06/20/2021
One morning, in the early fall of the mid 1990’s, as I was walking to my office in the Congregational Church of Garden City, Kansas, I discovered a comfortably dressed woman in her late twenty’s sitting in the main door alcove silently weeping. I asked her if she wanted to go into the Sanctuary and she responded that she didn’t feel worthy enough to do so.
I asked if I could sit and talk with her, after I identified myself as the Pastor, and she said that it would be okay with her. It took a little time and a few questions, but I was finally able to coax her into explaining why she was sitting at the church’s front door.
The crux of her issues were based on years of physical, emotional, and psychological abuses perpetrated upon her by various men in her life beginning with her father. She now found herself wanting – needing! – to pray but struggling with the images created when she tried to address God as “Father!”
Today we observe a celebration of Father’s Day which, as I was preparing and researching materials for my message, reminded me of this memory from my personal past. There are many people who have grown up with an abusive father, a negligent father, or an absent father, so how to go about relating to God as “Father” becomes skewed, damaged, even seemingly beyond repair. For some, tragedy struck, and their fathers have died way too early. They left before questions could be answered, conflicts could be resolved, or even memories could be made. Therefore, countless squirming saints in church have difficulty with the idea of having or even wanting an intimate relationship with God as “Father.” It is not only incomprehensible for them, like the young lady I spoke of at the beginning, but it is altogether repulsive. These battered souls are often either angry, raging, rejecting the concept of God as father or shamed, unworthy, never good enough to be in God’s presence.
How on earth can they trust “our heavenly Father? Why would Jesus teach us to pray to “Our Father” when he must have known so many would struggle with that image? Did Jesus expect that all of our “daddy-issues” would just vanish for believers?
Let me propose that my answer is “No!” and here are some thoughts about why.
One of the most repeated and recognized verses in the New Testament is where Jesus taught his disciples, and you and I to pray saying, “Our Father, who art in heaven.” He didn’t just teach us to pray those words in a disconnected vacuum; Jesus took it further as He taught us to have an ongoing relationship with God understanding God, to be the GOOD Father who provides for all the children (Matt. 6:26), thereby alleviating our daily worries about food, clothing, and shelter.
At the Last Supper, Phillip said to Jesus, “Show us the Father” (John 14: 8 & 9) and rather than parting the skies and pointing into heaven, Jesus says something no Jew would have ever dreamed of saying, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” The writer of the book of Hebrews says, “He (the Son) is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being.” (Hebrews 1:3)
As we profess our belief in the Triune nature of God, we are aware of and read in many more scriptures where the Bible makes it explicitly clear that Jesus is God and is the perfect human representation of God.
So, what does this mean? How does this help heal our image of God as father? My prayer is that it begins to inform our understanding that every time we see/hear Jesus doing something in the scriptures, we will think, “God as Father is just like that!” How does Jesus feel about hungry crowds? He feeds them! How does Jesus treat the woman caught in adultery? He forgives her and restores her dignity. How does Jesus respond to his disciples who are afraid of perishing in the sea because their boat is being swamped? He calms the wind and the waves and astonishes them! That’s how God the Father is! So, if you are struggling with relating to God as your heavenly Father – start with the example and teachings of Jesus. You need to know that it can take a long time to heal this wounded sense of your picture of God. All Christians are on a journey and none of us has it all figured out yet. But no matter who you are, or where you are on your journey of faith, you are always a welcomed member of the family of God!
As far as the young lady that I began this reflection with – I don’t know if she ever found a way to relate to God in her life. I had to leave her sitting on the doorstep weeping with the suggestions of praying to God as Creator, Nurturer, Savior, Sustainer, or Wisdom. I remember her off and on, and pray that she found a way. It just might take a lifetime!
Happy Father’s Day, Abba!