So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; 
male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:27, NRSV

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
Colossians 1:15, NIV

Note: After a month-long hiatus, it is good to get back into the writer’s chair with the start of a new semester.  Clemson is a pretty quiet place in the spring, much different from the fall.  Everyone is excited about the men’s basketball team's success, and many throughout the Clemson community continue to reflect on the week-long MLK holiday activities that ended late last week.  King, the social activist and preacher, continues to be one of the primary 20th century figures that shapes and informs my ministry here. CLG

In light of the MLK holiday last week, I attempted to preach a sermon this past Sunday at Clemson UMC that would connect with his teachings and legacy.  The focus of the message was simply this: YOU matter.  You matter to God.  You matter to God’s Church.  No matter what the world might tell you, YOU matter.

Foundational to King’s work as a preacher and civil rights leader were two key theological concepts – agape, or unconditional, unmerited love, and imago dei, or the belief that all human beings are made in God’s image. 

King’s reading of the New Testament led him to conclude that the kind of love commanded by Jesus is very different from the kind of love that we so often practice in our own lives, even in the Church.  By calling us to agape not only God and our neighbors but also to agape our enemies and those who persecute us, Jesus is calling his disciples to practice the kind of love that Paul outlines in I Corinthians 13.  It’s the kind of love that is patient. The kind of love that bears all things and believes all things.  The kind of love that never rejoices in wrongdoing but always rejoices in the truth.  The kind of love, to say it most bluntly, that never ends.

Of course, this understanding of agape love was bolstered for King by his understanding of imago dei.  Just as the first humans in Genesis 1 were made in God’s image, each and every one of their ancestors has been made in God’s image too.  And while some would argue that any image of God was obliterated in the Fall of Adam, King believed otherwise.  Surely Sin and Death have now entered the equation, but the image of God, to some degree, still remains.  Each person, therefore, matters to God because each person bears God’s mark, God’s image.  Therefore, in the eyes of God, all people matter.  To consider oneself better than someone else is heresy, and to view someone as sub-human (or, as our original Constitution taught, three-fifths human) is blasphemy.  And if every person matters to God, every person must matter to those who claim to be God’s people.

Combining these concepts of agape love and imago dei lead to the following conclusion: each person has a sacred dignity and worth.  German Lutheran theologian Helmut Thielicke described this as an “alien dignity” because it is not derived from within or even from this world, but from the heavenly realm.  This God-given dignity is not something that we can earn, and it is not something that we can lose.  While Sin (or sins) may camouflage this alien dignity from our eyes, it is always there.  And because God bestows this alien dignity on each and every human being, it is a constant reminder that we are all loved by God, no matter how “holy” or how “defiled” we may understand ourselves or others.

Of course, as ones who believe in and follow Jesus of Nazareth, we also profess that this same image of the invisible God was fully embodied, hidden on occasion yet very visible at other times, in Jesus the Christ.  To be a Christian, therefore, is to dedicate your life to growing, with God’s help, into that image.

As a pastor, I am always blown away by the number of people who, on the outside at least, have it all together.  They are attractive.  They are athletic. They are smart.  They are wealthy and influential.  Yet, deep down, their sense of esteem or worth is missing.  Each day, they spin their wheels, hoping that the next good grade, business deal or sexual escapade will give them that sense of worth, that sense of being loved.

And then, of course, there’s the other group that is told (explicitly or implicitly) every day that they are dirty, defiled, too young or over-the-hill.  Sometimes they hear this from the world, sometimes, sadly, from the Church.  It breaks my heart to know that so many people feel this way.

As King, Thielicke and I would all argue, the key to becoming fully human is not a matter of improving your self-esteem or self-worth, per se.  It begins with the knowledge that we are all “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14) by our Creator “a little lower than the heavenly beings” and crowned “with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:5).  It begins with understanding that God has bestowed an alien dignity in us all that can never be taken away…a dignity that becomes more visible as we walk in the way of Jesus.        

With agape,
lane

Rev. Lane Glaze
Director, Clemson Wesley Foundation
Campus Minister, Clemson UMC
PO Box 1703, Clemson SC 29633
864-207-9135 (m) or 864-654-5547 (o)

Feel free to forward this email to a friend. The Clemson Wesley Weekly Devotional is a ministry of Rev. Lane Glaze and the Clemson Wesley Foundation, the United Methodist Church's ministry to students on the campus of Clemson University.  The purpose of this email is to look at issues relevant to the life of Clemson students through the lens of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If you would like your name added to this list, email Lane at glaze@clemson.edu