c. 1998 Religion News Service
(Tom Ehrich is the author of”On a Journey”(Journey Publishing Co.), a book series of daily meditations. If you have feedback on this column or want to suggest a question for a future column, e-mail Ehrich at journey(AT)interpath.com.”)
UNDATED _”I’m confused,”a reader in Indianapolis writes.”I want so much to be a believer.” How could Jesus be God and yet call God”Father”and feel forsaken by God on the cross? she asks.”Please be honest with your answer.” OK. One start of an answer is the doctrine of the Trinity, a theological construct of delicious symmetry. But I have to ask: Why do you phrase your faith-quest in such terms? When a lover smiles, do you reach for definitions of interpersonal attraction? Is the yearning in your heart not a sufficient place to start? Jesus invited us to love God, not to define God.
My wife and I recently visited a friend in the hospital. My wife took one look, moved to the bedside, and began smoothing our friend’s forehead and hair. Over and over, her hands soothed and caressed.
I watched her hands and thought: This is what God’s hands are like. When the psalmist says,”You open wide your hand,”many see largesse, the giving of treasure; some see a hand pulled back to strike. But what if God has nothing to do with treasure? Or with punishments? What if God’s one desire is to soothe and caress, hold and comfort, lift up and encourage?
What if God is a lover _ not an angry judge, not a divine cornucopia, not a policeman, not an aloof designer of intricate theological puzzles, but a lover, whose hands are opened wide the way my wife’s hand are opened wide this moment?
I think more and more that our images of God come from people who want to be powerful, so they create a God of power. We want to reign, so we create a God whose”majesty”towers over all. We want to be rich, so we fashion a God who dispenses wealth to the worthy. We want to inhabit grandeur, so we create a God who values big rooms. We want to be right, so we imagine a legalistic God who confers victory on those with right opinion. We consider ourselves intelligent, so we portray faith as an act requiring training.
The fundamental lament of God in the Old Testament is that of the wounded lover.”Where are you?”God cried to Adam and Eve.”How could these people turn to an idol?”God cried to Moses.”You are hurting people whom I love,”God said through the prophets.”Jerusalem! Jerusalem!”cried Jesus. Outside Lazarus’ tomb, Jesus wept.
The temple in Jerusalem was David’s idea; God’s dream was reconciled humanity streaming home, drawn by a beacon of holiness. Rules, privileges and walls of exclusion were the disciples’ idea; Jesus spoke of oneness and opened his hands wide to all humanity. Theologians build dense webs of theology; Jesus told stories. We craft laws by the carload; God spoke ten words.
Despite the vaulted cathedrals built in his name and the warfare waged beneath his banner, Jesus revealed a God who would walk into a hospital room, be moved to tears, and open wide a hand in love.
The rest is our stuff.
I have plowed the furrows of theology and ecclesia and enjoyed the power coming from controlling both question and answer. But I am coming to believe God is more accessible than that.
Maybe that sounds anti-intellectual. But I find myself remembering the painting of a peasant couple saying their prayers before eating a humble loaf. We want faith to be more than that, because we want to be more than that. Surely God’s love has to be more complex than a simple act of gratitude. Surely God wants us to argue about Eucharistic theology. Surely Jesus didn’t mean it when he told us to come as children.
My 6-year-old son wanders sleepily in and claims my lap. After a long cuddle, he sees my computer screen and asks,”What are you writing?””A newspaper column,”I reply.”What does it say?””That God is love.””Oh.”He snuggles close.
We have so much to unlearn. I wonder if we don’t all need to be struck blind, as Paul was, so we can return to sight and see all we have missed about God.
MJP END EHRICH
