"FB or Image of God?" reflections and text

A person who heard this sermon on Sunday and the one before on Twitter suggested that I like Facebook (FB) and I don't like Twitter. Let me reiterate -- I did not intend to pass judgment on Twitter or FB; they are part of the reality of the world we live in now. The question for Christians is how do we live out our calling as disciples of Christ in the world of Twitter and FB.

They both offer us opportunities for community (in a different way than gathering in person) that make connecting more accessible, in some ways. But, there are also big challenges: primarily, the worldview that sees being connected as optional and of our own choosing and the focus on self. To live as people created by God to be in relationship with others and to identify ourselves as people called by God, flies in the face of the Twitter/FB world that seems to be about what we choose in terms of relationships and ministries. Moses, Jonah and Mary, to name a few, discovered that to be connected to the mysterious demanding God who created us often leads us to do things and to go places we would never have chosen.

Here are my notes from Sunday's sermon.

Introduction: FB is Facebook. Facebook is another of those 21st century technological tools like Twitter.

FB is done on a computer, or at least a device that has computer access.
A person creates an account. You announce to the world who you are:
1.Can post comments.
2. Photos.
3.Quotations from songs or famous people.
4.Biographical information.
5.“What's on your mind?” You are encouraged to post what's on your mind so others can read about you.

You have friends on FB.
1. People who befriend you.
2. They have access to your photos and comments.
3. In fact, when you post something new, your friends are notified so that they can go read about you.
4. You can also chat, that is, have an on-line conversation with Friends who are also on-line.

FB is about image. Photos we might post; quotations from others we list that we use to express who we are; or at least who we want others to think we are.
I have been pondering FB and a theological understanding of being created in the image of God for some time,

A few words about being created in the Image of God –
a. Most underdeveloped theological understanding we have.
b. Shirley Guthrie begins his conversation about being made in the image of God by creating a scenario: you meet a perfect stranger whom you immediately like. IN the conversation, the stranger asks you, “Who are you, really?”
1.What would be on the list?
2. How many of the items on your list are relational? I am a father, or sister
3. How many items are purely intellectual or physical? I have green eyes.
As you review that list, does it become apparent that you understand yourself as being made in the image of God, that at the core of your very being we find that each of us is a child of God?

Move 1: Image of God means to be in relationship.
a. Genesis.
1.Created in the image of God means being made male and female.
2.That implies that to be made in the image of God means we are in relationship.
3.No surprise, I suppose, since we know God as the Trinitarian Father, Son and HS.
4.Uniquely relational.
5. God made male and female. It means that we cannot find our true identity in isolated, individualistic autonomy.
b. FB provides opportunities for relationship.
1.Birthdays
2.Messages between people.
3.Crisis – notes of support get posted.
4.Lots of varied interactions. Two years on FB; more interactions, real and meaningful conversations with college students and members who are living away from Troy in the past two years, than I did in the 15 yrs of ministry combined.
c. Seems to create an atmosphere where community
1.Suggestions about friends.
2.Constantly being updated about your friends.
3.Hard to not connect with what's going on in someone else's lives.
d.FB can also damage relationship
1.IN some ways, it seems to me that people seem freer to express their anger or dissatisfaction when able to post something passively, instead of having to see the look on the person's face.
2.Or, instead of telling one person you are mad at so and so, you recount the story on FB, and now lots of people are reading about the problem.
3.Just as FB can create relationship, it can also easily break it.

Move 2: FB can create a false sense of who we are.
a. To live in the image of God is to give up idolatry of self and idolatry of others and other things.
1.FB invites us into idolatry of self.
2.To focus on ourselves, and our thoughts, and our needs.
3.Being a child of God is not enough – we need to create an appropriate image of ourselves, that may be more about worship of self than truth about self.
b. Dan Migliore, a theology professor at Princeton Theological seminary, notes that “human beings are restless for the fulfillment of life not yet realized.” that we continually search for physical and emotional satisfaction.
1.can FB lead to fulfillment?
2.I think that FB carries with it the false allusion that If you post the perfect photo, or the just right quote, or you express yourself perfectly in a post, you can find fulfillment.
3.AS Christians, however, we would argue that our fulfillment can only come in right relationship with God, living as a child of God, in right relationship with others.
4.Ultimately, FB cannot give us that.

Move 3: Being created in the image of God is not a state, but a movement toward a goal.
a. I Corinthians – we are being transformed.
1. Back to the Guthrie list. He notes that if we are being honest in the list, we will discover is it full of self-contradictions.
2. That who we say we are and who we really are at any given moment do not always fits together.
3. We are not quite who we want to be.
b. IN some ways, FB expresses that well.
1. You can continue to update your image.
2. Everyone is in flux.
c. The challenge, of course, is to connect that changes we are making, the changes we acknowledge in our lives, with the new creation God calls us to be.
1. As we think about being made in the image of God, we have before us the example of Christ, the one who lived perfectly in the image of God.
2. AS followers of Christ, we move toward that image of how he defined what it means to be human.
3. A daunting task we never quite manage, but a task to which we are continually called.

Conclusion: “Who are you really?” Ponder that list. Look and see who you say you are. Look at see if you are living as a FB image of your own creation, or as a child of God.