A Letter from Bishop Chris (August 2023A)
Dear friends,
“This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name’” (Matthew 6:9).
In the thousands of years covered in the Old Testament, God is called “Father” only seven times. People just didn’t think of God as Father. They thought of him as other kinds of things — Creator, Almighty One, Sovereign Lord, God of Angel Armies, etc. But they didn’t default to thinking of God as Father. Then Jesus came along and said this is how you’re to pray: Call him Father. Jesus uses the expression more than 150 times to refer to God. And the apostle Paul unpacks this revelation further and even more intimately by calling God Abba, which means Papa or Daddy. In Romans 8:14-16 he writes:
“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”
Jesus (and later Paul) exploded all the stereotypes we tend to have about God. God is not an angry tyrant. God is not a cosmic cop. God is not a merciless accountant. He is not a universal killjoy. He is not an impersonal force. God is a personal God. He wants to have a relationship with us, and he created you with the ability to have a relationship with him.
There’s only one problem. For many people, the word “father” is a negative term. The word “father” may bring up all kinds of bad memories. A lot of people say, “Our Father, who art in Heaven? If God’s like my father, then no thanks, God.”
The truth is, some human fathers can make home a hell on Earth. Human fathers can be fickle, moody, abusive, controlling, and violent. So the words “Our Father in Heaven” carry a lot baggage for some of us.
The reason why many people never connect with God is because they unconsciously think God is like their earthly father, who may have been unreasonable, and so they think God is unreasonable. Or, maybe their father was unreliable, so they think God is unreliable. Maybe their father abandoned them, so they think God will abandon them. We impose all those mixed-up hurts and emotions onto God, and it’s no wonder we have a hard time connecting with him.
But the wonderful Holy Spirit seeks to reveal to us what God is really like and to show us the kind and merciful heart of our Heavenly Father. Because Jesus fully bore the penalty for our sins - which once separated us from God but now in Christ do so no longer - we can know God as He is - not as we fear He might be. If you’ve been following along in the Sunday lectionary readings this summer, you’ve been blessed by the wonderful text of Romans and most recently chapter 8, perhaps the pinnacle of the New Testament (certainly of Paul’s writing). Because you are now in Christ, the Holy Spirit who is with you and lives in you wants you to have the same kind of relationship that Jesus has with God - knowing and trusting and relishing that he is a good, good Father who loves you.
Blessings!
The Rt. Rev. Chris Warner