29

Creation

Reflection by Katharine Ames-Lewis

Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’
So God created humankind in his image,
   in the image of God he created them;
   male and female he created them.
God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’

Genesis 1.26-28

What does it mean to be created in God’s image?

Can it really be that we human beings have within us the capacity to love, like God?

Do we have the capacity to forgive, like God?

To create, like God?

Can we make wise decisions, dream unimaginable dreams, support and sustain others, like God?

What these verses from Genesis tell me is that if we are made in God’s image, we must treat everyone we meet as the reflection of God couched in human flesh.

How very far I fall short in that!

Yet at Christmas we will celebrate the full enfleshment of the divine in the birth of Jesus Christ.

But must we as human beings have ‘dominion’ over the creatures of the world? Surely we must come to see that in creation we share a common home. We must feel a brotherly and sisterly companionship with all life. Too much domination leads to disconnect and to imbalance in our ecology. ‘Domus’ is our home. Domesticity is our daily experience. ‘Dominus’ is our Lord God, sustaining his creation. But we must not take to ourselves the ruling over a ‘Dominion’ of birds, fish and animals. This can lead to exploitation and insensitivity – discarding trawler nets which entrap seals, diverting of water in Africa to elephants in game reserves, robbing baby pangolin of their scales to satisfy a passing craze. You can probably think of lots of other examples of misplaced ‘dominion’.

The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge had it right, in his long narrative poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The shooting down of the albatross by the mariner brings disaster on the ship and its crew. By the end of the poem he has come to the realization,

He prayeth best, who loveth best

All things both great and small;

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.