that Ahmaud Arbery was associated with a series of recent robberies in the neighborhood.
The Justice Department has now launched an investigation into the case as a hate crime, because the son (Travis) who shot 3 Ahmaud Arbery three times--after knocking him to the ground with his pickup truck--and killed him--was overheard spewing racial epithets after firing his gun.
Breonna Taylor was a 26-year old EMT who was killed this past March by two police officers who broke down her door in an attempted drug sting operation. The officers shot Breonna 8 times and sprayed her apartment with bullets, when her boyfriend tried to protect the two of them from intruders.
Research conducted by a CNN reporter found that before the boyfriend fired shots, he called 9-1-1 to report the breakin. The victim, Breonna Taylor, was unarmed. The reporter covering the story observed that the sting operation at Taylor’s home should have been called off, because the suspect wanted in the case had already been taken into custody early that day at a different venue.
George Floyd was taken into custody by 4 former Minneapolis police officers for possibly passing a counterfeit 20 dollar bill at a grocery corner. Two former officers had their knees on his back. One had a knee on his neck. A forth stood by and watched and failed to give aid. Eight minutes later, George Floyd was dead.
These three accounts so close together--and numerous other stories of police brutality and White supremecy--that never end and can’t be explained away may have finally convinced a critical mass of American people that racism is real and deeply rooted in our society, and the time for change is now, and the people who must create this change is us.
III
What do you think? Have we turned a page? Or are we just in for the same-ol’ same-ol’?
This past Thursday, I was fortunate to be invited into a conversation with a few faith leaders, several law enforcement officers, and Congressman Eric Swallwell to discuss some legislation that the Congressman is working on to address the insidious racism in our nation’s law enforcement organizations. Several poignant comments were shared.
One comment that deeply touched my heart was shared by a colleague who has been a tower of strength and a prophet in our community for more than half a century. My colleague said that it especially pained him to hear that morning that his 17-year old grandson didn’t want to go to a demonstration about George Floyd’s murder, becasuse, “It won’t make a difference. Nothin’s gonna change.”
I hope. I pray. That my colleague’s grandson is wrong.
I hope. I pray. That we have finally reached a “tipping point” in the United States of America in which a critical mass of people acknowledge that racism is alive and well, and deeply embedded in our culture--and they, that we, have got to do our part to name it and eradicate it.
Yes. I hope, and I pray that we have reached a “tipping point” in which enough White people are committed to consistently and persistently doing our own work of self-reflection, confession, and contrition, so that these heinous crimes, the militarization of law enforcement, the perpetuation of the school to prison pipeline, the profiteering of private prison systems, and the cycle of oppression that is grounded in Whitesupremecy is undone.
Yes. I hope and I pray that enough White people--and people from every other racial and ethnic group in this country--will no longer tolerate a whitesupremecist in the Whitehouse.
I hope and pray that we will no longer elect officials who give tax cuts to the 1% and rob the poor of federal food and nutrition programs, in order to provide “corporate welfare” to multinational companies.
And, I hope and pray that we will not sit idly by while our public education system is completely unraveled, while quality, affordable healthcare is denied to anyone, and voter suppression tactics “cut off the oxygen” to our democractic processes.
III
Yes. I have a lot of hopes, and a lot of prayers, but I’m a realist. I know that it will take more than hopes and prayers to root out racism in our culture and forge more just and equitable society.
It will take a lifelong commitment from you, and me, and countless others to do the step-by-step work that must be done to right what’s wrong.
So what’s next? What’s the next right thing to do now?
My recommendation--if you haven’t already done so--is to make a plan. Your plan should include specific action steps that you are going to persistently and consistently do in order to advance the vision that you hold in your heart.
Then find a buddy, a prayer partner, a compañero with whom you will share your plan, and who will hold you accountable for what you say and do (and don’t do).
Since I believe that pastors should lead by example, I’ll share that this past Monday, I called an impromptu meeting with Pastor Pepper and Pastor Marvin, and asked them to discern with me what three things we would do this week to express our shared commitment to anti-racism work.
I work with overachievers, so we came up with five.
The five things that we committed to this past week included the following:
We agreed to check on our neighbors and align with them
We agreed to check-in with our young people and listen and support them in their endeavors
We agreed to start a resource list and share it through the e-Chimes
We recommitted to doing our own work as individuals and to supporting the commitments of each of you to personal growth, small group conversations, and public witness.
We agreed to boldly speak up and act out in the public square by naming the evils that we deplore, speaking truth power, and rolling up our sleeves and engaging in collaborative community efforts to denounce racism and to dismantle it in every institution in our society.
I accepted responsibility for reaching out to our closest institutional partners in the Eden Area, with whom we have shared common cause in the Civil Rights Movement, including Glad Tidings COGIC, Palma Ceia Baptist Church, and the Hayward-South Alameda County NAACP.
I asked Pastor Marvin to reach out to all of our youth (and their parents) and our young adults and find out how they were doing in the midst of all this drama. What were their thoughts? What were they feeling called to say and do? What support, if any, did they need from us to help keep them safe and speak their peace?
In addition, the three of us agreed to contribute to a resource list to share with the congregation and to invite each of you to add to this resource list, so that we are better equipped to do our own work as indiviudals and learn from each other.
We agreed to find ways to support continued group conversations, like those that have taken place in Confirmation Class, GenZ convos, Youngish Adult dinners, and Seekers Book Club
In addition, we committed ourselves to authoring a resolution for the congregation’s consideration and action at the 155th Annual Meeting on June 28. Pastor Pepper took the lead for us on this assignment, and Pastor Marvin and I contributed to her draft. A copy of our best draft so far is being shared with the Church this weekend, and will be distributed in advance of the Annual Meeting for reading, reflection, and comment by the membership. The resolution is titled “Condemning Violence Against African-Americans.”
Those are the five steps that your three pastors agreed to this week. Please let us know your thoughts and steps that you have committed to in our mutual effort to dismantle racism and contribute to a more just and peaceful society.
We look forward to hearing from you, and we trust that God will bless you, and all of us, and help us stay strong amidst the struggle. Amen.