The Fullness of God
Table Talk
Setting the Table
You are welcome here. Come just as you are, bringing whatever is on your heart today. Take a few moments and allow yourself to just be. Take a couple deep breaths, grab yourself a cup of coffee, light a candle, do something that brings you comfort. Allow yourself to be present in this moment.
Consider how the language and imagery we use for God influences the way we experience God and the world.
“It follows that as truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother. Our Father wills, our Mother works, our good Lord the Holy Ghost confirms. And therefore it belongs to us to love our God, in whom we have our being...for in these three is all our life...”
- Julian of Norwich
Isaiah 49:15
God: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.”
Food for Thought
We often underestimate the power of words.
Words can be powerful forces, like waves that crash against rocky cliffs, carving out their shape over the years. The words we use shape our reality.
So, what type of reality do we create with the language we use about God?
I grew up in a faith tradition where the Bible translations we used, the prayers we offered up in worship, and the songs we sang together — most often referred to God as "he" or "him". We mostly used exclusively masculine words like Father and Lord when we talked about God and even when we talked to God.
As I’ve worshiped in different churches in my adult life, I have experienced communities that have used more inclusive language for God by cutting the pronouns out of their reading of Scripture and simply saying, “God,” but very rarely have I heard aloud in worship the use of overtly feminine language for God. It would be scandalous, I think, in many churches to call God mother, to use feminine pronouns, or even describe the Holy Spirit as a feminine presence.
And yet, so many of us can tell stories of how we learned to love and serve others like Jesus because we observed the women in our churches giving of their time and practicing compassion. Though perhaps, we have never been able to articulate it, we are witness to the manifestation of God’s love in female friendships or in the mentoring relationships we had with mother figures in our lives. Our limited language for God can sometimes keep us from identifying God in the feminine or the feminine in God — it can keep us from experiencing what I believe offers a full presence of God in our world.
I know that was true for me, but something began to change when I had children. I came to understand the divine in a way that surpassed anything I had known before. As a mother, I participated in the vocation of God, creating and nurturing and sacrificing my very self for these beings I loved. Through pregnancy and breastfeeding I realized that it is the core nature of God — and of humanity — to bring forth life and sustain that life with comforting presence and love. The experience of motherhood was perspective-altering for me and it opened me up to new ways of thinking and being.
It certainly helped me interpret Scripture in a broader way. When I read the Gospels’ accounts with this more expansive view, I begin to appreciate even more the stories of the women in Jesus’s life. Women show up at the cradle, the cross, and the tomb of Jesus. I recognize now that these women became the divine presence for Jesus at his most sacred moments. When Mary gives birth to him, nurses him, and raises him, she is life-giving like our God who nurtures. When his mother and the women disciples stand vigil at the cross, they are like our God who has not forsaken Jesus but remains. When Mary Magdalene comes to the empty tomb, she is like our God of persistent presence, meeting the risen Jesus where he is, and taking his resurrection light to the world.
Is it just as honorable and reverent to call God Abba — beloved Father — if that is how we relate best to God in our personal life? Of course! But I believe that when we open ourselves and our language about God, it can be transformative to the way we experience the fullness of God’s love and nature.
We come to know the character of God through the person and teachings of Jesus, but we also see God in the women who surround Jesus with their presence. When we see this perspective in the Jesus story, it provides an example for us of the balance in the divine. It can help us to know and understand our God better, the God who is both mother and father, the God who loves and leads in the world through the work of the full spectrum of humanity.
Make a list of the ways women in your life have influenced the way you understand the love and compassion of God.
Reflect on the special female role models that have been present in your life. Write down their names, and maybe write them a letter expressing your gratitude for their influence.
For a printable version of today's reflection Click Here!
Blessing
May God give us the courage to open ourselves to the fullness of the divine and to allow that reality to change each one of us and this world from the inside out.
A little Table Talk for your table...
How was God depicted in the tradition of your upbringing? How do you understand or relate to God now?
Share how you have experienced the love and compassion of God through the mothers and female role models in your life.
We often think of God as it relates to ourselves, and the way we understand our own human behavior. How might we challenge our traditional views of God, so that we expand the way we see God and therefore, the way we see one another?
Try taking it to the Kids Table...
Ask your child to describe how they view God, or to draw a picture of what they imagine God looks like – pay attention to the language and imagery they use.
Then, ask them what has inspired this view of God – why do they imagine God this way?
If you feel inclined, start to intentionally point out the ways you see God in your day to day life — in your loved ones, in the trees, etc. Then, down the road, ask your child again how they imagine God. See what of this shift your child notices, or if their perspective on God changes or broadens. What of your own perspective has shifted?
Meet Our Welcoming Voice!
Jennifer Garcia Bashaw (PhD., Fuller Seminary) is Associate Professor of New Testament and Christian Ministry at Campbell University in North Carolina. She is an ordained American Baptist minister, and, in addition to periodically preaching, she enjoys training and resourcing pastors. Dr. Bashaw has a passion for teaching the Bible on a lay level and contributes social media content to outlets such as The Bible for Normal People and Baptist News Global. She is the author of Scapegoats: The Gospel through the Eyes of Victims and the forthcoming John for Normal People: A Guide through the Drama and Depth of the Fourth Gospel. She and her husband, Kerry, live in Fuquay-Varina, NC with their three sons, Noah, Riley, and Isaac.
To hear more from Jennifer throughout the week, follow along on our Instagram!
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