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Knowing weāre made in his image
Genesis 1.26ā31; 1 John 3.2
Purpose: to explore what it means to be human, made in Godās image; to challenge prejudices about what is ānormalā.
Prayer
- Thank God for the Bible ā his inspired message to us all ā and for all that it can teach us of Godās plan for humanity. Ask that the Holy Spirit will inspire each person in the group with a clear and fresh understanding of its message.
- Pray that each person attending will have an open mind, prepared for the cobwebs of unhelpful thought patterns to be blown away.
Bible briefing
Then God said, āLet us make humankind in our imageā¦ā
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them, and God said to them, āBe fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.ā
ā¦God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.
(Genesis 1.26ā31)
Beloved, we are Godās children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.
(1 John 3.2)
Bible briefing notes
The Old Testament assertion that we are made in Godās image and the New Testament aspiration that we shall all become like his Son are profound concepts that lie at the heart of our faith.
Godās own reflection on creation was that it was āvery goodā. We might say that it was perfect. What then are our contemporary ideas about perfection? We celebrate the waif-like Kate Moss as the perfection of physical woman, the footballer David Beckham as the epitome of sporting manhood. So are these two superstars anything like the image of God? Are they more āin the image of Godā than those who are physically āunattractiveā?
Beauty, we say, is in the eye of the beholder. Affected by the perspective of the celebrity culture, we find ourselves confused by pictures of perfection. In an age where we are bombarded with images of stereotypical physical ideals of the āBarbie dollā sort, we diet and exercise to conform to supposed norms. Where does that leave disabled or disfigured people?
What is ānormalā and what is āabnormalā? If physically able is ānormalā, then is disabled āabnormalā? This strange logic is offensive, to say the least. Are people who are physically or mentally disabled therefore not made in the image of God? Do they matter less than those who are so-called āsoundā of body and mind? History teaches us that when we reduce the status of some people to less than ānormalā, we can find that we have given permission to treat them as less than human ā as sub-human.
It goes without saying that disabled people are as prone to character flaws and bad behaviour as anyone else. As Christians, surely we recognize that we are all broken: that the image of God in us has been tainted or obscured, not by the way our mind or body works but by our failure to live as God intended. We have come to realize we need a saviour and have turned to Christ, who has dealt with our sin and is at work transforming us into his likeness ā restoring us by degree to the perfection of Godās image.
The Disability Wall
To say Iām made in the image of God is a statement about my status in the world: I am worthy of dignity, to be treated as somebody who represents something of Godā¦We can pass one another by; we can say, āThat person isnāt really my kind of person.ā But God says you are made in Godās image and so are they. You are invited to enrich your life by exploring what it means to be made in Godās image, through that other person.
(Roy McCloughry)
In Godās family we see people differentlyā¦We donāt judge with the worldās yardstick. We see each person as made in Godās image, someone for whom Jesus Christ died.
(Jonathan Lamb)
Thereās no doubt about it. I am blind, that makes me different. The barriers can be reduced. But we all face a variety of challenges and barriers whether we say we are disabled or not.
(Mike Townsend)
The Church has so often got it so wrong in the past. Even the words we often useā¦are often fraught with difficulty because they are associated with negativity: ādis-abilityāā¦ādis-easeāā¦ādis-figuredāā¦To love someone means to be able to look with integrity, with sincerity, into their eyesā¦to be able to say to them, āItās good that you are you.ā
(Bishop Michael Langrish)
I do not interpret my blindness as an affliction, but as a strange, dark and mysterious gift from Godā¦it is a gift I would rather not have been givenā¦Nevertheless, it is a kind of giftā¦it seems to me that it is blind people who are in the image of God rather than sighted people. Because of their dependence upon outward appearance and their confidence in being superior, it is often sighted people who are needy.
(Professor John Hull)
Real life: Alan Chantler
Alan first had cancer over 30 years ago.
That slowed me downā¦I spent a lot of time not able to rush about doing all the things that I thought were important and a lot of time thinking. I began to think that there was more to life than just ticking boxes, achieving things and showing other people what Iād achieved. Iād been given an opportunity to review my life and a strong signal that life was not what I could make all the timeā¦I determined that I would try to do better.
Treatment was successful and Alan, a university academic, returned to work. Then, after some years, he began to experience back pain. A visit to the GP revealed nothing. Alan put the symptoms down to ageing and lack of exercise. On New Yearās Day 2004 he went for a walk with friends and it was obvious to everyone that he was having difficulty walking ā tripping over his own feet and struggling to get over stiles.
Alan was discovered to have a rare cancer of the spine. Surgery meant the removal of much of his spine and hence his mobility. These days he walks on two sticks or uses a wheelchair.
When I woke up after the first operation on my back, a vision came to me of the stripes on our Lordās back when he had been scourged before crucifixion, and that gave me strength.
Life deals out these things; you have to play the hand youāve got. Itās no use grizzling about what you wish might have happened.
I can still sing. It gives me great delight to go to church every Sunday, put on my choir robes, stagger up the aisle into my placeā¦I canāt stand when others stand, I canāt kneel when others kneelā¦but I can sing to the glory of God, and I thank him for that.
Becoming disabled has actually made me a much better person. Every day is a bonus. My faith brings me the strength to stop and think about other people much more than I used to.
From an interview Alan gave to Torch Trustās Insight radio programme.
Real life: Denise Flynn
Constant stress over communication barriers and the effort to lip-read over many years made Denise Flynn ill.
I was very tired physically and emotionally because of the stress of working out how to understand other peopleās language, year after year. One day I stopped using my voice and spoke only with sign language, wanting people to remember that Iām Deaf and that I live in a silent world without sounds. Using sign language, my health improved and my daily headaches stopped.
Denise Flynn became Deaf as a baby. She was brought up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where the oral school for Deaf children taught her Spanish.
Sign language was forbidden. However, at times I spoke it by hidden signing with my friends ā for which I was sometimes punished by the teachers. Parents were trained not to allow children to use their hands. When I got married to David I began to have the freedom to use Bolivian Sign Language, later American Sign Language and then British Sign Language (BSL).
Denise received a good education and her parents were very supportive.
However, when I went to study medicine at university in Bolivia, after two years the lecturers began to tell me they were not happy with the idea of having a Deaf doctor. They had a perfectionist philosophy. So I qualified as a paramedic and in first aid but had to leave university. At that time there was nothing like the Disability Discrimination Act and no legal...