How Can We Speak Of God-- Using Biblically Expansive Language in Liturgy and Preaching

   How can we speak of God?  What can we say?  God is the creator of all that is seen and unseen.  God is beyond our comprehension, beyond our imagination, beyond our naming.  But we must say something of God.  For God is our guide, our friend, our constant.

    Speaking of God, naming God, describing God is not a simple thing.  We need only turn to the stories of the Bible to recognize this.  Jacob wrestles with God (or God’s messenger) all night.  He asks for a name only to be refused.  Moses has a conversation with a burning bush that calls him to lead Israel out of slavery in Egypt.  When Moses asks the obvious question, “Who shall I say is sending me?”  God responds with the ambiguous, “I am.”

    We learn from these stories that God is known, but never fully.  We learn from these stories that God is near, but too great to comprehend.  We can be left speechless in God’s presence, wondering if there is anything that can be said.

    More importantly, we learn from these stories that God calls people, and people respond. In responding people try to tell the story of the incomprehensible presence and grace of God. One way that God’s people have told the story is through the symbolic language of story and worship.

“While no merely human symbols can be adequate to comprehend the fullness of God, and none is identical to the reality of God. The symbols human beings use can be adequate for understanding, sharing, and responding to God’s gracious activity in the world since God has chosen to accommodate to humanity in self-revelation (Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (USA), W-1.2002).”

    As a preacher I believe in the importance of the retelling of God’s salvation.  I understand that our language is unable to fully explain the work of God.  Though I know I can only tell in part, I try to tell something of the wonder of our God.

    I recently had a discussion about the language used in liturgy and preaching to tell the story of God’s salvation.  When the conversation turned to inclusive language, I was surprised by some people’s unwillingness to consider new ways of talking about God.  Inclusive language and images of God were topics we discussed at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary at length when I was there (I graduated in 1995, old right).  Elizabeth Johnson gave a speech summarizing her book She Who Is.  Several students and professors went to the “Re-imagining God Conference” in Minneapolis.  (I am sharing this to suggest my place in the discussion.)  I found myself listening, unsure of how to enter an old conversation.

    I must admit that I did leave that day’s discussion feeling sad for my three daughters.  Sad that there is still so much resistance about language and imagery for God.  Words have power.  The words we choose to use create images that remain with us.  The words we choose to use in liturgy and preaching when talking about God create a powerful image of God.  Our image of God impacts our faith, our actions, and our image of ourselves.  It follows that when we use predominantly or exclusively male language and imagery for God we damage our daughters.  We damage our daughters faith and their identity as children of God, created in God’s image.

What is the right way to speak about God? This is a question of unsurpassed importance, for speech to and about the mystery that surrounds human lives and the universe itself is a key activity of a community of faith. In that speech the symbol of God functions as the primary symbol of the whole religious system, the ultimate point of reference for understanding experience, life, and the world. Hence the way in which a faith community shapes language about God implicitly represents what it takes to be the highest good, the profoundest truth, the most appealing beauty. Such speaking, in turn, powerfully molds the corporate identity of the community and directs its praxis.
    Elizabeth A. Johnson. She Who Is. New York: Crossroad, 1992, p. 3–4

    This has forced me to examine the language that I use in liturgy and preaching.  I am very careful to use “inclusive” language.  I tend not to use male or female imagery, nor use male or female pronouns.  What I came to recognize is that while I use, what I think to be, “inclusive” language most of the time, the God that is being imagined through my liturgy and peaching is an idea, an abstract thought.  God is impersonal, not the Abba that Jesus invites us to call upon.  My words have limited the image of God to an abstract thought, which impacts the faith and witness of the congregation. I have limited my God language, and thus my image of God, because I have limited my definition of “inclusive” to mean non-gender specific.
     
    I have come to realize that I need to change my understanding of “inclusive,” or better yet start using Biblically expansive language when naming and speaking of God.  As we turn to scripture, especially Hebrew Scripture, we see a boldness, creativity and diversity of language when speaking of God that the Church and I as a preacher have lost and need to lay claim to.

    The “Directory of Worship” in the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has a section called “The Language of Worship,” which gives general guidelines on how we are to speak of God, inviting the Church to look to the Biblical symbols and language found in the Old and New Testaments.

In the Hebrew Scripture, as the people of God worshiped the Holy One, they used symbols out of human experience, speaking of God as creator, covenant-maker, liberator, judge, redeemer, shepherd, comforter, sovereign, begetter, bearer. From the world of nature they ascribed to God the character of rock, well-spring, fire, eagle, hen, lion, or light (Book of Order, W-1.2003).

While this list of symbolic words is more expansive than what I normally use in liturgy and preaching, it falls short.  The list leaves out imagery like: father, mother, mid-wife, king, teacher - that conjure God’s relational character.
    The Book of Order goes on to state that:

Jesus used Old Testament symbols and images to speak to and about God. He participated in the symbolic actions of Israel’s worship. In many cases, he personalized and gave new depth to the familiar symbols for God, especially as in his intimate use of Abba, Father. He spoke of himself in terms of many Old Testament symbols the good shepherd, Israel’s bridegroom, the Son of Man and intensified their meanings. He brought new meaning to current religious practices like almsgiving, baptism, and breaking bread. In daily life, Jesus took ordinary acts of human compassion healing the sick, feeding the hungry, washing feet and translated them into ways of serving God (Book of Order, W-1.2004 a).

 Again, this list enhances our understanding of the symbolic language used for and by Jesus, but leaves out much of Jesus own expansive language when speaking of God, especially in the parables; a woman searching for a coin, a shepherd searching for one lost sheep, a father waiting for a son, a land owner paying wages.

    Along with the loss of the expansive, imaginative God language found throughout the Bible, we have forgotten the language of the saints who have gone before us.

He who has promised us heavenly food has nourished us on milk, having recourse to a mother's tenderness. For just as a mother, suckling her infant, transfers from her flesh the very same food which otherwise would be unsuited to a babe (the little one actually receives what he would have received at table but the food conveyed through the flesh is adapted to the child), so our Lord, in order to convert His wisdom into milk for our benefit, came to us clothed in flesh. - St. Augustine

    As I read this quote from St. Augustine, and knowing there are others like it from other saints, I find myself uncomfortable.  As I read this quote I realize that it is this discomfort and fear of upsetting the congregation that has made it difficult for me to be more creative and expansive in my own language.  I play it safe by speaking of God in a non-gender specific way and my preaching suffers for it.  But not only my preaching, my relationship with God.  For I have imagined God as an impersonal being, when God is a relationship.  I have made God passive, when God is involved.  I have made God distant, when God is ever-present.

Could this be one of the problems facing the mainline, progressive Christian Church?  Have we created an impersonal, distant God when people so desperately need to hear the message of a God who is a:

    Strong mother God, working night and day,
    planning all the wonders of creation,
        setting each equation, genius at play:
    Hail and hosanna, strong mother God!

    Warm father God, hugging every child
    feeling all the strains of human living,
        caring and forgiving, till we’re reconciled;
    Hail and hosanna, warm father God!
            (Brian Wren, “Bring Many Names” 1988, revised 1993.
            Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, Il)

    The language we use in liturgy and preaching will be enhanced by the use and recognition of the variety and creativity of the biblical language and the Christian tradition.

The church shall strive in its worship to use language about God which is intentionally as diverse and varied as the Bible and our theological traditions. The church is committed to using language in such a way that all members of the community of faith may recognize themselves to be included, addressed, and equally cherished before God. Seeking to bear witness to the whole world, the church struggles to use language which is faithful to biblical truth and which neither purposely nor inadvertently excludes people because of gender, color, or other circumstance in life (Book of Order, W-1.2006 b). 

    As I write this I pray that my language and imagery in preaching can become as bold and imaginative as the Biblical witness.  It is the creativity and availability the Biblical language of God that makes it relevant today.

A Letter to Mary Magdalen

Dear Mary Magdalen,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

In my readings I have met some of the greatest Christian theologians, philosophers, writers, and preachers of all time.  Many of these greats have written about the art of preaching and have many of their spiritually inspiring sermons published.  Among these greats I feel compelled to write you.

I am writing you as part of a class I am taking in preaching.  We are to write a great preacher from the past.  So it may seem odd that I am writing you since we have only one record of your preaching and you didn’t write any theological treatise on the form and function of preaching.  

I write you because, your story is amazing and you are an inspiration to all of us who dare proclaim the good news of Christ risen.  Your devoted service to, and love for Jesus after your healing has been shared with me in story and song.  I have heard of you providing for Jesus as he ministered in Galilee, you staying close to him during his horrific death when others had abandoned him, your desire to care for his body in the tomb, and your faithfulness in the face of your own fears and the ridicule of Peter and the others to proclaim the good news - “Jesus is risen!” 

Though some would try to silence your witness as a women by making you the great repentant whore or the exception to the rule of who is allowed to preach.  You are the Apostle to the Apostles and your legend has grown.  I imagine you comforting and teaching the early church.  I find myself dreaming of you taking the gospel message to modern day France.  I can see you, in your faithfulness and strength, sharing your message with those who would listen and those who would ridicule and insult you.

I chose to write you because in you I see clearly what Augustine (maybe you have met him, he didn’t have the highest opinion of women when he was with us) meant that “the Christian teacher cannot be persuasive, however, unless his/her (my addition) life proclaims what his/her preaching does (Concise Encyclopedia, p. 193).”  In my class we call this the “Preaching LIfe.”  Our whole life is witnessing to Jesus Christ risen.  You are the epitome of the “Preaching LIfe.”  You, who was given a new life in your healing, lived new life by ministering to Jesus, witnessed new life in Jesus’ rising from the dead, offered new life to those around you in your proclamation of the good news.

As I imagine you traveling those many miles, you must have faced a great deal of resistance.  Resistance to a message that is foolishness.  Resistance to a stranger in strange lands.  Resistance to a woman preaching.  I wonder how you were able to carry on in the face of so much resistance. 

I am the pastor of a small “progressive” congregation.  We try to be an inclusive community that recognizes the gifts that each person brings to the community of faith. We believe that all followers of Jesus Christ should be able to serve the church in all capacities regardless of gender, age, race, or sexual orientation.  We believe in the radical and inclusive love of Jesus Christ.  Mary, your relationship with Jesus, a scandal to many, is an example of this radical and inclusive love we feel compelled to preach.

But our voice is drowned out by the accusations of unfaithfulness to God’s “natural plan,” unfaithfulness to the gospel, and heresy.  Accusations often made against women and minorities.  Accusations that were made against you.  I find myself discouraged by the resistance to the message of the radical love and new life that Jesus Christ offers.  I am discouraged by the hatred that is proclaimed in the name of Jesus, from “God hates fags” to “God will bless you with material wealth if you believe in him.”  I am discouraged by the resistance of those to whom I preach.  I am discouraged by my own resistance and do not feel that I live up to Augustine’s ideal of the preacher’s words and life matching.  I sometimes wonder, “Why keep preaching?”

Dearest Mary, what kept you going?  How did you overcome the ridicule?  How did you overcome the attempts to keep you in your place?

I ask you because you did overcome. You are the one the risen Christ chose to show himself to. You are the Apostle to the Apostles.  I give thanks to God for your strength and your continuing witness - “Jesus is risen!”

In Christ’s peace,

Your brother,

Robert Hagel