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I've been preaching sermons about ‘Meeting the True God.' A most significant experience of meeting God in my adult life was when a teacher would not let me use the name ‘Father' for God.

Meeting the True God: Meeting God Beyond Father - Romans 8:12-21 - June 17, 2007 - Cicero United Methodist Church - Everett J. Bassett

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I've been preaching sermons about ‘Meeting the True God.' A most significant experience of meeting God in my adult life was when a teacher would not let me use the name ‘Father' for God. It was back in seminary, and when she explained to the class that calling God Father was out in her class, I was one of several students who screamed Bloody Murder. At the conclusion of the semester I was also one of several who thanked her for giving me new insight about God. Let me back up and explain:

Like most people I grew up with, my earliest picture of God was as a wise old man with flowing robes and a white beard, sitting on a throne up in the clouds. This was the heavenly Father that Jesus prayed to, the One who knew everything that was going on, and could change whatever he wanted whenever he wanted.

Calling God Father was a happy idea for me, because my experience of an earthly father was something very special. My Dad wasn't a world traveler, or a mover and a shaker. But within his church and community, he was a well-respected person who touched many lives. He wasn't a man without flaws, but his virtues were strong, and when Father's Day rolls around, I am blessed with many wonderful memories of a fun and good person, who lived a good Christian example in many ways.

Given my experience of an earthly and a heavenly father, I developed a strong impression of what they have in common. Traditionally, an earthly father at his best is a protector and a provider. So is God. An earthly father at his best gives wise counsel, and holds us accountable and responsible. So does God. The earthly father is the source of roots, gives us a name, a heritage, a legacy. So does God. And an earthly father at his best is both strong and loving- so is God. All this was an easy association for me to make, and I carried it through most of my early life. God was Father, and the pronouns I used for God were He, Him, and His.

The first time I remembered that cozy little package being challenged was early in my ministry, when I read an article by a woman who had come from a totally different frame of reference than I did. In the description I just gave, I used the phrase "an earthly father at his best." This woman had never experienced that. In fact, her experience of a father was one of selfishness and abuse. Her father had been a terrible presence in her life, and had left deep wounds in her psyche. If God was best described as a father, she wanted nothing to do with God. My first impulse was to say, "Get over it. You had a terrible father on earth; all the more reason to be happy that you have a wonderful Father in heaven." But it was obvious that it was much more complicated for her than that. Father was never going to be a happy and inspiring image.

What saved her faith, she wrote, was that she looked in the Bible and found that Father was one of over a hundred images for God. In the Bible, God is a shepherd, a potter, a wrestler, a king, a nurse, a rock, a cloud...on and on it goes. And yes, in the Bible, God is a mother - travailing to give birth, nursing her children, gathering them into her nest, and comforting them and bouncing them on her knee. Father was Jesus' preferred way of addressing God, but the rest of the Bible contains a whole myriad of choices. God is not limited to one image.

So I had to widen my view of God somewhat, or at least admit that everyone couldn't approach him with the same background as mine. Still, I decided to hold on to mine. I might allow for some other viewpoints, but God was going to stay Father for me, and the words He, Him, and His would still apply.

Then I went to seminary. And there I encountered Mrs. Miller, who taught a unit in Theology, and announced at the beginning of it that we would not use masculine descriptions of God in her class. She was not the only one. Another professor lowered the grade on any test or paper by a full letter grade for every reference to God as a He, or a Father. Many masculine references to humans were cursed too. In chapel worship, instead of singing "Rise Up, O Men of God," we sang, "Rise Up, Ye Saints of God," - which is now in our current hymnals. Instead of singing "Faith of Our Fathers," we sang "Faith of Our Founders." Somehow it was just not the same.

And I was resentful. I felt robbed. I tested the letter grade rule, and sure enough, I lost letter grades on my papers for using He for God; they meant business. There were debates about it in class, a lot of people were anxious and angry. But the profs held out. And three things began to happen.

First of all, it was clear that a number of people - women, especially - were empowered to pray and serve God in a way that they had never been able to before. I learned that a lot of people stumbled over the masculine image of God.

Secondly, I began to learn more about the history of the bible. I learned about the people of the Bible and their contact with other religious, where the gods were people of gender, and mated with one another to bring fertility to the world. And how the creation story in many of those religions was the result of fertility acts between the gods. The people of the bible fought to keep their faith separate from those ideas.

You might think that the answer to that would be to have God have no gender at all. But that didn't square with the personal intimacy they experienced with God. So their answer instead was to picture God as a powerful father-figure - - so powerful that he could just command things to happen. In the beginning of the book of Genesis, God commands: Let there be light. Let there be life. Let there be human beings. And it is so. God simply could do that. And what I began to realize is that the Bible, while it uses the word Father and others for God, lifts up a God that is way beyond every image.

Now, anyone who has listened to many of my sermons knows that I still refer to God in masculine language. My job is to talk about God, and to talk about God a lot, and so I have to use some construct of words to do that. I use the words I learned as a child. Someone else might choose different words to use. The point is, none of the words are adequate. Nor are any of the pictures. I have seen God played in the movies by George Burns, Morgan Freeman, and Alanis Morrisette, and all were funny and mind-stretching, and any of those pictures of God is fine, because none of them is fine. God will not be put in a box; God is way beyond our tiny imaginations.

Once we realize that our images - Father, Mother, King, Lord, Nurse, Spirit - whatever- are inadequate - that none of them can capture God; once we concede that God is mysterious and infinitely beyond our earthly categories - then we can also begin to capture the kernel of truth that is conveyed in each of the images. In the case of Father and Mother the truth conveyed is one of nurturing and protecting love. For some, that image won't work. But for many, this is the God they will find intimately speaking to their hearts. This is the God I have come to know and love and serve - the God far beyond my understanding, but intimately intersecting my life as a loving heavenly Parent.

Who is God to you? Whether you are just starting out your journey, or a few years down the road, or looking at the other side of the hill - sooner or later, you have to answer that question. Some will answer it in the negative; atheists are a small minority, but they are making a lot of noise these days. Still, it seems obvious to me, that from the very beginning of time, when human beings have looked up at the stars in amazement, something primal in their hearts felt that we are in conversation with Somebody- Somebody beyond us; Somebody who won't be pinned down. I believe that's God. And not everybody will believe that God chose a nation on earth to relate to in special way. Not everybody will believe that God sent his Son into this world to bring salvation to humankind. Not everybody will believe that God has a plan for the destiny of the world. But I believe every honest person will admit to that tug on the heart at the most intimate moments of their lives; and a good number of them will call that an encounter with a loving and caring God.

I am one of those people. And my testimony to those who would listen is that those intimate moments with the mysterious and inscrutable God are the deepest and most fulfilling moments of life; they give a life meaning and vibrancy; they intertwine with the best and deepest relationships between human beings; and they give a foundation for a successful and fulfilled life that nothing else can.