Rector’s Daily Reflections Friday 24th September 2021

Thought for Today

This week we’ve we looking at some of Jesus’s thoughts about the nature and activity of God. We’ve been looking at the Sermon on the Mount, and seen that Jesus taught that God cares for everyone equally, but “rewards” the righteous. We have also seen that Jesus taught that God can be said to “see” us and to “know” us.

Jesus also sometimes described God as “Father”, for example using the phrase “your heavenly Father” when talking to his followers. Jesus’ use of the word “Father” to describe God has encouraged many Christians down the centuries to use the language of Fatherhood when offering their prayers to God : prayers often start “Heavenly Father, …….”, or sometimes “Father God ,……”

Jesus’ use of the word “Father” to describe God raises at least two questions. (There are also questions relating to the doctrine of The Trinity, but I’ll leave these to another occasion!) First, what might Jesus have meant by referring to God as “Father”? It might be helpful to give some of the background to the use of the word “father” in Jesus’ time. In the Old Testament, “father” could mean fatherhood in a biological sense, but it could also be a term of respect for a figure whose life or teachings were considered to be authoritative. It could also be a way of saying that God cares for us as a father cares for their son. So Israel could be described as God’s “son”, not because of any biological fatherhood, but because God loved Israel as a human father loved his own son. Jesus seems to have experienced a particularly intimate relationship with God, a relationship characterised by profound love.

The second question is different: should we continue to use the word “Father” to describe God in our own time and culture? For some, this is n’t much of a question : Jesus used the word “father” to describe God, and so we should use it too. But does “father” suggest that only men matter, or that God is somehow male? Is it possible for God, who does not have a physical body, to have a gender at all? In our time and culture, would it better to talk about God as our “Mother and Father”, or “Our Loving Parent”? What do you think?

Prayer for Today

Lord, help us to the find the language we need to know who you really are, and to understand your role in our lives and our world. Amen.

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