Made in the Image, Not in Our Image
How Christian love helps persons and cultures become fully themselves in Christ.
St. Matthew 18:23-35
I Corinthians 9:2-12
We have lived through a difficult season, and we can be sure that things are not going to get easy any time soon. In fact, there will always be new temptations before us. One of our greatest social temptations is division. We live in a culture that increasingly encourages us to define ourselves over against one another, to assume the worst about those who disagree with us, and to believe that only our own side possesses what is good and true.
Today’s readings call us to something different.
One of the Lord’s constant commandments is that we love one another—even our enemies. Genuine love cannot exist where we are trying to dominate people, remake them, or judge them against our own image. The Christian life is not about making everyone alike. It is about helping one another become fully who God created us to be.
This is one of the greatest beauties of Christianity. God did not remake the world by stamping everyone into the same mold. He does not hand us a template and say, “Go forth, make disciples of all nations—and make them all look exactly alike.” Yet that is one of our constant temptations. We—or perhaps it’s just me—often imagine that holiness means making everyone into copies of ourselves, even the best versions of ourselves.
But that is not how God works.
When Christ comes to a people, He does not erase what is good in them. He fulfills it.
When the Gospel came to the Slavs, for example, the missionaries did not say, “Become Greeks.” They did not insist that everyone adopt the customs of Constantinople before they could become Christians. Instead, they recognized what was already noble, beautiful, and true in the culture. They purified what was false, baptized what was noble, and brought everything into Christ.
The result was not a copy of Byzantine (Roman) culture. It was the flowering of a distinctly Slavic Christian civilization that has, glory to God, filled the world with saints.
The same is true of every person.
Each of us bears the image of God in a unique way. The Christian life is not about becoming copies of one another. It is about becoming fully who God created each of us to be.
This is also true in parish life.
Every year I watch young men prepare for the priesthood. It would be easy to imagine that there is some specific mold—perhaps the mold made from my favorite priest, or perhaps an amalgam of all the best qualities I have seen in priests who have labored faithfully to the glory of God.
Regardless of the model, we could create one and try to force everyone into it. But that would be a terrible mistake.
Instead, at seminary, we try to recognize each man’s gifts and help him develop them. One may become known for preaching. Another will be given the gift of hearing confessions. Another for beautiful liturgical service. Another for pastoral care. Another may assume the mantle of prophecy. Another may be gifted in administration.
We cultivate those gifts while helping each man overcome—and protect against—his particular weaknesses.
The goal is not uniformity.
The goal is holiness.
And this applies to every Christian, not just clergy.
One of the responsibilities we have toward one another is to recognize the gifts God has placed in each person and help those gifts flourish. Of course, we also help one another recognize the temptations that threaten those gifts, so that together we may grow into the fullness of Christ.
This same spirit should shape the way we look at our neighbors—and even, yes, our enemies.
It is so easy for us to see only the faults of those who disagree with us. It is much harder to ask, “What good is that person trying to protect? What truth have they seen, even if imperfectly? How might Christ fulfill that good rather than simply destroy it—and the soul that bears it?”
That kind of generosity, brothers and sisters, is an act of love.
And trust me—it can be done without giving away the farm.
Saint Paul models this same generosity in today’s Epistle. Some people were criticizing him because there were those receiving material support while preaching the Gospel. Paul responds that those who labor for the Gospel have every right to receive such support.
The point is larger than that particular controversy.
Christians should be slow to condemn practices simply because they differ from our own preferences. The first question is not, “Would I do it this way?” The first question is, “Can this be done faithfully, to the glory of God, to the building up of the Kingdom, and in the service of our neighbor?”
This generosity also changes the way we think about work.
Think about our own society here in America. Some people look at our economic system and see only greed and corruption. Others see only opportunity—a way to make a buck.
The Christian sees something different and asks a different question.
Can this work become an act of love? Can this profession genuinely serve other people? Can I offer my labor to God and my neighbor in this way?
If the answer is yes, then our daily work becomes part of our vocation as members of the royal priesthood. Even the purchases we make become a way of blessing those who have provided them.
We are all members of that royal priesthood. Whatever honest work we do, if it truly serves our neighbor and is offered to God with thanksgiving, it becomes an offering of love.
This isn’t naïve. It’s simple.
I know there are problems with our economic system. I am not suggesting that everything the marketplace rewards is good. It is never acceptable to exploit people, deceive them, or profit from their suffering or their sin. Christian freedom always has moral limits.
But within those limits, our ordinary work becomes another place where we may love both God and neighbor.
Today we are reminded of the boundary that we cannot cross, given to us in today’s Gospel.
The servant who himself had been forgiven an unimaginable debt refused to forgive someone who owed him very little. He used the freedom he had been given not to show mercy but to dominate another.
That is the opposite of the Kingdom.
God possesses all authority, yet He does not tyrannize us. He gives us freedom because love cannot be coerced. He asks us to use our own freedom in the same way: not to manipulate, not to dominate, not to crush, but to forgive, to build up, to heal, and to love.
This calling is especially important in times of disagreement and division.
Every age presents us with opportunities to objectify people, to reduce them to categories, to see them as members of one group or another instead of as persons created in the image of God.
The Gospel calls us to a more difficult path.
It calls us, in the light of Christ, to discern what is truly good in every person, to encourage it, and to help it flourish, while patiently calling one another away from sin.
That is how saints are formed.
That is how cultures are transformed.
That is how families are healed.
That is how parishes become strong.
The Kingdom of God does not spread by manipulation or coercion. It grows through love working in freedom, one person at a time, as each of us becomes more fully who God created us to be.
May God grant us the humility to recognize His image in one another, the wisdom to cultivate what is good, the courage to confront what is sinful, and the charity to forgive as we ourselves have been forgiven.