The authors of Proverbs imagine wisdom as a woman and a spirit that invites all people to come to her. When she remembers God creating, she uses a word that calls herself either God’s master artisan or worker helping imagine the wonders of the world… or a little girl who delights and plays in the wonders God creates. Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
In our John reading, Jesus is near the end of his farewell conversation with his disciples. John 16:12-15
How did we get an old man sitting on a throne in the clouds as God?
BWANG! NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!
But that’s why.
The Torah, the Old Testament, is pretty clear – don’t make images of God. Moses breaks the original 10 commandments when he sees the people have made a statue to worship. Prophets taunted other religions for their images, and said what is made by human hands cannot save you and cannot respond to prayers. It is wood and stone and paint. Not the Living God. Islam took the commandment not to depict people so strongly that Muslim art is abstract designs and gorgeous calligraphy of plants and animals.
Definitely not ever God.
But nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition.
About 1,500 years ago, the church was in a tiff over. Could you use icons, paintings of holy people, in worship? Those in the East said yes – they are useful. Those in the West – under Charlemagne – said no. They fought over this for awhile and finally decided that there was a permitted list of people who could be painted and depicted for veneration… used to help people worship… but God was not included on this list.
Don’t paint God.
However, once it was okay to draw Jesus, and the life of Jesus, how do you draw or paint Jesus interacting with God?
A dove, from Jesus’ Baptism, was used for the Spirit of God. But God the Parent? Usually a hand was put in, while the rest of God was not seen. So it suggested God reaching from heaven to interact with the world. Giving blessings. Touching the earth to create.
But if a hand, why not two? If two, why not arms? If two arms, why not a head? And then a torso? And then sitting on a throne? And then walking through the cosmos?
Over the centuries there were now pictures of young men as God, and old men as God. God who looked like Popes and God who looked like the Archbishop who commissioned the painting. God naked and God richly dressed; God always a man because Jesus calls God Abba, Daddy. But God of every age and race and people you can point to.
And then…
BWANG! The Spanish Inquisition.
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, the son in law of the man in charge of approving images for the Inquisition, paints God as an old man with a white beard in a purple robe – high above the fray – in the clouds looking down. It is an approved image.
Pretty soon, all the artists are painting God like this.
Now, for hundreds of years people had been painting God as the Ancient of Days, from the book of Daniel, with a white beard and a white head. But they’d also painted God in other ways.
After the Spanish Inquisition? A lot more unity. For really obvious reasons.
But not everyone was happy.
Like those Protestants. When the protests started, followers of Martin Luther or Zwigli or many other protestant leaders rejected the churches full of statues, and stained glass windows, and gold relics and painted images of holy people. Especially, perhaps, when those holy people had the faces of real people. Image praying in a church where God is shown with the face of your pastor! Or the president!
So… they took out all that art and smashed it. Burned it. And painted their churches pure white inside. With clear glass windows. And said God’s creation is beautiful enough. God’s light is glorious. Let in the light. Let in the breeze. Let in God.
Well, years pass, of course. Protestants get less riled up and now you have places like St. Michaels. We have stained glass… but no people in them. We have a painting of Jesus… but no painting of the one who sent Jesus. We have almost white walls… but some decorations are in here.
Nevertheless, the Spanish Inquisition.
The images of God as something other than the approved image of the picture of God as an old white man on a cloud with a big beard and white robe are few. And, these key things are now in the public short-hand as THE images to tell us this person is God. Our images of God as a triangle, as three loops, as a burning bush, or something else are lost from our public lexicon.
So who do you picture?
Sometimes, I wonder who the disciples pictured. They didn’t have a developed idea of the Trinity. So no triangles or Celtic knots. They knew God, whom Jesus and tradition said you could call Daddy, or my Father, my Dad. Their Jewish tradition told them that God was not really a male father… but acted in that role. The role of protector, law-giver, head of the household, the one who gives the group their family name, and the unifier among all the children… us. A father in that time may have several women… but his children were united by being HIS children.
Did they picture an Ancient of Days, or a friendly father figure they knew in their youths?
These disciples also knew that Jesus told them that seeing Jesus is seeing God. Seeing means not just with eyes, but knowing. Understanding. Jesus did not say “I am my Father.” He said, “I am in my father.” and “I am going to my God and your God.” Yet I wonder if some took Jesus literally and pictured Jesus when they prayed… since he is a visible person of the Godhead.
The disciples also knew Jesus promised the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Truth, an Advocate and Counselor who would abide with them at all times after Jesus died. And this Spirit is in God and Jesus as they are in each other. Another person of the Trinity.
Truth, Wisdom, in Jewish tradition, is that female spirit who as a child frolicked before God while God created and as a woman beckons all to come learn from her. At Jesus’ baptism, God’s spirit like a dove alighted upon him. And at Pentecost, the Spirit like flaming tongues hovered over heads.
Were any of these what the disciples pictured when they prayed or spoke about God?
On the front of your bulletins is a beautiful stained glass window with a triangle. This is how someone pictures God. This is God, known as the Trinity. Each angle’s corner is distinct, but equal, to each other. And necessary for the whole triangle. You can’t have a triangle without one of the angles. They work together to be one.
In the same way, we have One God. One triangle. But God can be known in three persons. Or expressions. Or pictures. Or ways. Three angles of a triangle to make one.
There is no Spanish Inquisition here in Saint Michael’s. There is no one who is going to enforce the words you call these angles to understand the whole. Father, Son and Holy Ghost, or Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer. Or Source, Wisdom, Word. Or Parent, Child, Spirit. Use the relationship terms that help you the most.
For they are among many Scripture and tradition both use to help us understand what a triangle is. What God is. Who God is.
The Torah and Gospels and Letters, the Midrash and our traditions, our Jewish and our Muslim cousins – we all agree… there is only One God.
We’re just struggling with our human ways to speak about this One God.
God cannot be described and cannot be pictured and cannot be understood are all true statements… but then we cannot SPEAK about God and cannot THINK about God and really, have a hard time LOVING God. We can’t share where we experience God and we can’t share our wonder.
So… words and images. Imperfect. Each has a draw back and a flaw. But together they begin to hint at who God is. As long as we remember they are hints—and God is LIKE a father, LIKE a fire, LIKE whatever we use. Like, but is not the exact same.
I like that Jesus tells this disciples, “There are many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of Truth comes, the Spirit will guide you.” It is a way of saying that wherever we are now, there are still more understandings of God we just can’t bear.
Our mortal minds, our limits on our wisdom, just can’t handle it. God is more.
But the Holy Spirit will continue to guide us. Guide us into understanding how to be like Jesus in our current times. How to speak about God and God’s deeds in our own eras.
How to make the faith our own.
Some recent reimaginings were in movies with God shown as a black woman or black man. But no children yet. No one handicapped.
The problem of picturing God is that we cannot… for we are ALL made in the image of God. But the problem of rejecting all representations of God means we have no way to speak of God.
So. Who do you picture?
What images speak to you of the love of your your Holy Father? Abba? Daddy? Holy Mother? Eema? Mommy?
Praise God for so many expressions of love of God’s self!
Amen.
Pastor Whitney Bruno Sermons 