The Feminine Face of God

If the title of this article created some discomfort for you, you’re certainly not alone. As I wrote it, I found myself asking whether it was a wise choice. I even wondered whether I should write about a different subject. How strange that, in the month in which we celebrate women, I should be asking these questions of myself. How strange that I should hesitate to explore a clear and life-giving facet of the biblical revelation of God. And yet, when it comes to the language of our worship, few things create more controversy than gender. The Bible has no such qualms, and this month is a good time to allow the Scriptures to speak to us of how we can encounter God from a feminine perspective.

Biblical Images of God:
As we read the Old Testament we discover some deeply comforting and moving images as God is revealed to God’s people. According to George Arthur Buttrick, the general editor of the Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, the Hebrew term for a woman’s uterus is used in the Scriptures to describe God’s compassion, as in Isaiah 49:15. In Proverbs, God’s wisdom is depicted as a person who was by God’s side participating in the act of creation (See Proverbs 8:22-31), and is referred to in the feminine – an example Jesus follows in Matthew 11:19 and Luke 7:35. But, perhaps, one of the most beautiful feminine images of God comes from Isaiah 66:11-12, where God’s people are pictured as being comforted by God like an infant suckling at its mother’s breast. What a rich heritage of symbolism, metaphor and imagery we lose if we ignore the biblical invitation to learn of God through these feminine references.

Widening Our “Imagery-Palate”:
Flowing from this, though, come two significant considerations for our worship. The first is the invitation to allow these biblical images to speak to us. In our banners, our prayers and our liturgies, we can widen the “palate” from which we draw. Instead of always defaulting to the common masculine images, it can be deeply transforming to employ some of the Bible’s feminine pictures of God. This may require a little more creativity from us, but using our creative energies in worship should be routine rather than exceptional.

Widening Our Language:
The second consideration of these feminine ‘faces’ of God in the Scriptures, is in the language we use, particularly to describe the community of faith. In a country where women are under great threat from rape and domestic violence, including women intentionally in our language is both healing and prophetic. So, instead of speaking only about “brothers” or “brethren”, perhaps we can also speak of “sisters”. Instead of speaking only about “mankind” we can perhaps rather speak of “humanity”. Some of our hymns lend themselves to easily include women in their language, without violating the intent of the writers. One example is Hymn 809 in the old hymnbook. It is neither difficult, nor a change in meaning, to sing line two as “…shoud set his love upon the world’s children”.

However we may choose to honour the women in our lives this month, I pray that it will include allowing the Scriptures to take us deeper into the feminine ‘face’ of God as we worship.

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John van de Laar is a Methodist minister, liturgical consultant and the author of the book Food for the Road – Life Lesson from the Lord’s Table. He holds a Master’s Degree in theology from UNISA, and is the founder of Sacredise.com, an international worship training and resourcing ministry. John is married to Debbie, and they have two sons.
Visit www.sacredise.com for more articles by John, as well as resources for personal and public worship – music, prayers, liturgies, images and drama scripts.

The Gift of Lament

Last week I wrote about the little deaths we all endure, and how important it is that we face them head on, trusting in the resurrection which is sure to come. The problem with this is that we sometimes take faith to mean that we shouldn’t grieve, express doubts or acknowledge our pain. We seem to think that the truly faithful rise above these dark emotions and go through suffering with a blissful smile. I’m not sure where we got this picture from, but it wasn’t from the Scriptures.

In the Bible we discover a lot of grief and suffering, and often it is the most faithful, devoted people - the prophets and apostles - who face the worst of life. We might expect them to handle this calmly and gracefully, but instead what we find is a liberating honesty. These men and women of faith had no problem expressing their raw anger at God, their complaints and questions, their doubts and fears.

Take Jeremiah as an example. When faced with persecution for his message, he tries to keep silent, but finds that he can’t do it - which means that all he can expect is more persecution. He feels angry that he wasn’t told that it would be like this, and so he complains to God in Jeremiah 20:7-9, essentially calling God a liar! But God doesn’t strike him with lightning. Rather, Jeremiah’s faith remains strong, and he goes on to have one of the longest and most difficult ministries of any prophet.

Lament is a healing practice. Here the realities of our lives and the realities of our faith come together, and this always leads to a renewed faith. There are four basic parts to any true lament. First, a complaint is laid against God, expressing the details of the suffering being experienced. Second, God’s promises and previous gracious acts are remembered and offered to God as both the basis for the complaint (because God doesn’t appear to be doing what God promised) and the basis for hope that God will intervene. Third, a request is spoken for God to act on behalf of the suffering one and bring healing, liberation and comfort. Finally, a commitment is made to continue to trust, to hope and to praise God, no matter what the outcome may be.

It is unfortunate that worship has all too often been seen as nothing other than celebration. Joy and inspiration are emphasised and any signs of grief, doubt, pain or fear are to be hidden or left outside. The result of this is that worshippers are forced into a double-life in which their real feelings and experiences are either ignored or concealed. We get good at pretending that we are “blessed” on Sundays, and we cling to our faith with white-knuckles, hoping our grief won’t overwhelm and betray us - which it inevitably does.

Perhaps both we and our churches would be healthier if we just learned to lament more - to express our grief, to make our complaints against God, and to commit to faith even in the dark times. We all face both the little deaths and the big ones, and to try and deal with grief without the gift of lament is to rob ourselves of both healing and comfort. But, if we trust God enough to be honest about our pain, we will find the comfort we seek, and the light of hope will continue to shine in our hearts.

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John van de Laar is a Methodist minister, liturgical consultant and the author of the book Food for the Road – Life Lesson from the Lord’s Table. He holds a Master’s Degree in theology from UNISA, and is the founder of Sacredise.com, an international worship training and resourcing ministry. John is married to Debbie, and they have two sons.
Visit www.sacredise.com for more articles by John, as well as resources for personal and public worship – music, prayers, liturgies, images and drama scripts.

The Little Deaths

Here in South Africa winter is in full swing. We are just approaching the coldest part of our year (which, granted, is not nearly as cold as other parts of the globe), and the world around us is dormant. Trees are bare, and the whole countryside is tinged with brown. The world as I know it has entered a little death.

In ages past winter was a frightening time of year. Resources were scarce, food was hard to come by, and illness frequently led to real death. The ‘little death’ of winter was a time when life was under threat, and it took every bit of faith to believe that the world would come alive again. But, come alive it did - as it always does. Although I am fortunate enough to live in a time when the fears of winter are small and insignificant, and although I enjoy the winter months in Africa, I still long for the outbreak of new life - the resurrection - that awaits the Spring. The world is in a little death, but the resurrection is not far off.

This cycle of death and resurrection is built into the universe, and it is a gracious, God-given reminder of a fundamental principle of our living. Jesus put it this way: “People who try to save their lives will lose them, and those who lose their lives will save them.” (Luke 17:33). It’s always tempting to hold on, white-knuckled, to the things we value, to the moments of joy and celebration. But, inevitably, if we try to do this, we simply lose both the thing we are trying to save, and our ability to really live.

As we see the signs of a ‘winter’ approaching our lives, whether it’s a time of suffering, the loss of something or someone of value, or some sacrifice we know we must make, it is all too common for us to try and build protective walls around us to keep the little deaths at bay. But, Jesus’ words are a comfort and a challenge. Instead of seeking to save our lives, we must lose them - willingly embrace the little death, and enter into its pain. It sounds completely ridiculous, to our pain-avoidant minds, but it is in this losing - this dying - that we find life. Like the earth that needs the winter in order to nurture new life and growth, we need the little deaths, the times of suffering and sacrifice, in order to find abundant, vibrant, deep, meaningful life. So, in whatever little death you may be facing, you may want to consider what it would mean for you stop trying to save your life, and to surrender yourself to the loss.

The practice of worship is a profound gift to those who face a little death. Each week we are given the comfort of a community which can share our grief and sustain us through the pain. Each week, we are invited into the life of faith - of placing our lives and well-being into the hands of God. And each week, we are reminded that resurrection is alive and real among us, that resurrection is always at work where there is death, and that as we lose our lives, we also find them. And, then as we leave the sanctuary, we are encouraged to live out our resurrection faith in every moment and every situation.

So, if you’re facing a winter - a little death - in your life, perhaps now is the time to find your way to a church and to allow worship to give you the gift of faith, the gift of resurrection and the gift of new life. You may not see it right away, but if you continue to open yourself to it, life will emerge again, in all of its colourful glory.

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John van de Laar is a Methodist minister, liturgical consultant and the author of the book Food for the Road – Life Lesson from the Lord’s Table. He holds a Master’s Degree in theology from UNISA, and is the founder of Sacredise.com, an international worship training and resourcing ministry. John is married to Debbie, and they have two sons.
Visit www.sacredise.com for more articles by John, as well as resources for personal and public worship – music, prayers, liturgies, images and drama scripts.

Sabbath

I don’t know when we began to believe that being busy was better than resting, that busy people are somehow more important, and that being exhausted was somehow noble. I suspect it goes back to a thing called the “Protestant Work Ethic” which proclaimed, among other things, that “the devil finds work for idle hands”. It seems that our world has become obsessed with busy-ness, with working long hours and with not resting enough. We fill our time with all sorts of stuff to do, afraid that we might end up being bored if we don’t, and we live with a constant soundtrack of noise, because we can no longer stand the silence. Try asking people to observe a whole minute of silence next time you’re in church and see how that goes down!

Perhaps I’m preaching only to myself, but I don’t think so. I see the stress on faces as I walk down the street. I read the statistics that show that our relationships are breaking under the strain. I can still remember the days when shops closed at one o’clock on Saturdays and were not open on Sundays at all, so I can’t help but see the difference now that shopping is almost 24/7!

I know that, for many of us, the pace at which we live is not our choice. We work for bosses in an economy that gives them all the power. If we won’t work the hours, they’ll just find someone else who will. But, even in the face of this reality, we need to hear the Bible’s call to Sabbath - which is really just a call to rest. If there is anything that can help us to hear and respond to this call, it’s worship. What worries me, though, is that so often our worship feels no different. We cram as much into the time as we can. We’re driven to grow the church numerically and financially. We want to make sure we’re in touch with the latest “cutting-edge” technology, or style, or strategy, and it all becomes just as much of a treadmill as any other organisation on any other day of the week.

So, here’s an idea. What if we slowed down a bit? What if we began to allow our worship to follow the rhythms of Sabbath - times of work and intensity, but also times of silence and rest? What would happen if we began to put our energy into healing and strengthening and feeding the souls of those who worship with us, and left the “growth” to God? What if we stopped trying to be “impressive” and just worked smarter at being Church?

What would this mean for us? It might mean that we plan and prepare worship with the Gospel as our main focus, and God’s glory as our main desire. It might mean that we would learn that the important thing is that we just show up - just observing the Sabbath changes us, even though we may not always see it. It might mean that we let ourselves off the hook a bit and allow worship to be a time, not of striving, but of resting in God’s grace, soaking in God’s Spirit, and just enjoying loving and being loved by God.

There is so much more I could say about this, but I’m off on holiday in a couple of days, so it’s time to slow down, to stop, and to rest.

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John van de Laar is a Methodist minister, liturgical consultant and the author of the book Food for the Road – Life Lesson from the Lord’s Table. He holds a Master’s Degree in theology from UNISA, and is the founder of Sacredise.com, an international worship training and resourcing ministry. John is married to Debbie, and they have two sons.
Visit www.sacredise.com for more articles by John, as well as resources for personal and public worship – music, prayers, liturgies, images and drama scripts.

Sacredise: Fatherhood

I read a disturbing story this week from Franciscan priest and author Richard Rohr. When he was doing ministry in a prison in New Mexico where he lives, he spoke to one of the social workers who worked in one of the prisons he ministered to. She told him how, in her first year at the prison, when Mothers’ Day came around, all the inmates asked her to get cards for them to send to their mothers for the special day. Everyone wanted one, and she struggled to keep up with the demand. Later in the year, when Fathers’ Day was due to come around, she decided she had better be prepared. So, she bought a whole box of Fathers’ Day cards in preparation for the requests that she was sure would come. But, not one prisoners asked her for a Fathers’ Day card. Years later, the full box still sits in her office. She realised at that moment how deep the father-inflicted wounds went in these men. Richard Rohr finished this story by asking whether our prisons would be nearly so full if our society taught men how to be good fathers.

It’s an old cliché but in the Church we have the privilege of a God who comes to us as Father. When Jesus first began to address God as “Abba” (Aramaic for ‘daddy), it was a radical thing. The prayer Jesus taught, which begins “Our Father” was a dramatic departure from the formal, law-regulated religion of the day. Jesus demonstrated that God was neither distant nor satisfied by dry religious observance. God was looking for relationship with men and women.

This past Sunday as we celebrated Fathers’ Day I was reminded that the Church is often populated far more by women than by men. There are all sorts of theories around why this should be, and I have done no research to support what I’m about to say, but I can’t help but wonder - is this also a product of a woundedness in men that has been inflicted by fathers (or lack of fathers)? While the response to this in many churches and Christian movements has been to create new “Men’s Ministries”, I’m not sure that this is the answer. Yes, it can be a good thing for men to get together and deal with their ‘stuff’, and for some men, the presence of women makes it impossible to be as vulnerable as they need to be to open to God. But, we don’t live in stadiums or camp sites. When the event is over, we need to return to our families and businesses and make our faith work. We need to know how to relate to women and children and the elderly, and we can only learn this by engaging with them, not by speaking about them among ourselves.

This is where worship can be such a gift. It offers us an environment in which we can gather as the family of God. Whether we are single or married, men or women, young or old, in the sanctuary we all stand before God as children of the One Father. In the sanctuary we are all challenged to love one another as Jesus loved us. In the sanctuary, we learn what it means to be fathered by God, and we learn how to follow God’s ways into becoming good fathers ourselves - right there where our wives and children are.

So, for those who carry the wound of an absent or abusive father, let me invite you to worship, where your heavenly Father offers to heal your wounds, and where your family waits to celebrate that healing with you.

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John van de Laar is a Methodist minister, liturgical consultant and the author of the book Food for the Road – Life Lesson from the Lord’s Table. He holds a Master’s Degree in theology from UNISA, and is the founder of Sacredise.com, an international worship training and resourcing ministry. John is married to Debbie, and they have two sons.
Visit www.sacredise.com for more articles by John, as well as resources for personal and public worship – music, prayers, liturgies, images and drama scripts.

Youth

This week is a momentous one for South Africa. It’s not just that we’re in the midst of the excitement of the World Cup. It’s that this week we celebrate one of the pivotal moments in our history - the June 16, 1976 riots in Soweto that protested the forced use of Afrikaans as a language for education in township schools. It was a tragic time in which for many of the protesters - young people who were the immediate victims of the oppressive education policies of the time - youth was lost in the chaos of political conflict. In many ways, though, their sacrifice - and deaths - resulted in huge international pressure and marked a turning point in the struggle against apartheid. Let no one ignore the power of young people when they get passionate!

Today, the Church is facing a different kind of protest from the youth. It’s not violent, and it’s often not even really recognised, but it is very real. Quite simply, our churches tend to be experienced by young people as boring, irrelevant and unfriendly places, and in response, large numbers of them are simply walking out the door. In their 2007 book, “UnChristian”, Gabe Lyons and David Kinnaman questioned young people both within the Church and outside of it on their views of the church. The title of the book is a summary of the responses they received. The results of this can be clearly seen in the demographics of the Church. I read a few years ago that the average age of people who attend Church in the United States is twenty years older than the average of the general population!

In South Africa things don’t look a whole lot different. Young people are wrestling with outdated styles of music, with overly formal services and with priorities that are completely disconnected with the realities of living in the 21st century. Somehow it seems that we have forgotten Paul’s advice to the young pastor Timothy: “Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young.” (1 Timothy 4:12 NLT).

The alternative of making young people the only priority and giving them free reign is not necessarily the answer, though. Honouring, respecting and including young people in the life and worship of a community does not mean that young people must rule the community. While they have passion in abundance, youngsters often lack wisdom and discernment - two qualities that can only be gained through experience. But, this does not mean that young people should be ruled over by their elders. Rather, the biblical pattern of leadership is service. What this means then, is that young people need those who are no longer young to serve them, create opportunities for them to use their passion, their energy and their gifts, but also guide and teach them.

In worship, in service, in learning and in leadership we can make two equal and opposite mistakes. We can ignore and reject the youth or we can worship youth and ignore the wisdom of age. Both do great damage to any community. The healthiest communities - which is where you’ll find the healthiest individuals - are those where young and old learn to play and worship and talk and live together. My dream for the Church is that we would learn, once again, how to be multi-generational. Because if we can find a way to do this, our young people will find their youth to be a time of great joy and inspiration. And then they’ll become the leaders our world so desperately needs them to be.

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John van de Laar is a Methodist minister, liturgical consultant and the author of the book Food for the Road – Life Lesson from the Lord’s Table. He holds a Master’s Degree in theology from UNISA, and is the founder of Sacredise.com, an international worship training and resourcing ministry. John is married to Debbie, and they have two sons.
Visit www.sacredise.com for more articles by John, as well as resources for personal and public worship – music, prayers, liturgies, images and drama scripts.

Sacredise: Competition and Collaboration

In many ways sporting events reveal both the best and the worst of humanity. We all know the frustration and disappointment when our sporting stars turn out to have cheated, used performance enhancing drugs, or turned to destructive behaviour. In South Africa we still grieve the fall from grace, and subsequent death, of our late Proteas cricket captain Hansie Cronje. But, we also all know the exhilaration and joy when sports men and women display amazing grace, compassion and good character irrespective of whether they win or lose. Who can forget the great display of skill and character that was demonstrated in the classic WImbledon final between Roger Federer and Raphael Nadal a couple of years ago? Hopefully we will see a lot of the glory and little of the darkness in the World Cup which starts this week.

But, perhaps the most amazing and inspiring aspect of sport is the way it brings together two essential human characteristics - competition and collaboration. Last week we reflected on the “down-side” of competition, but there is also a very positive side to activities in which we set ourselves in contest with each other. In competition we are challenged to work hard, to discipline ourselves and offer our very best. Without competition, we would all too easily allow mediocrity to be the standard by which we live. When we allow others to call us to a higher standard that ultimately benefits us and those who are then challenged by our achievements.

At the heart of this competition, though, is the wonderful human characteristic of diversity. Each player has different strengths and weaknesses, which must be exploited by the opponent, and compensated for by team members. Each team has a different style, different language and different strategies. The World Cup is not just a celebration of soccer. It’s a celebration of the glory and diversity of the human race.

On the other side, it’s incredible that in a tournament like this, every team and every player must collaborate in order for the competition to work. The rules are agreed on by all. The logistical elements must be shared and co-operation on times, venues, equipment and rewards must be given by all. Paradoxically, the competition cannot go ahead without significant levels of collaboration. This is the beauty of these events - even though there is only one winner, we all win because we’ve learned something precious about ourselves in the collaboration that made the whole event possible.

These two elements can teach us a lot about our worship as well. In a sense we are called to competition with each other. As we seek to follow the foot-washing Saviour (See John 13), we are called to serve each other in the best way we can. We are called to outdo one another in love and humility (Philippians 2:3-8), not so that we can boast, but so that we can give and receive life. But, at the same time, we collaborate as parts of one body (1 Corinthians 12:12-27).

In Church we are diverse - in language, music, race, gender, age, sexual orientation, theology - but we are all one in Christ. When we can worship together, celebrating our diversity and seeking to outdo one another in love and service, then we truly begin to experience the power of being the Church. So, this week, how can you embrace both your diversity and your unity as you worship?

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John van de Laar is a Methodist minister, liturgical consultant and the author of the book Food for the Road – Life Lesson from the Lord’s Table. He holds a Master’s Degree in theology from UNISA, and is the founder of Sacredise.com, an international worship training and resourcing ministry. John is married to Debbie, and they have two sons.
Visit www.sacredise.com for more articles by John, as well as resources for personal and public worship – music, prayers, liturgies, images and drama scripts.