Midweek Faith Lift
June 19, 2019
Jesus and God as Father
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Happy Father’s Day! To all who have served in the energy of “fathering” a profound and hearty thank you! And a round of applause! It is not an easy role, one with profoundly touching moments and long periods of service with no appreciation or thanks! So this is the moment to say “Thank you!” If you have had a hand in parenting or you have had a process of reconciling with a parent, today we celebrate you! Turn to your neighbor and say thank you! In our human journey, we have all been engaged with fathers and fathering one way or another, so a big thank you!
Today we explore Jesus’ understanding and relationship with God, the Father. Now, if we look at this fathering business from God’s point of view, then it goes something like this. He had this offspring, Jesus, who so wanted to be human; so give him his wish already! He gets to be human! And then look what this ungrateful son, Jesus does! Does find himself a nice Jewish girl and a prosperous occupation so he can give me grandchildren? No, he becomes a rabble-rouser, calls out the Jewish leaders, lives like a nomad with no real home, no real income and then gets himself killed!! OY, WHAT IS GOD THE FATHER TO DO??? WHERE DID I GO WRONG? Too much of this free will stuff? If only he would just listen to me!!!
As a parent, in my human self, I can relate to this perspective! But somehow, I don’t think that’s what this is all about. Jesus’ message to us about God is a spiritual understanding. The challenge of that for us is that our first experience of “god” as little children is our parents; not especially spiritual! Frequently, our parents behaved like the God of the Hebrew Scriptures. The essential message of the Hebrew God is that of “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” It was about a relationship with ONE God, not multiple Gods. And in that relationship, the message was “Obey God and you will be blessed; disobey God and you will be cursed.” It is kind of like this picture of God at His computer.
In this consciousness of God, it makes perfect sense to pray to God to hurt your enemy, your ex, your boss. It makes perfect sense to sit in judgment of others, seeing all bad things that happen to them as God’s wrath. But that is not the God of Jesus. Many of us had that kind of overbearing power experience with our human parents, so our understanding of God is an All-Powerful Being that has ultimate control over us. So we make it our job to learn and then do what makes God happy and keeps God happy so that we can get, be and do what we want. It is more of a transactional relationship than a transformational relationship.
Jesus offers us a whole new understanding of God, whom he calls father. Buttherworth begins chapter 4 with the statement that Jesus’ message is that God is not the object of worship, but a “Presence indwelling in us, a force surrounding us and a Principle by which we live.” (p. 27, Discover the Power Within You) It is a Presence that once we acknowledge and realize the power of it, our whole life will change. We have to let go of an image of God as out there, the man upstairs, the all-powerful sky God so that we can cultivate an understanding of the God within. We are in relationship with this energy of God and it calls forth an entirely new understanding of what that God energy means for us.
This new understanding of God asks that we grow in consciousness so that we may embrace it. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus refers to God as father. The purpose of that constant reference was to help his listeners understand God as an intimate relationship, not as a punishing, external force to be feared. Jesus never modeled being afraid of God. He wondered at the energy of the Presence of God at several times in his human journey, but he was never afraid of God, and that is the message for us. This Presence, this energy is to be acknowledged, embraced, welcomed and celebrated. As we discover more and more of our “God-ness” we celebrate our ever increasing and deepening ability to love and experience joy!
Jesus also refers to God as Spirit and talks about worshipping God in Spirit rather than as person. The message is that God’s relationship with us is as caring and intimate as Father, as essential as our very breath, which is Spirit, and that God is to be experienced, not defined. Jesus does not want to define God for us, because it is not possible. He is constantly speaking in terms of relationship, and of Presence and uses metaphors. It is a bit like trying to describe gravity, which we always experience, even when we are not aware of it. It is like the air we have all around us but cannot see; we only see and feel its effects. It is a bit like the saying God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. It is not easy to get the human mind around that!
Jesus has realized his true God-ness, his God nature and he has embraced that his journey is to demonstrate that for his followers and to invite an opening of the heart so that they too, can understand their God-ness and their oneness with all of life. His Jewish followers struggle to understand this as it is described in the Gospel of John.
John 10: 22-30
Jesus Is Rejected by the Jews
22 At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. 24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” 25 Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; 26 but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. 30 The Father and I are one.”
It is this Oneness in the midst of the great diversity of the Universe that we are trying to inhabit. In this passage, Jesus is in the Temple, in the place of Wisdom, or Solomon. The Jews keep asking Jesus who he is, if he is the Messiah, will he bail them out of their bondage to the Romans? His response is to tell them he has already told them and they do not believe. The essential understanding of “believe” in this instance is to “belove” or to give your heart. They have not opened their hearts, so they do not “get it.”
Then Jesus references sheep, which metaphysically are innocent, harmless animals. With this reference, Jesus makes it clear that he is not a warrior. Sheep metaphysically represent the natural flow of Life from Spirit into human consciousness. When we let go of our preconceived notions of what God is, then we are able to allow the flow of love, the flow of Life into our consciousness. We grow beyond our sense of separation and desire to “otherize”, dominate and control that which is not like us, then we grow into the higher realization of our pure essence which is One with the energy of All that is, or God. We begin to realize that we are part of God, a true expression of all that God is and so is every other living being. There really is no “other” when perceived from the God perspective.
While Butterworth decries the notion of the “Trinity” in Christianity, it is actually is powerful way to consider how it is that the energy of God is that of Unity in Diversity. In his opening statement, he speaks in God in three ways: An indwelling Presence, as a Force surrounding us, and as a Principle by which we live. That sounds a bit like Trinity to me: the God within that we call Christ, the God between which we call Spirit and the God that is greater than us that we call Principle or the great operating system of the Universe!
To become aware of our God-ness and to live into that realization does not mean that we give up our individual sense of self. It is instead to recognize that the energy of God is essence of all that we are as we celebrate our individual, diverse expression of that Divine essence. Our journey is to move out of a that powerful sense of separation and “otherness” into a deep sense of our Divine Essence that is One with all creation.
So, in my human journey, here is how it goes down. I had a dad, just like everyone else. I had to claim my own identity as a clearly distinct from my parent, my dad. In my separation, making my own choices, I had to find my way to realizing how much like my dad I really am! OY! In having my own children, I begin to appreciate the incredible diversity and plurality of creation. All children are individual expressions of that same love that is God love just by virtue of being alive. When we can embrace that aliveness that is in us as the same aliveness that is in all other beings, then we are living as the sheep that Jesus speaks of. We know our own “God-ness” and we also recognize it in all others, no matter what. So that means I see it in my own children, no matter what! BAAAA!
As Richard Rohr says in his June 3, 2019 Blog:
Our basic human problem of unity and diversity has been resolved in the very nature of God, but unless we allow ourselves inside of that Infinite flow, we ourselves will always remain the three but never the one. If we remain exclusive monotheists, like Judaism, Islam, and much of Christianity up to now, we normally try to impose a false uniformity on others but rarely know how to love, honor, and respect diversity. We remain in competing tribes and colonies.
This Father’s Day, may we find our way back to one another in that space of Love that is the glue that holds us all together!
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb