Our God reveals us

Your image of God creates you.

                     Richard Rohr

_________________________________

 

Are we created in God’s image?

Or do we create God in the image of a humanity no longer reflecting

our original blessing?

 

It seems clear,

beautifully clear,

if you read the words of Jesus

and even, much of the time, Paul.

 

that God is love.

 

We find this most clearly in the words of Jesus

that are the most difficulty.  In those teachings

we read, nod our heads at,

and find ways to ignore.

 

Love you neighbor as yourself.

Check!!

 

Turn the other cheek!

Check!

 

The first shall be last and the last shall be first

Check!

 

The we embrace toxic individualism,

we jump to retributive action,

and we worship power!

 

What was not clear?

 

But then we go one step further

We make God tribal

Retributive!

A tyrant.

 

Or is it rather that we choose those aspect of God

which do in fact leak out of the scriptures,

and use them as an excuse

to behave poorly?

 

Perhaps the real question is why do some people

hear the words of Jesus, take them to heart, and

walk that road of love and forgiveness

 

while some read the Bible and come away

with a cruel God, an angry God,

a punitive God

 

I don’t know

 

Do we reveal our God

or does the God we choose reveal us?

 

and yet in the end

The Sacred, however you think of that amazing, indefinable reality and power

is reveal (I believe) in Jesus

 

Or at least the Sacred, when accessed at the ultimate level

by one inhabiting a human body

looks like Jesus

 

Loving

Kind

Healing

Reconciling

Forgiving

Patient (mostly)

Self-sacrificing

 

If I can see that in Jesus, is that because I am awake to the Love in me?

If I do not see that, is that because I have not connected with the Love in me?

 

Could it be that the most harshly religious,

those using fear

to coerce and control

 

Those seeking to impose their religious will on others

are not those most loyal to Sacred,

but those who are the least open, connect, and loyal

to the holy?

 

Is it possible that because of our proclivity to hate,

our lust for control,

our addiction to wealth,

we have transformed a God of love into a petty tyrant

 

rather than allowing the God of love

to transform us from petty tyrants (think more than a few right-wing politicians in Texas)

into people of compassion and love?

 

Something to think about!