When the world around someone tells them they are worthless or worth less than others, from where can they derive their sense of value and dignity?

We can also ask the reverse: When the world around someone tells them they are worth more than others, and that they are justified in denying the value and dignity of others, how can they come to realize the lie of that, that others bear just as much dignity and worth as they do?

There is a lot at stake in these questions, in a world where we have a lot of people treating others like objects, as less worthy, with less humanity. A lot of people’s sense of self is shaped by messages about either their own inferiority or their own superiority. And by “people” I mean us.

The most faithful followers of Jesus through history have cut through the lie of this.

In the truest, most “God’s eye view” of the world, taught by Jesus, we are each and all “Children of the Living God.” This means that, more than being children of our particular families, more than being products of our social circumstances (as important as that all is), our very beings spring from nothing less than the Sacred Source of All Being: God. This core identity is the deepest source of our essential worth and dignity, as well as our humility before the essential worth and dignity of others, and our solidarity with each other before all the forces that would deny and destroy this truth.

What does it look like to live according to this truth? What does it feel like?

We may be able to think of people who do seem to manage to live like this most of the time. Maybe it’s someone who has helped us to realize or at least glimpse our own essential worth and dignity, and the essential worth and dignity of others. This is something that must be experienced for oneself, yet it can be transmitted through loving relationships that can help each other realize or remember the core truth about ourselves and other.

That said, it can be hard, right?

Especially in a world where it seems like we have no other choice but to treat at least some people like objects or as not even real. Especially in a world where it can seem that the loudest voices are obsessed with superiority and inferiority.

But just because it’s hard, doesn’t mean it isn’t true. We are each and all at our core “Children of the Living God.”

This is how the contemporary theologian Luther E Smith Jr. put it, in an introduction to the writings of Howard Thurman, the great civil rights leader and Christian thinker from the last century:

“Beneath the many identities we wear – whether those bestowed by family, friends, or culture – there is in each of us a core identity given by God. This identity is one’s true self. This self is of ultimate worth; it cannot be diminished by the assessments of others. One’s own failures may be tragic, but the value of the self remains. It can be betrayed, ignored, abused, or forgotten; still, its God-given worth remains constant.” (Howard Thurman, Essential Writings, ed. by Luther E. Smith Jr, pp 129-130)

How do we know this is true? For Christians, we know this because of Jesus, and what we discover about God when we look to Jesus and follow in his Way.

According to our scriptures, we are each and all created “in the image of God.” Yet humanity has turned away from this truth, wanting to make ourselves out to be gods in our own right, and make others out to be just tools for our own desires. This turning away is an act of great violence against our true natures, and violence against God, who we want to annihilate. But we can’t annihilate God and we can’t succeed in denying our true natures. This is the meaning of Jesus, who came to fully embody the clearest human reflection of our Source in the Divine.

This is beautifully expressed in Eastern Orthodox Christian theology. This is from John Anthony McGuckin in his history of the Eastern Orthodox Church: “All things flow from the overwhelming fact that the divine Power and Word and Fire became personally incarnate within time and space: and our God was shown to us as a humble, suffering servant of mercy…It sets as the goal of all Orthodox [read: Christian] spiritual life the quest for the believer to become a human being – and the realization that in becoming a human being, in Christ, the believer becomes deified by the grace of the indwelling presence of the Holy.” (The Eastern Orthodox Church: A New History, by John Anthony McGuckin, 301-302).

What this means is that when we look to Christ, we realize that there is always a dimension of ourselves and of others that transcends our place and time, transcends whatever names or identities or stories others tell about us or we tell about ourselves and tell about others. This is more true and powerful than the forces that try to deny and destroy the image of God in others and in oneself.

This is at once profoundly humbling and profoundly uplifting. It is sanctifying of ourselves and others, while admitting our absolute dependence not on ourselves, but on God. This means centering our lives and identities around a Divine Source much, much greater than ourselves, who gives all our lives value regardless of our station or status in society, regardless of what we or others think we deserve or have earned or not.

Not all people hold this truth to be self-evident – even those who may bother to claim they do. And even if we are sincere in our commitment to it, it is can be a challenging truth to live out, moment by moment, day by day, year by year, generation by generation.

There are very powerful forces and voices that want us to deny the essential humanity of others or of ourselves.

We have to keep returning to this truth, remembering this truth, rediscovering this truth. It is life-saving. It is soul-saving.

We need God’s help – we need Jesus’ help – to resist those forces, to release their hold on us.

The good news is that with Jesus we have a truth that can set us free, to be as we are originally created to be, one and all beloved Children of the Living God.

Thanks be to God.

Delivered Sunday, January 12, 2025, by Rev. Nathaniel Mahlberg at the United Church of Christ at Valley Forge.

Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS – 29 Mar 1968, Memphis, Tennessee, USA