In our religious traditions, we recognize that the reality of God and the nature of our relationship with the divine are a mystery that transcend the limitations of human speech. To impart a sense of God’s presence and to make that relationship closer and more immediate, however, scripture and liturgy employ images and metaphors that have become familiar and beloved to those who attend worship or who read and study religious texts.
The images of God drawn from the realm of our human experience are numerous and diverse. God is a loving parent who guides and watches over us, rejoices in our well-being and prepares us for the challenges we will face when we attain maturity. God is a shepherd caring for the flock, seeing to their needs, protecting them and keeping them safe. God is a sovereign, enacting wise and just laws that will enable communities to flourish and will minimize violence, conflict, and oppression.
What these images share is that they place humans in a more passive role – as children, as a flock to be tended, as subjects of their ruler, but alongside them there are other metaphors in our faith traditions that assign to humankind a more active role.
In Judaism, humans are regarded as partners with God in the work of creation. God fashioned a world in which our needs for food, clothing, shelter and companionship could be provided for. When we recite grace before a meal or offer prayers of thanksgiving, we are acknowledging God as the ultimate source of blessing, but none of these needs are met without human effort. We have to plant and harvest the crops and prepare the food for our meals, and we have to spin, weave, cut to size and sew the materials for our clothing. To enjoy the blessings of companionship, we have to seek out others, to engage them, and to learn to listen and to be attentive to their needs.
Partnership with God obligates us to act as God’s agents in performing deeds of charity and lovingkindness. We become the eyes and ears of God when we are aware of and sensitive to the overwhelming and unmet needs of our fellow persons, and we are the hands of God when we freely and generously give of ourselves and our own substance. There will be limits to the help we can offer and to what we personally can give, but the greatest sin is to renounce our role as agents and to push away a fellow person in need by telling them that “God will provide.”
Finally, we are obligated to act as stewards of the world that God created, to till the garden in which God has placed us but also to watch over and guard it (Genesis 2:15). To exploit the earth’s resources of soil, earth, air and water solely for our own immediate profit and enjoyment, heedless of the harm that we might be inflicting on our environment and of the need to repair the damage that has already been done and to limit future harm threatens the sustainability of life for our children and their children and is a dereliction of our duty of stewardship.
This article appears in Healthy, wealthy and wise 2025.
