by Bruce Smith
Genesis 1: 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
A recent Guideposts article included a reference to a Jewish proverb, “Before every person there marches an angel proclaiming, ‘Behold, the image of God’”. I was struck by this since, dare I admit, it’s sometimes a bit difficult for me to see that image. While discussing just such an instance with a Jewish friend, he introduced the concept of Mussar, a Jewish spiritual practice with guidance to live a meaningful and ethical life. This practice includes the recognition that we each have unique spiritual challenges that need effort to overcome.
Thinking about that conversation I realized how easily we can fall into the habit of seeing less than the image of God in people around us; people we don’t like, folks who think differently from us, those that make us uneasy. Yours truly being guilty more than he’d like to admit. But thinking about our calling as Christians, I realize that meeting that challenge may entail practicing a bit more of mussar effort.
Our guidance is pretty clear. We are told to love our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus’ actions repeatedly highlighted this. And those actions were pretty remarkable! He responds to a raging madman, assists a blatantly fallen woman, offers salvation to a despicable (as viewed in His day) Samaritan woman alien, calls Matthew, a tax collector, to be a disciple and heals outcast lepers. He surely saw the image of God in those which His society easily dismissed or even rejected.
You may wish to join me in my mussar effort to practice seeing the image of God in all people I meet. Perhaps we all need to use the greeting namaste, the spirit in me greets the spirit in you, with the people around us. In doing so we’d recognize that everyone is an image of God and has His Spirit within.