This particular celebration of Christ the King Sunday I also have the honor of Baptizing a baby boy who is less than a month old. I have the privilege of gathering with the community of faith and entering into a covenant to call forth the Imago Dei in the life of this child as he grows from infancy to adulthood.
I also recognize the challenges of being faithful to that covenant in an inherently transient community that is the military. I most likely won't even see this baby boy's childhood much less his adolescence or adulthood because I will move, and his family will move, and even the face of this community where we entered into this covenant will change as people move.
But we join in the covenant anyway because covenant isn't about tangible results, it is about faith. Having faith that the parents will be true to the covenant to keep this baby boy in a community of faith that will call forth the Imago Dei from within him and that God will continue to water that image with his own Spirit. And having faith that someday, this baby boy will recognize that within everyone is the same Image of God that we called forth from within him.
Calling forth the Imago Dei and reminding the community to do that is what I see in Matthew's parable this particular go around. In Matthew's parable Jesus reminds us that when we serve the "least of these" we are serving Him. With this parable, Jesus is stomping his foot, tapping the proverbial podium, so that the Church will get it. "This is testable material." And to know that is to remember that within each human is the Image of God; but it's also to remember that to bear the Imago Dei is to carry the responsibility of acting as God would act--to participate in creation as God would participate in creation--and to use our acts of mercy as a way of calling forth the Image within from those who may look like anything but God.
I remember being in Italy for a mission trip/transcultural trip and stopping with our host on the street as he engaged a homeless man who was wrestling a discarded and obviously broken suitcase out of a dumpster. Our host spoke to the man in his own language, even though they weren't from the same country, and as he spoke to the Image of God within this frustrated and broken human being, something changed as this unearthed image came forth. And the man wept, and I wept as I witnessed this thing happening.
When I think of Jesus saying that the ones who do not care for the least of these have also not cared for him, I think of it as Jesus trying to scare the Hell out of us so that we work the Hell out of our world. Because when the homeless are ignored, when the strangers go without welcome and hospitality, or when the thirsty go without anything to drink--well the world is kind of a Hellish place. And if we are comfortable living in Hell now, well then maybe we won't really notice any difference later.
But God doesn't want that, and as I looked at this tiny little baby we washed with water and the Spirit, I knew that I didn't want that; I don't want that.
In third grade I wanted to be an archeologist; in college I was preparing to be an art history professor. When I ponder what it is to get at the Image of God, I can't help but think of people who are dedicated to the original beauty of something--archeologists gently working the dust off of ancient finds, art historians carefully restoring a work of art to its original glory. It's time consuming and perhaps a little tedious. But so very worth the investment.
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