Theology Blog

People and the relationships we have with them are one of the greatest gifts that God will ever give us. I have shared this at almost every funeral that I have performed for more than a decade. We often lose sight of that and neglect that in the midst of busyness, conflict, fear, and a focus on what is not going right or what we do not have rather than focusing on what is going well and what we do have.

We must remember that people are created in the image of God, all of them. Christian and not. One of the implications of this is that every human being, in one way or another bears the image of Jesus to others and to the world. It also means that all people have great value, that to be created in the image of God is a high honor and a unique aspect of being human. Another application is that we are all children of God. Those who have embraced this identity, or come to know Jesus or have been baptized have fully accepted and live in this identity. All this to say, that human beings are the most valuable creatures in all of creation.

This means that how we look at and treat people matters. We cannot perfect this, but we often fail to even try or notice how we see and treat others. We often focus on their flaws and judge them while ignoring our own. Our primary goal should be to see people as God sees them, beautiful, important, loved yet imperfect. Our ideal approach is to seek to understand people rather than to judge them or be understood by them. We must assume a positive, or as one of my mentors said, ‘assume a yes in everyone.’ We must assume the best in people if we really want to see and value them, if we really want to treat them with the love that God calls us to.

It also turns out that we can disagree with people, dislike things about them and still value and love them. It turns out that we can have different personalities, views, strengths and weaknesses and still love and value each other, better yet, have a healthy deep relationship with one another.

That is the ideal that God seeks in us and the only way it becomes a reality is if we take that seriously and let it begin with me.