"Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven ... (Matt. 6:9)

God-Intimate and Close

Jesus' sense of God was so close, so real, and so intimate that he never prayed without addressing God as his heavenly Father. His relationship with God was always expressed from a father-son relationship. This familiar and ideal relationship has nurtured Christian prayer for centuries. But addressing God as "Father" creates a great deal of uneasiness in today's world.

Paul Tillich, in his book The Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper, 1957), states that all of our language about God is symbolic, "because symbolic language alone is able to express the ultimate" (p. 41). In our attempt to describe God we use metaphors, similes, parables, and poetry. In describing God's comfort, I think of the words of Isaiah 32:2, where the prophet talks about "the shade of a great rock in a weary land." In describing God's power, I think of Martin Luther's hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." In talking about the guidance and care of God, immediately the Twenty-third Psalm comes to mind, "The LORD is my shepherd." To describe God's personal relationship with us and the world, the most popular metaphor through the ages has been that of "father" and the "fatherhood of God." For centuries we have prayed, "Our father, who art in heaven ..." and confessed our faith together by saying, "I believe in God the Father Almighty ..." These metaphors—shadow, rock, fortress, shepherd, and father—have served us well in our attempt to understand and to describe God.

In his book, The Idea of the Holy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1928), Rudolph Otto reminds us that it is impossible for the finite human mind to comprehend the infinite eternal God. He states, "If the human mind could fully explain God, then God would cease to exist" (p. 71). For to be God, God has to be illusive, mysterious, and distant. The Lord declared to Isaiah:

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isa. 55:9)

Our desire to communicate to others the reality of God makes the use of symbols and metaphors necessary. In our cautious and inadequate expressions, we must keep in mind that God will remain far more than our words and phrases.

This can be a risky business. A little girl in Sunday school was working very hard on a drawing. The teacher asked her what she was doing. The girl said she was drawing a picture of God. The teacher told her that no one knows what God looks like. Confidently the girl replied, "They will when I am done." When we speak, we may feel that not only do we have a picture of God, but also that our picture is the only picture of God. Upon realizing that our language of God is symbolic, we may feel that our preferred symbol or metaphor is the only one. We are so limited in our expression because our finite minds are trying to express the infinite. We may distort the image of God by the limitations of the symbols we use.

Jesus calls God "Father," and it is impossible for us to use a symbol that would convey the same idea of this divine relationship to all people everywhere. For centuries, Christians have thought of God as the "eternal masculine." So we ask the obvious question, Why have Christians overlooked the "mother" metaphor for God?

There is an obvious answer to that. The Bible reflects the period in which it was written. The biblical metaphors for God as "Father," "King," and "Lord" were used in a time when the male-dominated monarchy was the keystone of political order. God's sovereignty was expressed in terms of royalty and kingship.

In the agricultural society of the first century, it was inevitable that the poetic imagery of God's tender care and concern should be drawn from a shepherd and his flock. This imagery was well known to the people of Jesus' day, who encountered shepherds and sheep every day. To them, this imaging of God was vivid. Sheep and shepherds are not so well known to our world.

In the patriarchal society of Jesus' day, the father figure was dominant, especially first-century Jewish families. It is quite natural that their thoughts of God would center around God as heavenly Father. These verbal images and metaphors functioned well for those days. But the world has changed. To say that God is our Father conveys entirely different meanings in today's world. Because of the abusiveness of some fathers, for many children today, the father image is terrifying and frightening.

A chaplain at a children's home told how he could not use the Lord's Prayer at the home. There was a thirteen-year-old girl at the home who, from the age of seven, had been repeatedly abused by her father. Whenever she heard the word father, it triggered a violent reaction from her. Thus to use father as a metaphor for God is not always suitable for all of the world's children.

However, we must seek to understand what this metaphor meant for Jesus and how he understood God as his heavenly Father. What did it mean for him? What does it mean for us? Jesus admonished his disciples, "Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven."

Notice the opening word of the prayer: "Our"—not "my" or "your," but "our." For Jesus, God is the Father of all people, from the four corners of the earth. God is the common longing of the human heart. The "our" of this prayer cuts across every land, culture, race, and need. God is not the possession of any one group of people, but of all people.

Then notice that the prayer begins with God. The very first phrase of the prayer recognizes who God is. It is only when God is given proper place that all things fall into place. The very first thought of this prayer is to focus thought and recognition upon God rather than upon self, needs, or problems. If our first thoughts are on ourselves, we will be disappointed with the results of our prayer and feel that we have failed. Jesus teaches us in his prayer to get our thoughts off of ourselves and onto God, who for Jesus is "our" Father of all.

Just prior to Jesus' teaching the Lord's Prayer to his disciples he gives two general rules regarding prayer. First, Jesus criticizes those who pray to be seen and heard by others. "But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret" (Matt. 6:6). The story is told of the time when Harry Emerson Fosdick was invited to Boston on a Sunday evening to preach. Just prior to his sermon, a prominent Boston pastor led in the evening prayer. Following the sermon, someone asked Fosdick what he thought of that minister's prayer. "It was the most eloquent prayer ever offered to a Boston audience," he replied.

Second, Jesus insisted that we must remember that the God to whom we pray knows what we need: "For your Father knows what you need...