When I went to the first of the Blazing Walnuts Workshops, the minister that was helping Moderator Lansdowne with the course was Northern Spirit’s Office of Vocation minister, Rev. Laura Fause. She’s responsible for helping ministry candidates go through the discernment and education process that helps them decide whether or not they are being called by God into ministry with the United Church of Canada. She’s also the author of five sets of inspirational cards that she sells on a website store (Affirmation Cards for Disciples – My Blessing Studio). There’s one for disciples, there’s one for flourishing, one for pride folks and one for kids. It’s a playful, joyful way of finding a thought to inspire our day.
At one time,
playful and joyful were not words that we applied to Christianity or our
understanding of God. Many times
Christianity is painted as a “Get out of Hell free” card, and the literature
going out to recruit disciples is all about the torture and punishment of
rebellious, wayward souls. And at one
point, the use of shame, fear and guilt seemed to bring people into the church
and keep them there.
But since the
1960’s, people have been rejecting that.
They have been deconstructing this rigid understanding of God as the
divine grumpy king sitting on his throne, pitching people headlong into fire
and brimstone. And to be honest, the Bible is full of a diversity of images and
names of God far grander than a miserable bearded codger on a glitzy chair.
Genesis One is
a good example of this. Anyone who takes
the Bible literally might consider looking at the ancient Hebrew names for God. "Elohim" is now translated by some as plural,
and "El Shaddai", used in the song of the same name, can mean both God of the mountaintop
or anything cone shaped, especially women’s endowments, "The many-breasted God". Elohim is the creator of humans in God’s own
image. Then in Genesis 2, we have Yahweh
not Elohim, and it tells a different story of creation where humanity is made
first before the plants and the animals are made last. There are references to God as being a baker,
a king, a woman in labor, a wind, a still small voice, and something so vast
humans can’t even see God’s back side without risking their sanity. All these images point to the human
experience of God being complicated, and God being surprising. God shows up in wondrous ways, or as our Song of Faith puts it, "above perfect
knowledge, beyond perfect explanation, a holy mystery".
Humans have
been trying to understand God as mystery for a very long time. Some were people like Hildegarde of Bingen, and
Julian of Norwich.
Hildegarde
became the leader of a convent when she was very young, and dabbled in God
language that shocked many, especially men in positions of power in the
church. She was a musician, a writer, a
dreamer, a philosopher and a psychologist who wasn’t afraid to talk truth to
politicians. She was born 20 years after
William the Conqueror took over England from the Anglo-Saxons and had many
surprising ideas. She thought that women should strive to be more masculine,
and men should strive to be more feminine, in order to become a balanced
Christian. God was called Divine Feminine and Divine Wisdom. She wrote of God speaking surprising words to her, “I am the one whose praise echoes
on high. I adorn all the earth. I am the breeze that nurtures all things
green… I am the rain… that causes the
grasses to laugh with the joy of life.”[1] Her ideas of God were
shared throughout Europe even though they were not conforming to traditional
understandings.
Julian of Norwich lived in England about three hundred years later and also pushed the boundaries of God images. She lived through wars, the Bubonic Plague, losing her husband and children in her early thirties, and surviving an illness that nearly killed her. When she recovered, she had herself bricked into the local church where she was given meals through a slot in the wall and never came out in public again. She listened to daily worship and many people who came to her curtained window outside. It makes me wonder if she had neurodiverse characteristics. Her routine would have been constantly the same, she never had to make eye contact with anyone, and she could write down her visions in solitude. Even though she had lived through immense personal tragedy, she’s most famously remembered for saying “All Shall be Well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” She said it because she believed that God is Love and as creator, God’s love will triumph. She described God as the trinity God: Maker, Keeper, Lover, or Might, Wisdom and Goodness. She described Jesus as a breast-feeding mother, explaining it as “our precious Mother Jesus can feed us with himself… with the blessed sacrament,” how the bread and wine is as essential to us as a mother's milk. She also had a vision that God’s creation is so precious that it is held in God’s hand, who loves everyone and everything in creation.
Whether we use Father Son and Holy Spirit, or as our Song of Faith puts it, “Mother, Friend, and Comforter/ Source of Life, Living Word, and Bond of Love, our old understanding of God the angry emperor is rejected by many people. They see Christianity as a weapon of control, and a tool of oppression. We won’t go forth and make disciples if we cling to these feared images of God, more like the Greek god Zeus or the Roman God Jupiter than Yahweh, Elohim or El Shaddai. But many people hunger for hope. They still need good news. They yearn for the tender love of a healing and caring God. They long for a community that will love them into healing. Maybe it’s time for us to redraw our deck of cards when it comes to describing our God as closer than a loving parent, who feeds us like a tender mother and cares for us with a love that is unshakable. May God's love, however we describe our higher power, our great mystery, continue to inspire, empower and encourage us and others. Amen.
[1] P. 5, Earth Prayers edited by
Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon, Harper San Francisco Press, 1991
