Let God be God

Employing the wealth of language to embrace the One who is beyond all names

By Sr. Karen Lueck, E.S.P.A.
June 2007

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Our Mother, who art in heaven…” “Glory to you, Creator, Lover, Breath of Life…”

How do we react to this change in familiar prayers? Does it jar us? Maybe it seems sacrilegious? Why?

Language affects us on a deep, visceral level. It emerges out of our experience, but also shapes our experience. The words assigned to situations, ideas or people carry a unique personal meaning. Someone, for example, might be called various names (friend, associate, enemy) depending both on our experience of that person and how we name that experience.

How we name God is even more powerful, since God is the source and sustainer of our very being. But, ironically, our names for God are often much more limited than our names for others. The most frequent names for God seem to be Lord, Master, Father, King, and the pronoun is He. This picture limits the Divine. At the same time it limits our relationship with the Divine to that of child, slave, subject.

Intellectually we know that God has no gender and cannot be contained by our names or descriptions. Maybe this limitless reality of God scares us. So, in an effort to retain a manageable reality, we limit who God can be for us.

Throughout history peoples have used various images of God in their prayer. In the Hebrew Scriptures, for example, God is portrayed variously as an eagle, a mother hen, and wisdom. The parables of Jesus depict God as a shepherd leading his sheep, a woman searching for a lost coin, and a vine for which we are the branches.

Today men and women may refer to God by many names: Incomprehensible Mystery, Matrix of Being, Source of Energy, to list just a few. These multiple titles for God help us embrace the marvelous diversity of the Divine.

But patriarchy (“the rule of the father”) has been the dominant system in Church and society for centuries. The language of patriarchy has shaped our human reality and experience of God. When God is portrayed exclusively as a male ruler and men rule in society, both humans and God are limited. Women especially are relegated to an inferior status.

Jesus challenged such structures of domination that enslaved people. He urged us to serve one another equally in love. In the Christian message “there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, for all are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28 adapted)

Unfortunately, in succeeding centuries, as Christianity moved from a marginal sect to the dominant religion of the empire, the patriarchal system was reinforced. Theologians like Augustine and Aquinas called males the fullness of human nature, while labeling females morally and physically defective. Although there were always alternative theologies, the patriarchal view of God and humans dominated. It was deeply embedded in Christian tradition and the liturgical life of the Church. We all grew up with it.

We are now in the 21st century. We have witnessed huge changes in culture and ultimately in human consciousness. More and more, at least in the West, males and females are seen as equal, and “mankind” has become “humankind”. We realize that what we call somebody in the workplace or in school has huge implications.

But, ironically, for most of us, our God language has remained the same. We still refer to God as Him and call God only Father, King, Lord, and Master. Some theologians have called this idolatrous behavior, in effect, worshipping the graven image of a male God. But, unfortunately, the official Church often supports that language.

The time has come to embrace God in the 21st century. Each of us has a unique relationship with God, and our personal name for God will reflect that relationship. But in liturgy or common prayer, wherever we gather as a people, it is time to abandon the idol of an exclusively male God. We can celebrate God as Mother as well as Father, as Lover, Comforter, Source of Energy. There are many wonderful images of the Divine. Let us employ the wealth of language to embrace One who is beyond all names. Let us allow God to be God.

Karen Lueck is a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration, a pastoral counselor and spiritual director living in Iowa.

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