I’m presently reading “The Answer to Our Cry” by Rick McKinley. McKinley is the pastor of Imago Dei church in Portland (a church that I respect greatly) and one of the people who started Advent Conspiracy (an organization that I also respect greatly). I really connect with McKinley’s consistency concerning bringing everything back to the Trinity and the Image of God (Imago Dei).
I just read this quote from McKinley connecting Jesus’ desire for His followers to practice justice based on humans bearing the Image of God.
We don’t simply use labels for those we see on the evening news, however. We use them for the people across the street, down the road, or across town. We label our neighbors who are gay, Muslim, or divorced. We label the neighborhood a few blocks away from us with all the Russian immigrants.
We don’t see people who are made in the image of the God who sets us free to love them, because we separate ourselves from them through our differences. When we do that, we take away their light as image bearers of God and create separation that robs us of the possibility of knowing them.
That is why Jesus confronts injustice not by calling our attention to the greatest offenders of shalom but by calling us to love our neighbor as ourselves. We like the idea that we are made in the image of God, but do we like the idea that our neighbors are too?
Rick McKinley, The Answer to our Cry, p. 115-6.
I love that last line. “We like the idea that we are made in the image of God, but do we like the idea that our neighbors are too?” Very tru e and very challenging.