“The Names of God: A Pathway to Relationship”

Over the last few weeks, we have been exploring a variety of biblical images about ourselves in relation to God. Scripture suggests that we are to be like sheep held securely in the sheepfold. We are to be like infants longing for milk, like living stones built into a spiritual house. We are named a royal priesthood, a holy nation; called out of darkness into marvelous light.

In relation to us, recent scripture readings reveal that God is like the Good Shepherd and the Gate of the sheepfold; God is like a nursing mother providing sustenance, and the cornerstone of our lives. 

The children’s story this morning gives us additional images and names for God: Source of life, Creator of light, Maker of Peace, Rock, Healer, Redeemer, Ancient One, Comforter, Mother, Father, and Friend.

So what are we to make of this multiplicity of images and names for God?  What purpose might such an abundance of images serve in our spiritual lives? How might they be a pathway for developing our relationship with God?

Many of us, I imagine, grew up with a limited number of images and given names for God. This means we have tremendous potential to expand our spiritual consciousness as we allow ourselves to broaden the images and names we use for God. 

Here’s another way to think about it… When David and I adopted our cat, Leo, his given name was Twin.  We found that name to be flat and  meaningless.  So we gave ourselves a few days to pay attention to him and see what emerged… something about the name “Leo” felt resonant.  As we’ve gotten to know him – as our relationship with him has developed – we have even more names for him, “Leo the Lovebug,” “Prancer” and “Fang.”  

In a somewhat similar way, many of us were told that God’s name is “Father.”  Now for some of us, this is the most natural and comforting name there could ever be. But, for those of us who have had difficult experiences with our fathers, it could well be a barrier to faith in God.

Could it be that as you spend more time with God, as you pay attention to God… through scripture and prayer and nature and in other people, that more images and names might emerge that reflect the unique, loving relationship you have with God? 

Because we humans tend to think in literal terms, when we over rely on one image or name for God, we can forget that the image or name is not exact an depiction of spiritual reality.    

We also often reduce God to what our own minds can manage and understand. Because the human mind also tends towards dualism, we often see pairs of things like black and white or male and female as being in opposition to each other, rather than parts of the whole.

Reductionist, dualistic mindsets have warped the way many Christians have thought and continue to think about who God is, claiming “If God is father, then God can’t be mother.”

The implications of this narrow naming of God as Father has had a dramatic impact on church and Western society, including a sense of who is worthy of leadership in both. 

Do you think we’d be where we are as a global community if there were more mothers in charge? Just saying…

When it comes to images of God, remember: none of them convey the totality of who God is.  This is one reason why in Jewish tradition there is a general prohibition on creating images of God – lest people mistake the image for the reality.  In Islamic tradition, there are 99 names for God, including The Most Gentle, The Most Just, The Most Generous. The prohibition of images of God in Islam is absolute. 

But, in Christianity – especially in its Orthodox and Roman Catholic varieties, images of God proliferate.  The problem is that they are too narrow. It’s not that God isn’t like a father… God is! But, God is also like a mother. 

Given how many of us were raised, being comfortable with the image of God as mother is not second nature.  We may even have to get over feeling that it is somehow wrong, that it is merely “pagan” (as if that were a bad thing; pagan simply means “earth based” – we need more earth based thinking). We need to overcome this idea that the image of God as mother is not legitimately in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

You are invited to close you eyes, open your heart, and begin breathing slowly and easily.  Allow your mind’s eye to receive these images… 

From Deuteronomy 32:18 – “You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.”

In Isaiah 66:13: “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”

In the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, Jesus says this: “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.”

God as mother.

Whenever I preach on the Good Shepherd, I like to bring home the point that the shepherd lovingly gives each and every sheep a fitting nickname. The suggestion is that is how closely our God knows us and loves us.  

When you think about shepherds, who do you see? Consider this: at the time of Jesus, there were both male and female shepherds! Going back further, in the Hebrew Bible, both Rachel and Zipporah are named as shepherds. Even today there are female shepherds in Bethlehem and around the world. Think about that!

The multitude of images for God provide us a way to approach, know, and name the God who is always greater than any single image we can give her.  The abundance of images of God are doorways into intimacy with our God – given to us for our spiritual benefit. They are an invitation to help us expand our sense of who this endlessly loving God is.

When you imagine God, do you have a preferred image or name?  Remember there is more for you to discover about this God, there are endless ways in which you can grow in your relationship with the God who longs to be known by you.. So, why not try out some new ones and see what happens? Like the Good Shepherdess?

To close, I offer this slightly adapted poem from Fred LaMotte:

To you who say God is not a person

I say God is my friend.

To you who say God takes a human form

I say God is boundless space

The darkness that surrounds the planets

To you who say God is beyond the body

I say God is this breath.

I hold manifold images in my chestful of wonder.

To you who say God dwells inside

I say God spills over the rim of the star chalice

like silence from an empty bell.

You say God is One,

I say God is love longing for a companion.

You say God is your paramour,

I say yes, yes,

God hides in the plum blossoms

dancing as pure light

through the wings of a dragonfly.

May the One who is greater than any image we can give her, the One who calls us into an ever deepening relationship of love and trust, bless you. Amen.