In seminary, one of my classmates was pregnant with her first child, and at her baby shower, we decorated plain white onesies of a variety of sizes so that they could have a whole batch of simple clothes that could be changed out easily as is required by a newborn. I am a very creative person, but the space in which I am the least creative is a purely blank slate. I had no idea what to put on a onesie. Some folks were using stencils, while others freehanded beautiful flowers and animals. I sat with my fabric marker hovering over that blank onesie for quite a while. And then I finally decided on what to put on the onesie and knew I had the right audience with the baby shower being mostly future priests. I wrote very simply, in all lowercase letters the phrase, “imago dei.” Imago Dei is a Latin phrase that means “the image of God;” it has been used to describe a central tenant of how God and humanity intertwine, that we humans are created in the very image of God. I wanted this simple onesie to be a prayerful reminder that this child is not just the daughter of her mother and father but is simply and overwhelmingly the very image of God before us.
Now, I’ve mentioned before that if I weren’t so convicted to love people, I would really hate people, and that’s still true. People are frustrating and enraging and selfish and complicated and beautiful and delightful and, most importantly, they are the very image of God. When I hear Jesus’ answer to the Pharisee’s in today’s gospel, I am convicted all over again at what a heavy a lift leaning into this truth can be.
The Pharisees are trying to set an intellectual trap for Jesus, they are feeling a little prickly about how Jesus stumped the Sadducees earlier and they wanted to corner Jesus,. “What commandment is the greatest?” they ask him. To which Christ responds “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Jesus follows up with another question that silences the Pharisees and keeps them from any other attempts at stumping Jesus.
Every Sunday, in our Rite I service, the celebrant recites these words of Jesus at the beginning of the service, “You shall love the Lord your God…”; it is a foundational reminder that we stand upon nothing in this world other than God, and this truth shapes every bit of how we move through the world. And even though I hear or say those words at least once a week, I very often find myself at a loss. I find myself at a loss because it is very hard in our world to do anything with our whole heart, soul, and mind without getting distracted by notifications or requests. I find myself at a loss because loving others who spew vitriol and anger feels near impossible, and sometimes compassionately loving myself can feel just as out of reach as well. I find myself at a loss when it comes to living into the commandments upon which all the law and prophets hang because I am overwhelmed and frozen by the state of the world today and I feel constantly unmoored by the intense pain and suffering all around. I am at a loss because it’s devastating; gut-wrenchingly devastating to watch wars and manhunts and politic anger play across our screens. Devastating.
This week, I came across a poem from Kentuckian Wendell Berry who speaks to a devastation that feels ubiquitous, in his poem“Now you know the worst,” it begins:
“Now you know the worst we humans have to know about ourselves, and I am sorry.
For I know that you will be afraid.
To those of our bodies given
without pity to be burned, I know
there is no answer
but loving one another,
even our enemies, and this is hard.”
And a few stanzas later it ends:
“You do not have to walk in darkness.
If you will have the courage for love,
you may walk in light. It will be
the light of those who have suffered
for peace. It will be
your light. “
Friends, it is a devastating week; there are no platitudes or jokes that could soften the blow of how much pain and grief there is upon all our shoulders. Yet even when I’m at a loss, I do believe that if we have the courage to love, as Berry says, then we will walk in the light. Even when words fail to sum up the horrors that humanity is inflicting upon itself, I believe that we all bear the very image of God upon our souls. And even when a hope feels dull and shallow, I believe the most important thing we can do is to love what God loves. That when we can love God with our whole being, our heart, our soul, and mind, then, and only then, we can love one another, even our enemies.
There is, unfortunately, no short cut to this. I don’t have a three-point plan that subverts the inherently painful position to love fully and unabashedly. Most days, I’m not even sure what the right next step is, but I do know that the foundation of our being effects how we move through this world. And I know that when we ground ourselves in God, we ground ourselves in the imago dei that each of us carries, doing the only thing we can dare do in the chaos of this world: to love what God loves. Maybe this is the boldest and bravest thing we can do, to be so deeply consumed by a love that loves God. Loving God requires something of us, it requires that we remain soft in a world that compels us to be shielded. To love what God loves is to let our heart be broken again and again by humanity as we harm each other. To love what God loves is what it looks like to be a person of faith in our world today. And this is my prayer, that even through the haze of war and violence of every other variety, that we can, with all our heart, and soul, and mind, truly love what God loves.
Lord, hear my prayer.
A sermon delivered to the people of Christ Episcopal Church in Bowling Green, Kentucky for Proper 25A on October 29, 2023.
Becca Kello 