Title: “God the Father”

Scriptures: Isaiah 6:1-8, John 3: 1-8

6/15/03 Trinity Sunday/1st Sunday after Pentecost

Father's Day (Sharing service with my dad)

Rev. Joy R. Haertig

(My father, Rev. Bob Haertig spoke for the first five minutes on his understanding of God the Father and how it has evolved through the years, I then followed with my perspective on the same topic. Unfortunately, I do not have his words to include here.)

How we think about God matters.

There is a connection between our images of God and how we understand the religious life.  

In both of our scripture passages this morning we find men of faith that are seeking to understand who God is and how that belief might impact their daily lives.  We can see Isaiah's image of God the Almighty, sitting on his throne, high above us wearing an elegant robe whose “hem filled the temple floor”.  It is awe-inspiring and kingly and invokes humility and a sense of responsibility in the prophet.  

In the Gospel reading from John, the Pharisee Nicodemus has come to visit Jesus to learn more from this unusual teacher.  Nicodemus knows the Jewish law inside and out.  God is a lawgiver, his daily living is focused upon fulfilling the law.  Jesus speaks to him metaphorically about being “born of the water and the Spirit”.  Nicodemus struggles to understand as he literalizes the words.  What is Jesus' image of God?  It appears to be so much more than that of Lawgiver (I appreciated my father's image he used in his message here of God as one who brings us into being - we are “born again”.)

Early in my childhood I took for granted that the images of God we were taught in the Bible and in Sunday school, were simply that, images - metaphors for this Some - thing, Some - one, that was ultimately beyond all images.  I don't remember ever believing that God the Father on the throne in heaven was the only image of the one true God though it was certainly the central image I grew up with.  

I was comforted by the idea of a benevolent being (not a finger-pointing judge) who had “the whole world in his hands”.  Due to my father's involvement in the civil rights movement, I believed that it was not just my little neighborhood that was in God's hands, but the WHOLE world - all people - “red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight…” ”

Comforting and wonderful as this image was and still is, somehow I sensed that that was not the only image of God.

I can also see my mother, sitting in a chair during circle time at Sunday school with her flip chart.  I can hear us singing: “For the beauty of the earth, for the wonder of the skies…” ” On her flip chart she had the words to the song along with colorful magazine pictures of our beautiful earth.  A mama robin in her nest, a mountain topped with snow, a creek gurgling its way over rocks.  I connected those beautiful pictures to God - not just that these were gifts God created and shared with us, but that somehow God was a part of them.  I have never let go of that sense of God's very Spirit/Being, as being found within creation itself.

One final childhood memory comes from the sixth grade when I was doing a report for my English class.  I had chosen to do a report on the book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull and compare his story to the story of Jesus.

I remember asking my father if he believed Jesus was born of a virgin and is God in the flesh.  This is what I remember hearing: “There are two main streams of thought within Christianity.  One is that Jesus was born of a virgin and is different than us, he is God in the flesh, and though we learn from him, we can never be like him.  The other stream of thought is that Jesus was born of a man and a woman, just like you and me, and is filled with God's Spirit thus making God's will known to us but is not God.”  He then said to his sixth grader, so you decide what speaks to you the most.

This response had a huge impact on me.  First, it was another confirmation that there is a diversity of perspectives on faith and that there is no final or “correct” answer.  It also taught me that I was given the freedom AND the responsibility of determining my own beliefs.  This in no way discounted the church community in their role of instruction and guidance - but that ultimately, God had actually given me the heart and the mind to put it together in a way that made sense to me.  I give thanks to my dad for what I consider a liberating and life-shaping lesson in faith that day.

These childhood memories began my Christian path, over the years it has become clear to me that my image of God (as Father/Mother/Light/Spirit) is not nearly as important as my relationship with God.  A Jewish theologian by the name of Martin Buber wrote: “It does not matter what you call it.  All that matters is that you hear it.”

There are two root concepts of God in Christianity, and I have found my home in one of them.  The first concept is called “Supernatural theism”.  Its core understanding is that God is a being “out there” beyond us, a being that is all-knowing and all-powerful.

The second concept is called “Panentheism” (not pantheism).  Panentheism understands God as the encompassing Spirit.  Everything is in God, yet God is more than everything.  You can find Biblical passages to support both concepts, and both of them have deep roots in our Christian tradition, Panentheism is not some “new age” kind of thinking.

To explore these two concepts further, I recommend Marcus Borg's book The God We Never Knew.  (Easy to read)

If I had to choose a label for myself, I guess I am a “Panentheist”.  My Christian journey has led me towards an understanding that God is an element of experience in my daily living, not simply an article of faith to be believed, nor a distant being who watches from afar. This means that I seek God out in the ordinariness of daily life, not simply the extraordinary.  I will credit my dad once again for helping me discover God in this way.  As an artist he has shown to me the holy that is embodied in our daily lives through his painting and his sculpting of the ordinary - a child bending over a pond, a woman picking cotton, a painting of an average door that seems to quote scripture- “Knock, and the door shall be opened, ask and ye shall receive.”  A sculptured circle of people, arm in arm around a lit candle.

How we think about God matters, it is so much more than a mere theological discussion, it is something that impacts the shape and meaning of our lives.

Dad and I would like to take a few minutes now and invite those who might like to respond or just share a thought or two of your own, to do so.