(again, I
preached without notes, so I said something like the following)
I began by reading Bishop Eaton's letter:
“Dear Brothers
and Sisters in Christ,
"So
God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them."
Genesis 1:27
We are killing
ourselves. We believe that all people are created in God's image. All of
humanity bears a family resemblance. Those murdered in Orlando were not abstract "others,"
they are us. But somehow, in the mind of a deeply disturbed gunman, the LGBTQ
community was severed from our common humanity. This separation led to the
death of 49 and the wounding of 54 of us.
We live in an
increasingly divided and polarized society. Too often we sort ourselves into
like-minded groups and sort others out. It is a short distance from division to
demonization. Yesterday, we witnessed the tragic consequences of this.
There is
another way. In Christ God has reconciled the world to God's self. Jesus lived
among us sharing our humanity. Jesus died for us to restore our humanity. God
invites us into this reconciling work. This must be our witness as the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America. The perpetrator of this
hate crime did not come out of nowhere. He was shaped by our culture of
division, which itself has been misshapen by the manipulation of our fears.
That is not who we are. St. Paul
wrote, "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old
has passed away; see, everything has become new. All this is from God, who
reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of
reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,
not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of
reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ" (II Corinthians
5:17-20).
Our work
begins now. We need to examine ourselves, individually and as a church, to
acknowledge the ways we have divided and have been divided. We must stand with
people who have been "othered". We must speak peace and
reconciliation into the cacophony of hatred and division. We must live the
truth that all people are created in God's image.
This morning
your churchwide staff came together to mourn and to pray. We prayed for those
killed in Orlando
and remembered the Charleston Nine killed only a year ago. We prayed for the
family of the shooter, for our LGBTQ brothers and sisters and for our Muslim
brothers and sisters who now face the threat of retaliation. And we prayed that
the Prince of Peace will bring us to the day when we stop killing ourselves.
Your sister in
Christ,
Elizabeth A.
Eaton
Presiding
Bishop
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America”
“All people are created in God’s image”
Because all people are created in God’s image, Luke writes
about Christ crossing over to the other side, to be with the Gerasenes—crossing
over to a people different than his people in Galilee, crossing over to them,
they who too are created in the image of God… Yes, the earliest followers of
Jesus, spent a lot of time crossing over to the other side—finding people
created in the image of God where they would not expect it!
Heck, look at the Acts of the Apostles, the whole thing is
one big catch-up game, the Disciples, the Apostles, catching up to the Holy
Spirit, who continually goes and reaches the other side and dwells with people
the Apostles didn’t realize were made in the image of God!
“All people are created in God’s image”
This is echoed in Paul’s words written to the Galatians.
Some scholars call this section the earthquake of the
antimonies—what does that mean right? It’s two apposite categories which
together make a whole… for example Jews and Gentiles—in Paul’s time those two
categories would encompass the whole of humanity—you were one or the other…
Until, until Paul recognizes Jesus’ life, death, and
resurrection as shaking the very foundation of these antimonies… in Christ
there are no longer Jews, nor Gentiles. In Christ we are no longer Slave, or
Free. In Christ we are no longer male and female. And this list can grow—we can
affirm In Christ we are neither black, nor white. In Christ, we can affirm we
are neither gay nor straight… yes, in all people, ALL people, resides the image
of God!
As I intoned this morning to start the service all of Psalm 22, God
explicitly enters into the image of humanity in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, who
cried the cry of dereliction from the cross—My God, My God, Why Have You
Forsaken Me?
Yes “All
people are created in God’s image” so fully, that God joins in our cries, joins
the cries of those caught in the horrific and the tragic…
Christ’s cries joined our own in Orlando at The Pulse one week ago.
Christ’s cries joined our own in Charleston at Emanuel AME one year ago.
“All people are created in God’s image”
--Let us honor the image of God found in The Pulse and in
Emanuel AME by lighting a candle for each one of those who died in Orlando and Charleston.
(As we lit the candles Tom played “Jesus Loves Me, This I
Know”)
