Be fruitful and multiply

This week's verses are Genesis 1:26-28:

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.”

God created humankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them,
male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it! Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground.”

These verses came to mind this week, when I was putting together a message.  It's the creation of the world, when God has just made Adam and Eve. He blesses them and tells them (and us) to be fruitful and multiply.

People use these verses sometimes to justify a fleshy effort to build the church or to have a large family, but at their core they are something that is coded into us naturally, just as naturally as the other words God has spoken (let there be light, water, etc) are built into the world around us. Do we need to exhaust ourselves to ensure that the sun comes up in the morning, or that there is still water in the ocean?

How much effort do we put into adopting our parents' traits and mannerisms? How much study and training do we need to put into place to be influenced by those we admire, or those who surround us? When a couple is married for decades, do they need to go to a special boot camp to start slowly resembling each other in different ways?

And yet when it comes to the topic of multiplying ourselves as a church, we're told that it should require a great amount of effort and programming to do it. The truth is our natural inclinations lead us to multiply ourselves. God spoke the words and it came into being. We multiply ourselves as naturally as there are birds and fish. The question is not whether we will multiply ourselves, but what about ourselves will be multiplied.

Our bad traits multiply too. Sin has made its way into the world. If we hate, those around us may begin to hate too. If we're violent, or dishonest, or given over to addictions, maybe those around us will pick those habits up as well. Jesus scolds the Pharisees on that point in Matthew 23:15. He says they go out of their way to try to get converts, but they convert them into even worse people than they are!

In that context, these are scary verses. What are we bringing into this world?? Without doing anything, our influence is bleeding into it, our filth and depravity just as much as any good in us. When we're on autopilot, Christian or not, this is what we produce. 

If we want to reproduce what is right and good, we have to be able to see ourselves clearly. This is another thing Jesus scolded the Pharisees over, in Matthew 15:14. He calls them "blind guides." In other words, because of their position and influence, they seem like they ought to be the sort of people you should follow if you don't know where you're going, but in fact they are not. They can't see either. They're bound for the pit and anyone who follows them will end up there too.

This is where humility and a close relationship with God come in handy. If you have humility, you are willing to see who you are. Someone who is proud sees only what they want to see. If you tell a proud person he has a problem he will fight you because he doesn't want to see a problem. If you tell a humble person he has a problem he will admit it, and admitting it is the first step towards change.

A close relationship with God is handy because God tells the truth. He will notice things others can't. He can see your innermost thoughts, so if you're a particularly good actor, he will still see who you really are. And God gives us the power to change.

The fact that we're able to multiply should put the fear of God in us. We share responsibility for the people around us and for future generations. If we're not aware of who we are, the fruit we bear and what we multiply will be out of our control.