“‘Oh, that Ishmael may live before you!’ Abraham cried to God.” (Genesis 17:18) This cry has always moved my heart. I have always felt a deep connection with Ishmael; we are him. That cry from the heart of a loving father is God’s cry for you and me. This is intercessory prayer. In My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers wrote, “You cannot truly intercede through prayer if you do not believe in the reality of redemption.” We must believe that God is mighty enough and lovely enough to make things right and that God desires to make it so. Intercession then is locating a person or a situation into the lap of dear God, confident that God will make things right.

I was 24 years old, a freshly minted American resident when my six-month-old baby went into anaphylactic reaction. Out of my belly came the cry, “God, what’s going on? He’s yours; please heal him!” I had given him peanut butter, and apparently, his body did not like it. I watched all the swelling go down within a few minutes as I cried to God in dance. I never considered calling 911, not because I have something against it! In the moment, I simply did not think of it; I knew prayer and God’s reliability.

Another time in a conversation with a friend, she said, “I get migraines,” welcoming my prayer. I prayed immediately. A few days later, she called to say that she had not had pain since our prayer together. Her migraines are still gone. I can go on and on sharing situations in which God has intervened because of intercession. I keep a journal of people and things I bring before God daily. God is reliable.

Intercession is becoming love; it is becoming the heart of God for humanity. It is asking God to redeem, to make right according to his perfect love. We do not tell God what to do, but we allow the heart of God to flow through us for our friends, families, society, and even enemies. Enemies don’t stay enemies in prayer.

It’s 2021; we see enemies everywhere – strange ideologies, racism, bigotry and such in the world and in the church. We are wary of each other and perhaps weary of God. God is not answering fast enough for you, or maybe he allowed things you did not want. There’s a sense in which we wonder, “why pray, when God will do whatever he wants anyway?”  But remember how Paul encouraged the Galatians: “Let us not became weary, [in interceding prayer] for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9) We must believe God is mighty enough to save and lovely enough to want to save.

Surrender is the key to intercession. Without it, love cannot and will not flow. We cannot avoid surrender. Revival will not happen without it. The transformation we desire in the lives of those we bring before God will not happen unless we raise our flags in surrender. Healing will only come to our earth – your flesh, mine, and the world – when we are free of our preconceived ideas of how reality should be, and we yield to God.

Did God say, “If my people who are called by my name will get smarter in their arguments, independence, possessions, and politics, I will hear from heaven and answer; I will forgive their sins and heal their land”? There is so much to make the heart weary. The earth and people groan for the return of God. We cry revival with our lips, but our hearts are not humbled; we have not repented of our arrogance. God appeared to Solomon when he consecrated the temple. He said, “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people,[you have to admit it has felt like this for the world] if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:13-14, NIV)

Physical, emotional, spiritual, and societal healing all begins and ends in surrendered intercession. When you pray for me, and I pray for you, we manifest God’s love. We are family connected through the explosive love of God who created all things. Your healing is intertwined with mine and mine to yours. Let us pray for Ishmael. “Oh, that Ishmael may live before you!”

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Featured image courtesy Henrique Jacob on Unsplash.

Hace años, cuando me uní a Facebook, muchos cristianos no sabían qué pensar de la nueva plataforma de redes sociales. Uno de mis mentores renunció a Facebook y me explicó los peligros de conectarse con personas a través de Internet. Estaba tratando de convencerme de que la plataforma no tenía valor redentor.

 “Puedes ser amigo de gente que ni siquiera conoces.” “Eso no es seguro” advirtió.

Ella no fue la única que hizo sonar las alarmas, pero yo estaba en la escuela de posgrado y lo veía como una forma de conectarme con personas más allá del aula.

Después del “tsk, tsk, tsk,” mi objetivo era usar las redes sociales para algo más que mirar actualizaciones de estado e imágenes. Comencé a orar por las personas en sus cumpleaños, cuando aparecían al azar en mi “feed” o cuando actualizaban sus estados. No siempre les dije, pero oré.

Amo orar. No siempre comprendo el misterio de la oración, pero conozco su poder. Lo sé por mis propias experiencias y por lo que he leído en las Escrituras; hablar con Dios es fundamental para mí. Ayuda a activar mi fe, restaura mi esperanza cuando decae y me recuerda que Dios siempre está conmigo.

En algunos de los días más oscuros de mi vida, oré para que Dios iluminara mi situación. Puedo recordar haber escrito en mi diario esta sabiduría de Santiago 5: 13a: “¿Hay alguien entre ustedes, que esté afligido? Que ore a Dios.” Y luego del Salmo 27: 1,“El Señor es mi luz y mi salvación; ¿A quién temeré? El Señor es la fuerza de mi vida; ¿de quién tendré miedo?”

Algunos días, no siempre sé las palabras para orar. Cuando estaba angustiada en medio de una transición difícil, encontré consuelo en lo que el apóstol Pablo escribió en Romanos 8:26: “De la misma manera, el Espíritu nos ayuda en nuestra debilidad. No sabemos por qué debemos orar, pero el Espíritu mismo intercede por nosotros con gemidos sin palabras.”

Fue un gran consuelo para mí saber que el Espíritu estaba intercediendo por mí los días en que había orado todas las palabras que sabía orar.

Cuando la aplicación de fotos en mis dispositivos comenzó a proporcionar collages de eventos y Facebook comenzó a proporcionar recuerdos, me molestó. Algunas de las imágenes eran buenos recuerdos que quería revivir; pero algunos de los recuerdos incluían personas y situaciones que quería olvidar.

“¿De verdad Facebook, una foto de cuando jugaba voleibol en seminario hace 13 años? ¿No tienes nada más reciente o halagador?”

Sin embargo, miré a las personas en las fotos y me pregunté dónde estaban y qué estaban haciendo. No podía recordar todos sus nombres, pero recordaba cosas sobre ellos. A algunos los tuve que buscar para recordarlos. A algunos todavía los conocía porque éramos amigos de Facebook.

Entonces me pregunté: ¿qué pasaría si comenzara a orar por las personas que aparecían en collages y recuerdos? ¿Cuáles serían las oraciones, especialmente para los collages que muestran a personas con las que no había hablado en años?

Me di cuenta de que podía agradecer a Dios por las temporadas que estas personas estaban en mi vida.

Podía agradecer a Dios por lo que significaban para mí en ese momento y orar por la curación en situaciones en las que nuestras separaciones eran menos amigables. ¿Qué pasa si oro por ellos en sus circunstancias actuales o por lo que sea que estén haciendo ahora?

No tuve que decírselos. Podría simplemente orar. Así que lo hice y lo hago.

Soy de un linaje de personas que oran.

Muchas mañanas me despertaba con el sonido rítmico de mi madre orando, clamando a Dios por las personas, los lugares y las situaciones. Ella tiene una sala de oración y un muro de oración. Allí coloca fotografías de personas por las que está orando.

Cuando mi madre celebró un cumpleaños histórico el año pasado, oró por cada uno de sus nietos y bisnietos. Y cuando nació su primer tataranieto a mediados de junio, una de las primeras imágenes que surgieron fue la de ella orando por él. Es el comienzo de la quinta generación viva de nuestra familia.

A menudo, mi madre nos llevaba a visitar a mi bisabuela materna, Lelia Mincy White. Mis cuatro hermanas y yo nos dispersábamos por la sala del apartamento de un dormitorio mientras mi madre y su abuela estudiaban las Escrituras y oraban. Recuerdo una visita en particular cuando mi bisabuela se levantó de la mesa y entró en la sala de estar. Ella puso sus manos sobre cada uno de nosotros y oró por nosotros.

Cuando murió mi bisabuela, la encontraron arrodillada junto a su cama, probablemente orando.

Después de la muerte de mi abuela materna, se compartieron cuadernos llenos de oraciones que había escrito. Oraba por muchas cosas por escrito, pero a menudo le recordaba a Dios quién es él y cuánto más poderoso es que un presidente—quien en el momento de una oración, estaba arruinando la economía.

No pretendo saber todo lo que necesito saber sobre la oración. No entiendo ni sé por qué se responden algunas oraciones y, aparentemente, otras no. No sé por qué algunas respuestas llegan rápido y otras lentamente.

Pero sé que Dios escucha y contesta las oraciones. Dios permite que la gente ore por ti incluso cuando no lo sabes. He llegado a comprender que incluso en mis momentos de duda y cuestionamiento, Dios todavía está escuchando, y todavía contesta las oraciones, y que el tiempo de Dios es perfecto.

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La traducción por Rev. Dr. Edgar Bazan

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Featured image courtesy Timothy Eberly on Unsplash

I am horrible at waiting. I don’t always hate waiting itself, but I have expectations. When something is not done in the timeframe I expect, I get an attitude — and keep waiting.

Right now, we are all waiting for the pandemic to pass. Social distancing, quarantining, and staying home are taking a toll on many of us. How do we endure the wait?

One of my best lessons about waiting came from learning how to grill a steak properly. For me, a perfect steak is medium well — just a hint of pink.

The first time I grilled steak, it was a disaster. It appeared to be just right — the juices were bubbling, the grill marks were there, and it smelled divine. Then I cut into it — it was blood-red and cold to the touch. Not one who is easily defeated, I talked to some seasoned grillers. They all suspected the same thing: the heat was too high.

“You have to wait for a steak to come to perfection. The high heat cooks it deceptively,” one of the grillers told me.

“It looks ready on the outside but is still raw on the inside. High heat cuts down the wait time, but it does not thoroughly cook the meat.”

I didn’t like hearing I was impatient.

Waiting isn’t bad; it can be a time of renewal. In Isaiah 40:31, Scripture tells us, “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” Being renewed gives you strength for the journey. But sometimes, I find myself getting tired, because I am working to do what God said he would do, instead of waiting on God.

Earlier this year, I ran my first 5k race. I trained for the race, but halfway through, I found myself a little tired. However, when I saw the finish line, something happened to my weary body — I got a second wind. I didn’t even stop to take pictures with the signs of famous women along the route. I just kept running, going around people, staying focused on finishing. When I get tired of waiting, I imagine God renews my strength, just like my strength was renewed when I saw the finish line. Waiting is always part of the process.

Waiting is about preparing for what is to come. Get ready for what you request! Instead of watching my steak, pressing it down, or flipping it too soon, I left it alone. Instead, I set the table and put out the side dishes for the meal.

Invest in your waiting. I have petitions before God. While waiting, I fast and pray not just for my requests but also for others’ requests. On Fast for Your Future Tuesday, I fast and pray with people, believing God for answers.

Wait well. Learn how to praise God for what you are waiting for. Offering gratitude for what you cannot see may be a challenge. But praising God can change your attitude and perspective.

Are you praying for something? Do you have a request before God? Don’t get discouraged if you are tired of waiting. Just wait —the answer is on the way. Sometimes, waiting is easier said than done, but I am always encouraged by what David says about waiting in Psalms 27:13-14: “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”

Don’t be impatient, like I was with the steak. Wait on the Lord. Because just like I waited for the steak to cook properly, you will be glad you waited for God to give you or send you the perfect answer.

 

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Featured image: “Waiting” by Nicholas Roerich, 1927

Rev. Kaloma Smith, Senior Pastor of University AME Zion in Palo Alto, examines wisdom from Acts 12 for times when pressure is on the rise.

“As we face our sixth month of dealing with challenges of this pandemic, there is a significant amount of pressure in the world. We’re watching companies fall to bankruptcies. We listen to parents and school districts try to figure out the school year. We see organizations and governmental structures facing the same challenges. Our structures are under pressure, medical systems under pressure – there’s so much going. The church of God is under pressure. How do you maintain community, how do you maintain a broadcast, when you haven’t really seen people in six months? How do you do all the stuff that you wanted to do before – but you can’t do it right now?

How do we respond properly to all of these pressures?

In Acts, the church is facing a challenge it’s never faced before. What does the church do when it’s under pressure?

We must stand.

We must discern.

We must pray.

When Stephen was stoned, the church dispersed; they ran. But something happens. This time, the church decides to stand right where it is. The church was in significant danger. Sometimes the greatest gift you can give yourself is to stop and stand, when God is calling.

James was killed, Peter was in prison. The early church had firsthand experience with resurrection. But the church was able to discern what the right prayer was during that season. Some of us are praying for dead things that God is not going to bring back, instead of discerning what we’re supposed to pray on. God isn’t interested in resuscitating the past, he’s interested in rescuing the future.

We’ve made the concept of prayer as simple as “thoughts.” A thought is internal – cognitive ability, how I feel. We’ve tied the idea of prayer to “thoughts.” We’ve taken communication with the Divine, with the God of heaven and earth, and boiled it down to human thoughts! We devalue our greatest tool, strongest form of communication – all that we are. Prayer shifts the reality we’re living in. Prayer is the way we connect with God who created the very earth. God designed us to pray in this season, to pray without ceasing. We have to reclaim the power of prayer.

The correct response to pressure starts with prayer.”

Watch the sermon in its entirety:

https://youtu.be/_I6wZ2rE3zw?t=92

 

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Featured image courtesy Luis Villasmil on Unsplash.

Before the rumblings began to emerge around New Years’ (stories dripping out slowly from halfway around the world); before awareness of trouble somewhere became the startling realization that trouble was here – we could indulge ourselves in becoming blasé about tradition. Habits are sly: sometimes, we’re lulled into the off-key sense that traditions are a way of controlling a season. We begin to see them as the point instead of as a waypoint. At Christmas, we mumble, “round yon virgin, mother and Child,” so that young hearers don’t whisper loudly, “what’s a virgin?” We don’t know what to do with the truly awful passage about Herod ordering the slaughter of Bethlehem’s toddler boys, so we skip it. Then we stare open-mouthed at the news when natural disasters erupt in December, scissors halted halfway through the Snoopy wrapping paper. For many people around the world, last December – despite weariness or tight budgets or influenza – was one of the last waypoints of normalcy. Even for people who don’t avoid the awkward or painful, this year has been a chaotic overthrow of everyday simplicity. What voice can sound clearly through the chaos? We live in a moment aching for the holy iconoclasm of the poetry of Madeleine L’Engle.

Best known for novels, the late writer Madeleine L’Engle – born in a year much talked-about lately, 1918 – showed a knack for discomforting the comfortable and soothing the overheated, displayed well in The Ordering of Love: The New & Collected Poems of Madeleine L’Engle. There is nothing controllable about life on this planet, her words seem to shriek; no family recipe to follow carefully that will alleviate the cosmic chaos. And after all, she was born at the tail-end of World War I, during the 1918 flu pandemic, a child during the ’29 crash, a teenager during the Depression, a young woman during World War II, a mother in the tumult of the 50’s and 60’s, a grieving widow as the Information Age picked up steam. Her experiences shout loudly to our current world.

But L’Engle’s poems also bear the time signature of sacred rhythms: many follow liturgical seasons, or lectionary readings, or high water marks of living, like births, weddings, baptisms, deaths. Others cobble amusing little sketches of the absurd habits of selfishness, or glee, or fear, or comfort. She speaks to God as brashly and fearfully as a child who dares to shout at her parent before bursting into tears. Her joy, rage, mirth, and disappointment are pinned into place with her regular, irresistible return to Creation, Collapse, Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection. For an author best known for books on time travel, Madeleine L’Engle shakes us awake now as much as she must have while she was alive.

Consider a few fragments from “Lines Scribbled on an Envelope While Riding the 104 Broadway Bus:”

There is too much pain

I cannot understand

I cannot pray

Here I am

and the ugly man with beery breath beside me reminds me that

it is not my prayers that waken your concern, my Lord;

my prayers, my intercessions are not to ask for your love

for all your lost and lonely ones,

your sick and sinning souls,

but mine, my love, my acceptance of your love.

Your love for the woman sticking her umbrella and her expensive

parcels into my ribs and snarling, “Why don’t you watch where

you’re going?”

Your love for me, too, too tired to look with love,

too tired to look at Love, at you, in every person on the bus.

Expand my love, Lord, so I can help to bear the pain…

It is startling to encounter words that so quickly, easily puncture the day to day patterns that trouble us – whether riding public transport or hopping on social media: “too tired to look with love, too tired to look at Love, at you, in every person.” Her honesty strips bare what phrases like “compassion fatigue” cover up. It is tempting to think that new technology or novel new realities are to blame – but for words like these, written decades ago.

In “Instruments (2)” the woman who managed to write and raise children at the same time confessed,

Hold me against the dark: I am afraid.

Circle me with your arms. I am made

So tiny and my atoms so unstable

That at any moment I may explode. I am unable

To contain myself in unity. My outlines shiver

With the shock of living…

A sense of precarious fragility often goes hand in hand with dripping, fleshy exuberance in her thoughts. Reflecting during a time of hospitalization, L’Engle writes in “From St. Luke’s Hospital (4),”

She comes on at night,

older than middle-aged, from the islands,

to answer the patients’ bells…

At first she was suspicious, cross,

expecting complaints and impositions,

soon tender and gentle,

concerned about requests for help with pain…

This morning she rushed in, frantic,

please, please could she look for the money

she had lost somehow, tending patients,

forty dollars that was not even hers.

She had kept it, in time-honored tradition,

in her bosom, and it must have fallen out

when she was thinking of someone else’s needs.

She scrabbled in the wastebasket,

in the bedclothes, panted from room to room,

returned to mine with a friend. We said,

“Close the door, take off your clothes, and see

if it isn’t still on you somewhere.”

She did, revealing an overworked body,

wrinkled, scarred; found nothing; had to leave.

In a moment when work, medical care, and working women are much in the news, Madeleine L’Engle presents us with sketches that honor womens’ labor – even one brief, sly wink at a casually maligned person from Scripture: “Martha,” the prosaically distracted sister busy with a meal.

Now

nobody can ever laugh at me again

I was the one who baked the bread

I pressed the grapes for wine.

In a year when suffering, depression, and despair threaten to blow the lid off of theoretical pondering on theodicy and the problem of evil, L’Engle charges in where churchgoers fear to tread, in these selections from “Love Letter” –

I hate you, God.

Love, Madeleine

I write my message on water

and at bedtime I tiptoe upstairs

and let it flow under your door.

When I am angry with you

I know that you are there

even if you do not answer my knock

even when your butler opens the door an inch

and flaps his thousand wings in annoyance

at such untoward interruption

and says that the master is not at home.

I cannot turn the other cheek

It takes all the strength I have

To keep my fist from hitting back

the soldiers shot the baby

the little boys trample the old woman

the gutters are filled with groans…

I’m turning in my ticket

and my letter of introduction.

You’re supposed to do the knocking. Why do you burst my heart?

I take hammer and nails

and tack my message on two crossed pieces of wood:

Dear God

is it too much to ask you

to bother to be?

Just show your hindquarters

and let me hear you roar.

Love,

Madeleine

What starts off like a cannonball blasted toward the stubbornly closed gates of heaven ends up landing with hoarse awareness: the fury driving her makes her own heart a target. I take hammer and nails and tack my message on two crossed pieces of wood. So then. Rage at the suffering in the cosmos inevitably illumines our own complicity. In that case, just let me see even a glimpse of your backside, God; let me hear your power roaring.

The years heavy with her writing were years of upheaval; chaos; swift change; suffering. Her thundering world gave way to these lines from “First Coming” –

He did not wait till the world was ready,

till men and nations were at peace.

He came when the Heavens were unsteady,

and prisoners cried out for release.

 

He did not wait for the perfect time.

He came when the need was deep and great.

He dined with sinners in all their grime,

turned water into wine. He did not wait

 

till hearts were pure. In joy he came…

 

We cannot wait till the world is sane

to raise our songs with joyful voice,

for to share our grief, to touch our pain,

He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

Whatever the pain, whatever the fear, whatever the work waiting to be done; whatever the mockery, whatever the fury, whatever the suffering – we cannot wait until the world is sane. Christ did not wait until the world was calm and well-mannered before he arrived; we cannot wait until the world is sane, we can’t pause for a more opportune moment to lift our voices, to rejoice.

L’Engle goads at every turn; upheaval is nothing new, no tradition can control it. Chaos, overwhelming loss, injustice, uncertainty – these are nothing new, no habits could contain them or master them. Millions of people around the globe would’ve been startled to realize last December that it would be one of the last calm or predictable months for a long time. Perhaps there was even a sense of boredom. In the absence – the stretching absence – of so much; in the absence of traditions, habits, routines, predictability, reasonable certainty, and guarantees, Madeleine L’Engle insists on the only stable reality: Creation, Collapse, Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection. Even while she is screaming at God’s silence, ultimately she lands, too tired to be cautious, in this reality:

He did not wait till the world was ready.

We cannot wait till the world is sane.

 

 

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Featured image photo credit: Sigrid Astrada

Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid –

You read our hearts like an open book: you see our meanings, our intentions, our knowledge, our opinions, our questions, our backstories, our wounds, and our promise. Our hearts are open to you even when wisdom seems closed to us.

You know all our desires: you know when we sit and when we rise, you perceive our thoughts from a long way off. You know what we think we want and what we say we want and what we really want. You know which of our desires are self-destructive, disordered, and disillusioned, and which of our desires bring life, match the beat of your heart, and welcome the hope of truth.

You see what we try to hide: we can keep no secrets from you. Neither can those who prey on your vulnerable people. You sense our desire to dodge your hard questions or to camouflage our shortcomings or to put our best foot forward or to ignore your beckoning and calls. We are afraid we will be devoured by our inabilities.

You grasp that which what we cannot comprehend about our world, ourselves, our hearts.

You do not need to learn us; but we need to learn your ways.

We want to be learners

of your Word

of your words

of your Word Made Flesh.

We want to be learners

of your Way – the Truth of Life.

We want to be learners

of your Wisdom – the calm center that all is in your hands,

of your wisdom that is found in hard places and unwanted roads.

Can you show us, Christ our brother, what it is to be an apprentice? To submit to the slow rhythms of repeated practice? To gain the patient trust of a student in the safe presence of a patient teacher? Work our impatience like a piece of wood on a lathe, Christ who was raised by a carpenter.

Almighty God, you have engraved us on the palms of your hands; before a word is on our tongue, you know it completely.

But today, we are learners.

We need to discover the ways of your hands; we need to hear your words.

What we thought we knew has been swept away like sawdust. What we thought was certain has been uprooted. What we thought we had mastered has sent us back to the beginning, back with the beginner class, back to simple tasks.

Today, we are all learners.

I beseech thee, cleanse the intent of my heart with the unspeakable gift of thy grace.

Before we try to master this day, make the intent of our heart pure with the unspeakable gift of your grace:

give us the grace to be students again

and again

and again,

leaving by the roadside our desire to master, content to learn the shape of your grace

every day

each day that we’re alive

so that when we see you face to face

our hearts will know it’s you

and everything we thought we knew will be swept away like sawdust

in the presence of your joy and glory.

I first met Dr. Jackson Lashier when we were both seminary students. Unlike many of the students who were pursuing degrees to become local church pastors, he and I found ourselves in many of the same classes as we worked toward degrees that prepared us for ministries in academic contexts. At the time, I knew him to be thoughtful, bright, and adept in handling resources that sometimes felt remote across the vast stretches of centuries and also abstract in their presentation of concepts. For pastors or academics or laypeople, the combination of remote and abstract can seem forbidding; but Jackson’s strengths lend themselves to bringing the remote and abstract both near and accessible. He’s the kind of person who comes to mind when you want to talk about the language we use when we talk about God . How we speak about God matters, and his point of view and expertise are valuable resources in exploring why we speak about God, and how.

Jackson is now a theology professor; he is also a John Wesley Fellow, about which you can read more at A Foundation for Theological Education, here. He has a passion for connecting the historic doctrines of the church to everyday lives of Christians (see his short video on “Why Church History Matters for Discipleship”) and authored Irenaeus on the Trinity and numerous scholarly articles. Currently, he is Associate Professor of Religion and Chair of the Social Science Division at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas.

Initially we began this discussion before the pandemic hit, and I appreciate his sustained efforts through that upheaval. It’s a gift to welcome his insight today.

Elizabeth Glass Turner, Managing Editor

Wesleyan Accent: So – Americans talk about God, or describe God, in a lot of different ways. American Christians often share some commonality in the language we use about God, but even within Christianity there can be different emphases or language employed. Is there any point in trying to use common language about God, or does it matter how we speak about God? If so, why?

 

Dr. Jackson Lashier: I think the language we use when speaking about God or to God matters greatly. First, it reflects our beliefs about God. So to call God gracious or loving or simple or immutable or Father, to name a few common examples, is to reveal convictions about the nature of the particular God we worship that cannot be implied from the word “God” alone. Second, and related to this, when used in the liturgy or in a common place of worship, our language proclaims a shared understanding that both unifies us as the Church and marks us off from communities of other faiths.

Now, having a common language of God does not mean we must have a uniform language of God. So many times I hear in public prayer people using the same title or titles of God over and over again (“Father God,” for example, seems really popular among American evangelicals). There is nothing necessarily wrong with repeating the same titles, but this practice fails to engage the vast treasure of names and language for God provided for us by Scripture and tradition. Using names for God that we are not familiar with helps open our minds to other aspects of God’s nature that we can praise and think creatively about.

WA: In systematic theology classes, students delve into Trinitarian theology – that God is three in one, not just one God with three masks or not three Gods who are best friends. God is three persons, and often we use personal, relational language to attempt to convey that – language that is found in Scripture: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet Christians have also classically believed that God is spirit, which gives a different understanding of God than may be implied in the Trinitarian language which is exclusively male. Why might it be important to remember that Christians classically haven’t affirmed belief in what Marge Simpson called “Mr. Lord” or the common phrase “the old man in the sky”?

JL: I like your images, particularly the Marge Simpson reference, and I agree with you that assumptions that God is inherently male, even when we say otherwise with our qualifications, is a problem and skews our understanding of the nature of God. Because God is absolutely unique, completely unlike anything in creation (according to the basic distinction that God is the eternal Creator and everything else is contingent creation), our human language – even language used by Scripture – always falls short of fully encapsulating God.

Theological language is, as Thomas Aquinas taught, “analogical.” That is, it refers to God only by way of analogy. This is easy to grasp when we call God “a rock” or something of that sort, but it even holds true when we say that God is love. When we say that God is love, we mean that God is in some way like our human concept of love even though the love that is God’s nature transcends even the highest human examples of love. The analogical nature of our God language is crucial to keep us from bringing God to our human level and thereby to falsely and somewhat idolatrously assume the ability to completely know God in human terms.

This subject bears directly on the question of gendered language for God and male images of God that we seem to hold de facto. The Scriptures and the majority of church tradition use male titles for God (primarily Father and Son) as well as male pronouns for God. If we keep the analogical nature of theological language in mind, we can affirm that these male titles and pronouns demonstrate God’s personal and relational language (God is “Father” and “he” as opposed to an “it”). Yet we can affirm these titles without falling into the mistake of thinking that God is literally male. If we think that God is literally a male, we have failed to honor the transcendent nature of God, which, as your question rightly expressed, is affirmed in the Scriptural teaching that God is spirit.

WA: Some Christians seem to think, however, that in the Incarnation God becomes a man and so that affirms the inherent maleness of God and justifies our exclusive use of masculine titles and imagery. Does your argument here implicitly deny the reality of the Incarnation?

JL: Not at all. It is absolutely true, both historically and theologically, that at some point in history, God entered human experience and was born a man, Jesus of Nazareth. But to conclude from this that, as a whole, God is male, is to be extremely confused on our Trinitarian language. Scripture affirms not that God in total becomes human but that the Word or the Son (who the tradition will come to refer to as the Second Person) becomes truly human. The Father and the Spirit (who the tradition will come to refer to as the First and Third Persons) remain spirit, as you noted in a previous question. Moreover, the orthodox teaching of hypostatic union states clearly that Jesus’ human and divine natures exist in perfect union though remain unconfused and unmixed (indeed, certain authors like Julian of Norwich will refer to the Son as our Mother). So the incarnation in no way compels us to think of God as male. At the same time, we do not have to somehow deny the historical reality of the maleness of Jesus for fear of that reality making God male.

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The path forward, then, is to remember the central teaching of the Trinity. It is not that God is male. It is that God is relational in God’s essence.

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WA: Your use of the title “Mother” for the Son may sound odd to our modern ears. Despite numerous examples of very maternal, female imagery of God throughout Scripture, many Christians might think it arises from a theology of the Divine Feminine that isn’t rooted in classic Trinitarian theology. How can we walk a path in which we celebrate shared belief in the Trinity and value the Trinitarian formula – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – while affirming that while Jesus Christ experienced humanity in a male body, the Trinity is not inherently or eternally male?

JL: I think you’re right that many Christians have an immediate aversion to feminine language. I doubt whether there is a good reason behind it so much as the cumulative effect of using exclusively male language and thinking of God in exclusively male images. Indeed, it so forms our thinking about God that we cannot even recognize the many feminine images of God in Scripture —the mother hen, the woman who sweeps her floor looking for a coin, to name a couple off the top of my head. (Sometimes these images are wrongly dismissed by people who argue that God is not being “called” a feminine name [as God is called “Father”] but only compared to a feminine image; this argument makes no sense if we remember that all language and titles of God are analogical.) So for these reasons, we must reject the exclusive use of male imagery and language for God. However, for these same reasons, it is also insufficient to simply switch to using exclusively feminine language as I’ve seen some theologians and churches doing. Scripture reveals, and the tradition draws this out, that the transcendent and unique nature of God is neither male nor female but encompasses both male and female.

The path forward, then, is to remember the central teaching of the Trinity. It is not that God is male. It is that God is relational in God’s essence. Thus, God’s one nature is actually constituted by three “relations” or “persons.” This makes God eminently personable and that reality is more clearly expressed in relational titles like “Father” and “Son” than it is in titles like “spirit.” But “Mother,” for example, is also a relational name. And so I believe, along with Julian (and Gregory of Nazianzus and other Orthodox writers) that this title and other feminine titles can be used without sacrificing Trinitarian teaching in any way. Indeed, as I’ve argued elsewhere in print, I think “Mother” more faithfully retains the central Trinitarian realities than does reverting to “Creator,” “Redeemer,” and “Sustainer” often used today.

Of course pragmatically any new introduction of unfamiliar titles and imagery of God should be paired with preparation and teaching, so that congregations understand where they come from. But having said that, the use of titles like “Father” and male pronouns should also be explained better.

WA: You mention titles like Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer – in terms of how we speak about God, a popular means of representing the Trinitarian formula without relying on gendered titles. However, it seems that this formula reduces the persons of the Trinity from Scriptural ways in which they relate – Father, Son, Holy Spirit – to function, and what humanity experiences them doing. Is affirming personhood of “God in three persons, blessed Trinity” more essential than reconfiguring gender-specific language for the persons of the Trinity, even if that language had its origin in patriarchal societies?

JL: I believe in altering our language, attempts that guard against the misguided conclusion that God is literally male are admirable and needed. Nevertheless, I would answer yes to your question about this recent attempt. The formula “Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer” is simply an insufficient Trinitarian formula as it removes any inherent relational connection among the three persons that is the basis in traditional Trinitarian theology for maintaining the Oneness of the Three. Effectively, this formula implies a worship of three gods. Or, alternatively, the formula could be taken in a modalist sense, which means that the one God at one time creates, at another time redeems, and at still another time sustains. But here again, there is no eternal relation of persons. So, both conceptions are not fully Trinitarian. As I mentioned before, it is for this reason that I am much more comfortable with “Mother” language of the Divine because it maintains the essentially relational character of the Triune God. And while the tradition creatively engages such feminine language, it uniformly rejects such modalist or tri-theistic formulas.

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Perhaps the most important principle is creativity with the wealth of images in Scripture. Encourage yourself to think of God using different images. 

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WA: I’ve heard some theologians and pastors refer to the Holy Spirit as the “she” within the Trinity. What are your thoughts about this approach?

JL: Honestly, I don’t like it very much. For one thing, it seems to render the feminine aspect of God as secondary: masculine images still outnumber feminine images 2-1, so it seems to me there is not much to gain by this approach. But more problematically, this approach assumes that the persons of the Trinity are literally gendered. So it could be thought that Father and Son are literal male members of the Trinity, and Spirit—by virtue of not having a masculine title—is the female member of the Trinity. As we have discussed, all persons of the Trinity are fully God and together they are one God.

WA: If in God’s infinite transcendence as Creator, the nature of God encompasses male and female, then this impacts our understanding of what it means to be human, yes?

JL: So many implications. First and foremost is the question of the image of God as reflected in humanity. Genesis 1:27 clearly states that male and female are together created in the image of God. Because of the Adam and Eve story of Genesis 2, however, this primary anthropological teaching is often missed; some assume that only the man is created in the image of God, which of course undergirds all sorts of problematic teachings related to hierarchies in marriage and ministry. But male and female together created in the image of God makes sense if we think about God in the ways we have been discussing. It means that they are equal and that they need each other to fully reflect the image of God. This truth, it seems to me, grounds an egalitarian view of marriage and the full participation of women in ministry. Another implication is that humans are inherently communal creatures. This does not mean, of course, that everyone needs to be married; it does mean that everyone needs to be in human community to realize fully who they were created to be. We can’t be good disciples and be solitary.

WA: Pragmatically, I’m reminded of a time I read a description of someone’s expectation that God’s voice would sound like Morgan Freeman or Sean Connery. Both made me smile, yet I was startled by my internal response: what if God’s voice sounded like Cate Blanchett’s character, Galadriel? This funny, simple thought reminded me of the importance of how we conceive of God when we pray. What are some important principles that should shape our imagination when we pray or talk to God?

JL: This is such an important question and really gets at the heart of what is at stake in this question. It is clear that if we reduce our images to masculine ones, then we will likely fall into the trap of thinking of God as male. Perhaps the most important principle is creativity with the wealth of images in Scripture. Encourage yourself to think of God using different images. At one point, imagine God as the Father of the prodigal son running to embrace you. At another time, imagine God as the mother hen who enfolds you in her wings.

The great monastic theologian, Dionysius the Areopagite, encouraged his readers to focus their imaginations on comparisons of God to inanimate objects precisely because there is less danger mistakenly thinking that God is literally a rock, for example, than there in thinking God is literally a Father. Ultimately, every Christian must explore images that resonate. But in general, Scripture and tradition allow for more freedom and creativity here then people often allow themselves.

WA: When it comes to drawing from Scripture and tradition, do you think people of faith can affirm the value of believing that God – out of the Divine nature of holy love – really reveals the very real, actual nature of God? That our language isn’t just a Rorschach test in which we make God everything we think God should look like? At the same time, is there space to acknowledge that sometimes we think about God or speak about God in ways that are incomplete or less rich than they might be?

JL: Great questions that have been wrestled with for centuries. I agree there is a danger here, which is why I think we are wise in our creative imaginings to remain within the range of images provided by Scripture and developed by tradition. Thankfully, there is more than enough there to occupy our imagination in prayer and worship; we have just scratched the surface in our engagement with these treasures.

In answering your broader question about the tension between knowing the revealed God vs the mystery of God, I follow the Western tradition as represented by Thomas Aquinas, as opposed to the Eastern tradition as represented by Dionysius or, more recently, theologians like Vladimir Lossky. The Eastern tradition has generally said that God in God’s essence is unknowable, so the only way we can really speak of God is to say what God is not. This is the so-called “negative” approach or apophatic theology. From it we have derived such important concepts as God’s eternality (God is not limited by time boundaries), God’s simplicity (God does not have parts), and God’s immutability (God is not changeable). I understand the impetus behind this apophatic tradition and see its value, though I move away from it precisely because of your point that God has revealed Godself to us.

The Western tradition has generally been more positive in its approach, so-called cataphatic theology. It affirms that we can speak of God positively, such that when we say God is good or God is love or God is Father, we mean something like what we know of as “good” or as “love” or as a good “father.” Personally, this way helps me connect better with God through prayer and thought. It seems consistent with the Incarnate movement of God to bring Godself to our level.

Yet as we mentioned in our discussion of analogical language, even this way of doing theology insists that we cannot fully know the essence of God: God is infinitely more loving and more good than even our highest human notions. So while we can know God truly and authentically through God’s revelation to us in Christ and as recorded by Holy Scripture, we can never know God fully and comprehensively. Incidentally, this means that eternal life will be spent growing deeper and deeper into the knowledge of God’s essence. I don’t know about you, but that sounds a lot more compelling then singing “Open the Eyes of My Heart Lord” over and over for eternity!

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