On Mother's Day recently I was a loaned musician for a worship team at a church that is quite different my generally-more-conservative-in-every-way church .
Heard a different take on God and motherhood. In an open sharing time a silver haired lady told of conversing with a child about God the Father. The child asked who the mommy was, then. This lady's answer was that the Holy Spirit is like the Mommy. Hmmmm...
Weirdness, yes, to someone from my current denomination and background. However, I've gotten slower at throwing out babies with their bathwater, so I gave it a bit of thinking. Couldn't help notice that the Holy Spirit is called the Helper and Eve in Scripture being called a helper. Something I can't ignore.
Our mixed background worship team had quite a discussion about all this before the service. Wish I'd recorded it. Some comments made about the Bible being "cultural" gave me more to mull over and clarify in my mind. For starters I'm thinking I need to keep the terms and realities of mother/father and male/female in their rightful place as small reflections and image bearers. God created these earthly realities to show something about Himself to us. Human gender and parent roles did not come first. They do not form or define God. On the other hand I realize that there is more for me to see about who God is in the fact that He made male and female, father and mother.
I did tell the team I didn't feel comfortable with a corporate prayer that was read to "Mother Creator, Father God". Calling God Mother is too much for me, though I don't deny mothering aspects of God. I can't get around the fact that Jesus refers to God as Father. I can't dismiss this as merely cultural. But my thoughts about God's nature are definitely being expanded and challenged.
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