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Foundry United Rev. |
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Why Did Jesus Call God
“Father”? Sunday, June 12, 2005 |
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Mark 10: 28-31 Matthew 23:1-12
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I’d like
us to pretend we are Baptists or Plymouth Brethren this morning and actually
get out our Bibles and look at the Scripture with our own eyes.
29 Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, there
is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or
children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in
this age – houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields
with persecutions – and in the age to come eternal life...” (NRSV) Look at
verse 29 closely. Notice the list of things that Jesus’ followers have left
to follow him: house, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, fields. Now
notice in verse 30 the list of things that Jesus’ followers will receive a
hundredfold: houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, fields. What’s
included in the first list that is absent from the second? [Congregation says: Fathers!] How
odd. Was this a typo? Is there some significance to this? Now
let’s turn to Matthew 23: 8-12. Matt.
23:8 “But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you
are all students. 9 And call no one your father on earth, for
you have one Father – the one in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for
you have one instructor, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your
servant. 12 All who exalt themselves will be humbled,
and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” (NRSV) “Call
no one your father on earth, for you have one Father – the one in heaven.”
What a provocative statement! Read it again in the book with your own eyes.
Could Jesus have really meant this? I want
us to think together this morning about the question: Why did Jesus call God
“Father?” I want to suggest that if we pay close attention to the Gospels we
may discover there is more going on when Jesus calls God “Father” than meets
the eye at first glance. It is my assumption that God transcends gender, although this discussion is so new that I suspect we still have a lot of thinking to do about the relationship between the divine and gender. Certainly it is my assumption that God is not one gender as opposed to another. The Book of Genesis is very clear that both female and male are created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27), so the divine either transcends or is inclusive of the genders, but is clearly not one as opposed to the other.1 If God
transcends gender, why did the Jesus of the Gospels so frequently –
especially in the Gospels of Matthew and John – call God “Father?” Less so in
Mark and Luke, but again and again in Matthew and John, and fairly
consistently in all four Gospels, Jesus normally and frequently addressed God
as “Father” and encouraged his followers to do so as well. He taught his
disciples to pray a prayer that began “Our Father, who art in heaven.” The
word “Father” as a way of addressing God has dominated the liturgy,
hymnology, and piety of the church. For
many Christians, their most essential image for God is “Father.” It is a very
emotional thing for some of us, as you may discover if you try to mess with
it. Because
the term “Father” is such a powerful part of the church’s prayer life and
liturgy and hymnology, it is important we understand why the Jesus of the
Gospels called God “Father.” Of
course, I can’t claim to read Jesus’ mind, but I think the Gospels themselves
offer us some clues as to why Jesus called God “Father.” Jesus
lived a society and a culture that was male dominated. More than male dominated, it was male controlled with strong class and
authoritarian structures. Women had some rights but very few. Poor people had
very few rights. Slaves, workers, the diseased, the outcast, Gentiles,
Samaritans were all mandated to be subservient to the authority of lords,
rabbis, masters, owners, the “righteous,” the affluent and the powerful. The
name for this kind of culture is patriarchy – a word based on two Greek
words, the word patria, meaning “father,” and the word archế,
meaning “rule.” The rule of the father. The
father was father of the family and therefore ruled the family. The priest
was father of the congregation and therefore ruled the congregation. The
teacher was father of the school and therefore ruled the school. The owner
was father of the estate and therefore ruled over everyone on the estate. The
governor was father of the colony and therefore ruled over the colony. The
emperor was father of the empire and therefore ruled over the empire. The
entire authoritarian system that dominated government, commerce, religion,
and the home in Jesus’ day was based on the principle of father-rule. With
Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza2 and others, I believe that Jesus’ emphasis on God as
“Our Father, who art in heaven” was a critique of father-rule. It was a way
of offering an alternative vision of how people might live together. “Call
no one your father on earth, for you have one Father – the one in heaven.”
This is as bold a challenge as anyone could ever make of a society based on
father-rule: Your
Father in heaven – the one who loves you and values and cherishes you, – the one who includes you, – the one who knows the number of hairs on your head, – the one for whom the first shall be last and the last
shall be first; this
Father is the only one you are to call father the
only one to whom you are to give your allegiance, the
only one who has authority over you, the only one you must obey. This
teaching flies in the face of father-rule. Schussler
Fiorenza suggests that the absence of fathers from Jesus’ second list in Mark
10: 28-30 is more than accidental. It was
not that Jesus had anything against fathers per se, but he did have a problem
with what fathers symbolized in a society based on father-rule. Fathers
as authoritarian figures – the guiding principle of an authoritarian system –
are absent from the new community that Jesus invites his disciples into. In
Jesus’ community, there is no father-rule, which means there is no male-rule,
no teacher-rule, no priest-rule, no owner-rule, no governor-rule, no emperor-rule. In
Jesus’ community the first are last, the last are first, and everyone is
sister and brother. It is a community of mutuality and equality. It is a
community of sharing and love. This is
the significance Jesus teaching us to pray “Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name” – thy name be hallowed, not the name of the
Emperor, which was the name usually expected to be hallowed in the The
priests and the political rulers, not usually friendly with each other,
conspired together to kill Jesus because of this. This is why Jesus was
crucified, because he threatened the power and authority of empire and
religion. He challenged a patriarchal system of commerce (remember he turned
over the tables of the money-changers), and patriarchal models of estate and
household. Jesus’
vision was, of course, all too soon subverted. Even in the church. The very
words and concepts Jesus used to challenge father-rule soon were subverted to
legitimize it. Instead
of calling God “our Father in heaven” challenging patriarchy, it came to be
used to justify it. The new logic became: Because God is our Father, God must
be more like the male and the male must be more like God. So it
was only a matter of time before we evolved from Jesus saying, “Call no one
on earth your father,” to “Father” becoming the common honorific for clergy.
Originally meeting as a community of equality and sharing in households –
sometimes women headed households – soon enough the church became an
institution – a male-dominated, authoritarian institution. See? It
is possible to repeat Jesus’ exact words and for them to serve a purpose
contrary to Jesus’ purpose. To this
very day, the overwhelming majority of the world’s Christian churches do not
allow women to be clergy. Well over half of the world’s Christians worship in
churches where women are not permitted to be priests. The image of divinity
is so male-oriented that these churches refuse to allow women to represent
Christ at the altar to celebrate Holy Communion. They suppose it is
impossible to see the presence of Christ in women or for women to stand in
the place of Christ. Even
though we may understand that God is beyond gender, if the language, images
and concepts we use for God are primarily male, this will reinforce male
dominance and father-rule in church and society. We need to be attentive to
this or we will use Jesus’ words to subvert his cause. Yes. It
is possible for us to repeat Jesus’ exact words and for them to serve a
purpose contrary to Jesus’ purpose. Snoopy
is sitting atop his doghouse with his typewriter writing an article he has
entitled: “Beauty Tips.” He manages to type out the first sentence, which
says: “Always remember that beauty is only skin deep.” As he sits looking at his first
sentence he seems proud of himself, then his expression changes to one of
puzzlement. He changes the sentence so that it now says: “Always remember
that beauty is only fur deep.” Soon, however, he is visited by
his friend, the bird Virginia
Ramey Mollenkott uses this Peanuts comic strip as a reminder that language
and concepts can include or exclude others, sometimes without us really
thinking much about it. The way we think and the language we use to express
ourselves can include or exclude whole masses of the world’s people. Language
can empower and it can oppress. I know
trying to use inclusive language is sometimes uncomfortable – it is for me,
too – but I believe we can grow spiritually as a result of experimenting in
the use of language and concepts about God that do not elevate one gender
over the other. Jesus called God “Our Father, who art in heaven” to offer us
an alternative to father-rule, an alternative to the rule of anyone over
another, an alternative in which the first are last and the last are first,
an alternative where the leader is servant of all and all are servants to one
another, a community of sharing and love. I don’t
have a road map as to how to proceed to reform our language about God. I suspect
sometimes we will do it awkwardly. Sometimes it will feel
uncomfortable...maybe even irritating. I hope we pay attention to those
feelings, and ask ourselves why it feels uncomfortable or irritating? If God
transcends gender, and the names we call God are metaphoric rather than
literal, why does it feel natural to call God “Father” and unsettling to call
God “Mother” or “Mother/Father”? I think
this is another great journey God has for us. And I think the journey will be
a blessing. I think we will learn aspects of God’s grace and beauty that we
have missed before because of our own limited imaginations. I think
if we learn to think of God in broader imagery than the traditional
male-biased language we tend to use, it will be good for our daughters and
our sons, our nieces and our nephews. And it will be good for our own souls
that need the opportunity to expand and grow in our relationship with the
holy and divine. And it might even be good for God who maybe gets tired of
being put into a gender box all the time. Let’s
experiment. Let’s stretch each other and ourselves a bit. Let’s be
adventuresome. God can handle it, and so can we. Let’s see if we can learn
anything new about ourselves and about God. Let’s
do it or the sake of the children following in our footsteps...for the sake
of our own souls...and for God’s sake. __________ 1 See Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Fortress, 1978), pp. 16-23. 2 Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, In Memory of
Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins
(Crossroads, 1992, copyrighted 1983). 3 Cited in Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, The Divine Feminine: The Biblical Imagery of God as Female (Crosswords, 1989) p. 1. |
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