What image or concept of the divine, found in the Bible or another source of inspiration, is most meaningful to you and why? What do you think it tells us about God and what do you think it reveals about you?
Carissa:
The images of God that I have found compelling have definitely reflected my age and stage of development through the years. I remember loving the idea of God as father when I was a little girl. Then when I was a college student, I stumbled into the language of an intimate God. Perhaps it was cliche for a women’s college student to appreciate the “Jesus is my boyfriend” imagery, but the idea of a God who saw me completely and loved me just that way was nevertheless powerful. Those concepts of God are still a part of me, like rings in a theological tree, but they are now more deeply embedded, far from the primary mode I imagine when I pray or lead worship.
At this point, I am finding a “big enough” idea of God most compelling. Perhaps this is a bit apophatic, since I’m certainly not most compelled by any single visual image of God these days. But above anything else, the concept of God that is most meaningful to me right at this moment is a God who is ‘big enough’ for anything: big enough for my questions, big enough for my problems, big enough for me to be angry, big enough to comfort my deepest wounds...and that image is meaningful to me because it doesn’t just stay with me, right? God is also big enough for the world: big enough for the world’s questions, big enough for the world’s problems, big enough for entire nations to cry out in lament, big enough to heal the world’s deepest wounds.
I probably won’t know what this reveals about me until I can look through the glasses of hindsight, but I do think it has something to do with my shift into church leadership. As my job becomes bigger, I need a God who is bigger. As I am asked to hold the weight of a congregation’s prayers, I need a God who can hold all those prayers. As I am asked to speak to the deepest of wounds and the hardest of divides, I need a God who can hold it all together.
David:
First of all, I really love Carissa’s image of “rings in a theological tree.” What a great way to conceptualize how growth doesn’t leave behind, but emerges out of and relies on, earlier stages of growth.
For some time now, the image of the divine that has been most meaningful to me is the parakletos, from John 14. I love that it’s such a multi-layered word -- it can be translated as Companion, Comforter, and Advocate. I love that it’s an image with connotations of justice (the parakletos, in secular terms, was likely a legal advocate who accompanied the accused through the trial process) but also with a personal focus. I love how it provides the basis for a theology of accompaniment. And I love that it’s a Trinitarian image that can be grasped a bit more easily than some of the more ethereal theology out there -- Jesus is using the term to refer to the Spirit, but he says God the Father will send “another parakletos,” the connotation being that Jesus is also parakletos. Jesus and the Spirit, sent by God to be God present-with-us, as companion, comforter, advocate, and friend.
As far as what it tells us about God: The Advocate is the opposite of the Accuser or the Tester, which is fantastic. It tells us that God is on humanity’s side rather than over-and-against us. The Advocate is also God as defense attorney, which means that I don’t have to create elaborate theologies to defend God -- God’s got that covered. (I love a God thumb in the eye of theodicy). God is a companion on our journey, a comforter in our affliction, and a voice speaking with and for the oppressed. An advocate has to listen carefully and then to speak.
My attraction to this image probably says a lot about me. For one, it’s been really helpful for me in formulating how I understand my own ministry, especially since I’m not currently in a traditional pastoral setting. My own call, formed by the Spirit, is to companionship, advocacy, and compassion -- all the while with the understanding that it is God who is ultimately both the source and completion of this work. Also, I’d say my interest in this image or metaphor reflects my personal discomfort with a lot of the traditional language about God, which I often find too much of a projection of the things we value as a culture, just bigger and better: we want to be strong, so God is the most-powerful; we want to know it all, so God is the most-knowing; we want to be able to plan everything, so God has the most-plan. Maybe all of that is true, but I just am never quite sure what to do with that language. I like the vulnerability and riskiness of the image of parakletos, and what it calls us to do and be.
Pat:
Both really great responses. A god that is big enough and a god that is in my corner is a pretty powerful gospel. I don’t think my response is all that different.
In school I had to write my own Christology and my concluding paragraph was titled “Jesus Christ as Hope.” I think that’s where I feel most comfortable grounding my understanding of God.
I think it’s interesting that in reflecting on what your preferred images of God say about you, you both went immediately to your call and vocation. I found myself doing the same thing. I think that maybe I tend to approach the role of the Christian, or minister, or pastor as someone who also seeks to embody hope. Maybe we are all called to be with people who are desperately longing for whatever comes next, to help them bring that vision into focus, and to realize it. For me a big part of being a Christian is looking into the future (guided by hope) and trying to pull what we see there into the present. So maybe what it says about me, is I’m a dreamer. Five Iron Frenzy says it nicely, “the farsighted see better things."
Leigh:
I also appreciate the analogy Carissa made about our evolving concepts of God being like the rungs of a tree — markings that identify where we have been, and in turn, give us a fuller understanding of where we are now. I can see how this is true in my own life, and yet in some ways I feel as if my current image of God has required a fundamental shift in the way I approach the subject of the divine.
The shift happened when I spent some time considering 1 John 4:8, which says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” My interpretation of this verse has always been that God is one who loves. In other words, God is a being who has many characteristics (peacemaker, liberator, friend, etc), but God’s primary modis operandi is love. However, when I revisited this verse a few years ago I realized the author doesn’t cast God as a being at all, or at least in the traditional (if subconscious) classification of God as an object that extends love and is worthy of love. Instead, the author seems to say God is found in the act of love, or in the experience of love itself. Therefore, whenever we give or receive love it is God passing between us, connecting us.
I think love is a powerful way of understanding God for a few reasons. One reason is that it is able to hold seemingly paradoxical truths together. For instance, why is it that the act of surrender feels both like something we choose and something that happens to us? Well, Donald Miller puts it perfectly (as he often does) in Blue Like Jazz: “Love is as much something that happens to you as it is something you decide upon.” The same goes for sanctifying grace, i.e. we are making choices to become kinder, more gracious, more forgiving people… by the power of God’s spirit working within us. Does your sense of calling come from you or God? Answer: Yes. Our compulsion to care for the needs of our community -a desire born of love- is God’s Spirit stirring within us.
Sadly, we tend to talk about love in very ethereal terms, but love has the ability to shape us in concrete ways. Love can uproot prejudice and turn an enemy into a friend. Love can overcome lines of division of every kind. It can take wounds —so dark and so deep we thought they could never be reached— and heal them. When my Dad’s health took a turn for the worse the morning of his death, the people who were with him thought I might not make it down in time to say goodbye — but he waited for me. I still believe it was love that allowed him to fight off death. I believe this literally and with my whole heart.
The other reason I find “God = love” so compelling is because love is the substance of empathy, i.e. the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. I see this as the point and power of the cross. God dies because we die.
Which leads me to my other primary image of God: God is a wild old dog. This phrase is taken from a Patty Griffin song by the same title. It goes…
Love allows us to empathize with one another, and it is the thing that holds the shattered pieces of our hearts together when we are in place of grieving. I see love as the source hope you described Pat, in the Spirit as parakletos you mentioned David, and the thing that is “big enough” for Carissa’s concerns.
What do these intertwining images reveal about me? Maybe it’s that at the end of the day the only thing worth the bother is love. I used to —and frequently still do— want others to perceive me as talented, knowledgeable, and competent. But as I get older I feel more and more like what I want most is to be known as someone who loves well. Because in my life, it’s been the small and (sometimes) large ways people have shown me love that has made all the difference.
The images of God that I have found compelling have definitely reflected my age and stage of development through the years. I remember loving the idea of God as father when I was a little girl. Then when I was a college student, I stumbled into the language of an intimate God. Perhaps it was cliche for a women’s college student to appreciate the “Jesus is my boyfriend” imagery, but the idea of a God who saw me completely and loved me just that way was nevertheless powerful. Those concepts of God are still a part of me, like rings in a theological tree, but they are now more deeply embedded, far from the primary mode I imagine when I pray or lead worship.
At this point, I am finding a “big enough” idea of God most compelling. Perhaps this is a bit apophatic, since I’m certainly not most compelled by any single visual image of God these days. But above anything else, the concept of God that is most meaningful to me right at this moment is a God who is ‘big enough’ for anything: big enough for my questions, big enough for my problems, big enough for me to be angry, big enough to comfort my deepest wounds...and that image is meaningful to me because it doesn’t just stay with me, right? God is also big enough for the world: big enough for the world’s questions, big enough for the world’s problems, big enough for entire nations to cry out in lament, big enough to heal the world’s deepest wounds.
I probably won’t know what this reveals about me until I can look through the glasses of hindsight, but I do think it has something to do with my shift into church leadership. As my job becomes bigger, I need a God who is bigger. As I am asked to hold the weight of a congregation’s prayers, I need a God who can hold all those prayers. As I am asked to speak to the deepest of wounds and the hardest of divides, I need a God who can hold it all together.
David:
First of all, I really love Carissa’s image of “rings in a theological tree.” What a great way to conceptualize how growth doesn’t leave behind, but emerges out of and relies on, earlier stages of growth.
For some time now, the image of the divine that has been most meaningful to me is the parakletos, from John 14. I love that it’s such a multi-layered word -- it can be translated as Companion, Comforter, and Advocate. I love that it’s an image with connotations of justice (the parakletos, in secular terms, was likely a legal advocate who accompanied the accused through the trial process) but also with a personal focus. I love how it provides the basis for a theology of accompaniment. And I love that it’s a Trinitarian image that can be grasped a bit more easily than some of the more ethereal theology out there -- Jesus is using the term to refer to the Spirit, but he says God the Father will send “another parakletos,” the connotation being that Jesus is also parakletos. Jesus and the Spirit, sent by God to be God present-with-us, as companion, comforter, advocate, and friend.
As far as what it tells us about God: The Advocate is the opposite of the Accuser or the Tester, which is fantastic. It tells us that God is on humanity’s side rather than over-and-against us. The Advocate is also God as defense attorney, which means that I don’t have to create elaborate theologies to defend God -- God’s got that covered. (I love a God thumb in the eye of theodicy). God is a companion on our journey, a comforter in our affliction, and a voice speaking with and for the oppressed. An advocate has to listen carefully and then to speak.
My attraction to this image probably says a lot about me. For one, it’s been really helpful for me in formulating how I understand my own ministry, especially since I’m not currently in a traditional pastoral setting. My own call, formed by the Spirit, is to companionship, advocacy, and compassion -- all the while with the understanding that it is God who is ultimately both the source and completion of this work. Also, I’d say my interest in this image or metaphor reflects my personal discomfort with a lot of the traditional language about God, which I often find too much of a projection of the things we value as a culture, just bigger and better: we want to be strong, so God is the most-powerful; we want to know it all, so God is the most-knowing; we want to be able to plan everything, so God has the most-plan. Maybe all of that is true, but I just am never quite sure what to do with that language. I like the vulnerability and riskiness of the image of parakletos, and what it calls us to do and be.
Pat:
Both really great responses. A god that is big enough and a god that is in my corner is a pretty powerful gospel. I don’t think my response is all that different.
In school I had to write my own Christology and my concluding paragraph was titled “Jesus Christ as Hope.” I think that’s where I feel most comfortable grounding my understanding of God.
@Carissa, you talked about a God that is big enough to handle the questions, problems, laments, and wounds of the world. In that "big enough God,” I see hope. Hope that there are answers, that things can be mended, that we can find joy again, and that we can be well again.
@FHosey, you sort of touched on the same thing. There’s meaning in thinking about God as Advocate because in doing so, we’re shown how God comforts the afflicted and speaks with and for the oppressed. Again, God’s presence is hope. Hope that things can and will be different than they are right now.When we think about where hope shows up in the world, I think that the list of places we come up with is strikingly similar to the list of places the Bible tells us that God shows up - places where people are painfully aware that all is not right in the world. In places where people hurt, where people are marginalized, where people aren’t treated like people, we might expect to find crushing defeat...but instead we find God…who is hope.
I think it’s interesting that in reflecting on what your preferred images of God say about you, you both went immediately to your call and vocation. I found myself doing the same thing. I think that maybe I tend to approach the role of the Christian, or minister, or pastor as someone who also seeks to embody hope. Maybe we are all called to be with people who are desperately longing for whatever comes next, to help them bring that vision into focus, and to realize it. For me a big part of being a Christian is looking into the future (guided by hope) and trying to pull what we see there into the present. So maybe what it says about me, is I’m a dreamer. Five Iron Frenzy says it nicely, “the farsighted see better things."
Leigh:
I also appreciate the analogy Carissa made about our evolving concepts of God being like the rungs of a tree — markings that identify where we have been, and in turn, give us a fuller understanding of where we are now. I can see how this is true in my own life, and yet in some ways I feel as if my current image of God has required a fundamental shift in the way I approach the subject of the divine.
The shift happened when I spent some time considering 1 John 4:8, which says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” My interpretation of this verse has always been that God is one who loves. In other words, God is a being who has many characteristics (peacemaker, liberator, friend, etc), but God’s primary modis operandi is love. However, when I revisited this verse a few years ago I realized the author doesn’t cast God as a being at all, or at least in the traditional (if subconscious) classification of God as an object that extends love and is worthy of love. Instead, the author seems to say God is found in the act of love, or in the experience of love itself. Therefore, whenever we give or receive love it is God passing between us, connecting us.
I think love is a powerful way of understanding God for a few reasons. One reason is that it is able to hold seemingly paradoxical truths together. For instance, why is it that the act of surrender feels both like something we choose and something that happens to us? Well, Donald Miller puts it perfectly (as he often does) in Blue Like Jazz: “Love is as much something that happens to you as it is something you decide upon.” The same goes for sanctifying grace, i.e. we are making choices to become kinder, more gracious, more forgiving people… by the power of God’s spirit working within us. Does your sense of calling come from you or God? Answer: Yes. Our compulsion to care for the needs of our community -a desire born of love- is God’s Spirit stirring within us.
Sadly, we tend to talk about love in very ethereal terms, but love has the ability to shape us in concrete ways. Love can uproot prejudice and turn an enemy into a friend. Love can overcome lines of division of every kind. It can take wounds —so dark and so deep we thought they could never be reached— and heal them. When my Dad’s health took a turn for the worse the morning of his death, the people who were with him thought I might not make it down in time to say goodbye — but he waited for me. I still believe it was love that allowed him to fight off death. I believe this literally and with my whole heart.
The other reason I find “God = love” so compelling is because love is the substance of empathy, i.e. the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. I see this as the point and power of the cross. God dies because we die.
Which leads me to my other primary image of God: God is a wild old dog. This phrase is taken from a Patty Griffin song by the same title. It goes…
God is a wild old dogI don’t know if it’s the brassy melancholy of Griffin’s voice, the radical departure from traditional God imagery, or the image of an abandoned dog roaming down a dusty road, but this song gets me every time… Stav sent me the mp3 the week my Dad passed away. I couldn’t listen to it for a while, but when I finally made myself it resonated with the grief and loss of meaning I was experiencing.
Someone left out on the highway
I seen him running by me
He don't belong to no one now
It's lonely on the highwayThere are so many terrible things that happen in this world and in the lives of good people that I will never have to suffer. But surely there is someone or something that understands their pain first hand.
Sometimes a heart can turn to dust
Get whittled down to nothing
Broken down and crushed
In with the bones of
Wild old dogs
Love allows us to empathize with one another, and it is the thing that holds the shattered pieces of our hearts together when we are in place of grieving. I see love as the source hope you described Pat, in the Spirit as parakletos you mentioned David, and the thing that is “big enough” for Carissa’s concerns.
What do these intertwining images reveal about me? Maybe it’s that at the end of the day the only thing worth the bother is love. I used to —and frequently still do— want others to perceive me as talented, knowledgeable, and competent. But as I get older I feel more and more like what I want most is to be known as someone who loves well. Because in my life, it’s been the small and (sometimes) large ways people have shown me love that has made all the difference.
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