September 7, 2026

(Image: Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel)

In the Image and Likeness of God
Our first reading today takes us to the port city of Corinth, with St. Paul expressing concern about sexual immorality in the Corinthian Christian community. Apparently, some folks are putting themselves and their desires above the good of the community. But St. Paul is adamant that we who have been reborn in Christ Jesus are corporately the Body of Christ. Community that expresses the love of God is essential to Christians, and we are to live with integrity as one body, building one another up, living in covenant relationship with one another. In today’s reading from 1 Corinthians 5, Paul concludes his argument by writing, “Do you not know that a little yeast leavens all of the dough? Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch of dough, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5:6-8, NRSV).
In today’s gospel passage from chapter 6 of Luke, a man with a withered right hand approaches Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, and Jesus says to the Pharisees who are watching him, “I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?” (Luke 6:7, NRSV).
As we consider these two very different scripture readings, I recall the fresco of the Creation of Adam painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel in the year 1511. Michelangelo portrays God as an old, bearded man dressed in white, surrounded by angels, extending his right hand to the outstretched left hand of Adam, a young naked man looking into the eyes of God. In this divine touch, as this first human being is created in the image and likeness of God, the creature becomes a creator. The first human becomes a sexual creator and is given the creative agency to speak and to act.
Our readings today call us to embody and protect this divine gift of creative agency with words and deeds that build community. When this creative agency has withered, both St. Paul and our divine Creator reach out to us so that we might be healed with a divine spark of newfound agency.