1 Kings 19:1-4 [5-7] 8-15a and Galatians 3:23-29
Father is one of those… rather contentious nouns… to me.
It’s hard when I read scripture and Jesus refers to his Father. And we have prayers about our Holy Father. And we pray, every Sunday, Our Father.
It reminds me of Mary Daly’s words: “If God is male, then male is God.”
It reminds me of Gregory of Nazianzus, and Athanasius, our ancient church fathers, who wrote, “That which is not assumed, is not healed.” Or is not saved. Is not redeemed.
If Jesus is male, then women are not redeemed. Not saved.
But this isn’t how Jesus heard his prayers and meant his prayers. Abba, the word Jesus used, is the word you call your own dad. Daddy. Pops. Da. What close term do you use? This is a term of intimacy. “Our daddy, who is in heaven,” “My pops, who loves me,” This is a statement of dependency, and intimate love.
Dependency.
Our ancestors called themselves the Great Father and Great Mother to the indigenous peoples they colonized all over the world. Whether it was the Spanish king or British king or president of the united states or the king of France – the colonial message was the same: I am your Great Father and you are my children.
You are dependant on me.
Yet, at the same time, missionaries spoke of the Great Father… in heaven. It’s pretty easy to conflate one Great Father with another Great Father. Just like it’s pretty easy for us to conflate, to mix up, our own earthly father’s qualities with our heavenly father’s.
If your dad was quick to anger, you may think God is quick to anger too.
If you’re calling the Prime Minister, or king, a god. Then it’s pretty easy to think of them when you’re saying prayers.
You are dependant on me, and I am your god, and you are my infants.
Not equals.
Seth Adema, of Wilfrid Laurier University, writes, “Infantilization was always a foundational part of the liberal ideology. It was essential to the functioning of settler colonization, because it allowed imperial elites to promote liberal values while simultaneously excluding Indigenous peoples, women, slaves, and those without property. In this way, Indigenous peoples were expected to uphold the social contract as articulated by the imperial authorities by contributing to the imperial economy and abiding to imperial law, but this did not come in parcel with the rights of citizens. Instead, through imperial liberal arithmetic, Indigenous peoples had the duties of citizens but the rights of subjects. This ambiguity, that is holding the status of children in the eyes of the law until they broke the law when they were punished as adults, was written into the Indian Act.”
In other words, white men, with land, Christian, and imperial, are fathers and leaders, gods, unto the children… the women, the slaves, and the racialized people.
These ‘children’ are expected to be part of society, and conform to acting, looking, and thinking like their fathers. To assume the role of Father. And until they are white, male, European, and Christian… they are less than citizens.
Just stop being a woman, stop being racialized, stop being another race, and adopt my form of Christianity — Catholic or Protestant — and you’ll be a model citizen with all the rights and privileges!
I don’t want a father like that. I don’t want a world where Victorian Fatherhood is the ideal – and children are seen but never heard, women serve and men are stoic, emotionless, or only allowed anger. That world was not so long ago. And some of you have fathers like that, or grandfathers. Some of you may live with aspects, parts, of this in your own personality.
Like a chilly breeze, Colonial and Victorian fatherhood ideals keep wafting through our society. And it sours that term of endearment Jesus prays: Our Father.
So recall Elijah – God is not the great wind. God is not the earthquake. God is not the fire. God is in the peace.
The sheer silence. The sound of silence. The still small voice.
Recall: God is not your father, God is not your ruler, God is not your colonizer. God is your Holy Source. Your Divinity That Reigns. Your sustainer, affirmer, advocate.
Recall… our terms for God are analogies trying to grasp and express our dependency and that loving relationship. They’re trying to communicate our intimacy with our Creator. They’re fallible words. Words that are not enough. They’re fallible concepts. The relationship you have with your earthly dad is not the same as the relationship I have with my earthly dad.
But we’re trying.
So this Father’s Day – if Father language is a comfort to you, and speaks of goodness, wholeness, support and love — use that language to speak of God. If Father language brings baggage and hurt, fears of punishment or loss of citizenship — use other language for God. It’s okay to drop it.
God is larger than our language. God can handle and invites us to find God beyond – where noise ends, and sheer silence is the closest we can get to describing God with words.
Amen.
Works References:
Mary Daly – Beyond God the Father (Beacon, 1973)
Gregory of Nazianzus’ letter to Cledonius
Seth Adema – More than Stone and Iron: Indigenous History and Incarceration in Canada, 1834-1996
Pastor Whitney Bruno Sermons 