Every Child Matters: Honouring the Divine Image

The First Reading Genesis 1:26-27

Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Reader: The word of the Lord. All: Thanks be to God.

Sermon: The Rev. Dr. Maryann Amor

After I returned to Canada from Edinburgh, before moving to Edmonton to pursue ordination, I worked at the University of British Columbia’s Residential School History and Dialogue Centre. The Centre was created to help people learn about the history and ongoing legacy of residential schools in Western Canada.

My role was to gather materials from the United Church of Canada archives—scanning images and creating records about the church-run schools. I worked alongside many UBC students, and one afternoon a student asked me what I hoped to do after my contract ended. When I said I was preparing for ordination in the Anglican Church, she looked at me and asked, “How can you be part of a church that caused so much harm to Indigenous peoples?”

It was a hard but honest question. And I answered honestly too: “Because I want to be part of a church that faces its history and works to end these harms, so they are never repeated.”

That is part of what we are doing as we mark Orange Shirt Day in worship.

Today, we join many Anglican churches across Canada in remembering this important day. Since this is our first time observing it at Christ Church, some of us may be wondering what it’s really about or feeling unsure—perhaps even questioning whether it’s meant to make us feel guilty, or why we keep returning to these painful stories. Those are honest, human questions, and it’s completely okay to ask them.

Orange Shirt Day began with Phyllis Webstad, whose orange shirt, a gift from her grandmother, was taken away from her when she began at the Residential School.

It is an Indigenous-led day of remembrance for the children who never came home, the survivors who live with its impact, and the families and communities still healing from its intergenerational effects. It isn’t about guilt or shame. It’s about remembering that every child matters, every person matters, every human life matters. It’s a call to honour that truth and to carry it with us—so that healing can grow, and hope can take root in us and in our world.

This is why we read from Genesis 1:26. In this verse, God says, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.” God doesn’t say that only certain people are made in God’s image—only those who look a certain way, live a certain way, or believe a certain way. God says all of humankind is made in God’s image. Which means every single person reflects the divine.

This truth must shape how we live. It won’t erase the struggles of being human—the conflicts, the hurts, the ways we fail one another—but it does remind us that every person is to be treated with the dignity and respect that belongs to them as an image-bearer of God.

And living this way is where hope begins. When we look at Canada’s history, we see many moments when the dignity of others was ignored—not only Indigenous peoples, but also women, people of different cultures, faiths, genders, and sexual orientations.

Too often, faith, politics, or power were used as excuses to harm and to forget the divine image in every human being.

Today, we are being called to say: never again will we allow our church to ignore the worth of any child, any person, any community. Marking Orange Shirt Day is more than remembering past harm; it is a commitment to truth, to honour the divine image in every person, and to live so that such harm is neither repeated nor allowed to continue.

And we do this not only for ourselves, but also for our young people. Children and youth today are learning the truth of Canada’s history—including its painful chapters. They know things many of us never learned in school. And they are watching how we, the church, respond. What they need to see is a church family that acknowledges the past and embodies a different future: one of justice, healing, and love.

That’s why today I want to share the pulpit with them. At our last youth group, I asked the youth to reflect on Orange Shirt Day and why it matters. I recorded their thoughts and created a video to bring their voices together. As you will see, they know the truth of the past, and they call us to help ensure these harms are never repeated.