The Faces of God
Mark 4:35-41 (Calming the Sea)
“Oh God, dear God, tall friend of my childhood,
I will never forget you, though they say dreadful things.”
John Updike’s poignant quote has been meaningful to me, because as I grew up, it seemed like I lost God,
the tall friend of my childhood.
They did say dreadful things,
and I came to question the God I had known.
I tried on other peoples’ images of God.
I read how other religions understand God.
I listened to debates about what God was like,
whether there was one, really.
Sometimes my soul felt like a battleground
as one image of God after another laid claim to me
It seemed safest to address my prayers to
“Dear Whoever…”
It happens for most of us, one way or another:
our God is outgrown, lost, rejected, or abandoned,
…or seems to have abandoned us.
The good God in the sky doesn’t work for us anymore,
but we can’t find what does.
We read contemporary progressive theologians
and they seem to have thrown God out,
and there is nothing left of our tall childhood friend.
While spirituality is definitely in these days,
God seems to be very much out of favor.
We end up in the weary confusion
expressed by French novelist Alexander Dumas:
“O Lord, if there is a Lord,
save my soul, if I have a soul.”
God, of course, is the name, the symbol, we use to represent Ultimate Reality, the Ground of Being, the Source of all, the Creative Energy of the Universe. Our tradition claims that God is not a person, but is relational, and so we use personal language (as do Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Sufis).
So I want to talk about God,
the God of many names,
the God of many faces.
As progressive Christians
influenced by science and progressive theologians,
we find that God is so often reduced, dismissed or ignored.
Yet, Jesus knew God as Abba,
which means not Father but Daddy.
Recently it was the first anniversary of my father’s death
and it was from him that I got my certainty that
God exists and loves me with all God’s heart.
Contemporary philosopher Ken Wilber in his books Integral Spirituality and Integral Life Practice
talks about the three faces of Spirit,
and that might be a helpful place to begin.
Here’s one face of God: when we address Spirit as It.
God is an object to be studied or served.
This is the face of God we see when we study theology or
philosophy,
or we may find this face through nature or art or music or
good works.
Here we speak of God as the Web of Life, Ground of Being.
This sermon is an example of God as It.
Spirit is also known as You (or Thou.)
God is an other with whom we are in relationship.
This is the most common face in Christianity.
This is God the Father or Mother, the Beloved, the Presence
we feel, the one we talk to or listen to in prayer.
the one I serve in love and devotion.
And Spirit can be known as I.
This is the indwelling Christ, the God experienced as One. We awaken to the realization that there is no separation
between God and ourselves and others.
We find this face of God through meditation.
Most people probably do not experience this, or rarely.
It is as though God is hiding inside ourselves,
and using tools like meditation or contemplative prayer,
we play hide and seek.
When we find that Self,
the part of us deeper than our ego and our personality,
then we are like Jesus, fully human,
and also living out the divine in the world.
The apostle Paul was talking about this when he said,
Not I, but the Christ in me.
The goal of life is to become a dwelling place for God.
(John Kirvan; God Hunger p.150)
When Jesus calmed the sea, he knew God as I:
he recognized and lived out of the God within;
his ego and personality got out of the way
so that Spirit could take over, fill him, use him.
Conservative people are good with God as You,
but they reject another face, God as I
.
Progressive folks tend to be comfortable with God as an
object to study or contemplate,
and we are often ok with God as I
the God within, the indwelling Christ,
found through meditation,
but we progressives are often uncomfortable with the
the personal God, God-in-relationship, God as You.
But in fact, all three are vital.
All are correct.
All can be mature ways to know God.
(from Integral Life Practice; Wilber et. al. p. 211+)
So, God has many faces.
The tradition says God is formless (beyond descriptions)
but can take on form.
Hindu culture makes it very clear.
They have thousands of gods.
Each household, each region has its own favorite.
Hindus know there is only one God,
but that Mystery is so unknowable
that the Holy manifests in infinite ways.
I like to think of God as wearing masks.
God puts on masks,
not to hide from us, but to attract us.
Like a child on Halloween,
God puts on whatever face will win our hearts.
I may come to believe that the face I see is not just a mask,
but the true and complete face of God.
When that happens, I am worshipping an idol.
Islam offers us a beautiful image:
they speak of the 99 names of God.
We can recite 99 names (faces, masks) of God:
Mother
Abba
Beloved
Ground of Being
Great Mystery
Spirit and so on
Each of them captures one face of God.
But Muslims tell us that there are only 99 names
because the 100th is unknowable.
Whatever mask we see,
it is never the full face of God.
Of course, that challenges us to respect the masks
others see, especially those we most criticize.
Sometimes a comfortable mask
—the image we have of God—gets stripped away.
It may happen gently when we are ready for the next step
in our spiritual formation.
Or when a tragedy happens, a mask may crack and fall
crumbling, as the God we knew is suddenly too small to hold the crises we are experiencing.
We often make the mistake of feeling it is God we have lost,
but it is only a mask we have outgrown.
So, there are many faces of God.
You may think that God is the word we use in church to
describe Ultimate Reality.
You’re right.
Or you may think God is a loving Father, bending down to
support you and guide you.
You’re right.
You may know God as the Ground of Being.
That’s right.
Or perhaps you know God as Beloved.
Yes.
You may know God as immanent and personal.
Right.
Or you may believe God is utterly transcendent,
beyond all our knowing.
That’s right.
You may think the word God is no longer useful.
Yes.
Or God may be your Rock of Ages, cleft for you.
Yes.
You may say God is nothing we can imagine or name.
That’s true.
Or you may feel God at your side as the one who walks with
you and talks with you and tells you you are His
own.
Yes, yes.
A little girl was drawing a picture.
Her dad asked her what she was drawing.
“God.”
“Ummm…I thought people don’t know what God looks like.”
“They will when I am through.”
I suppose it is too much to hope that you’ll know what God looks like because of this sermon.
But I hope you will be at ease with the face of God that you see,
and ok about the face of God your neighbor sees.
And I hope that you will not let our contemporary climate
take from you the knowledge that the Ultimate Reality
we call God exists
and loves
and sustains
and creates
and challenges
and cares.
Many will try to talk you out of that.
Listen to the poet William Stafford:
There’s a thread that you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread,
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
(But) You don’t ever let go of the thread.
(The Way It Is p.11 Leading from Within, Intrator and Scribner.)
©2009 Janice Jean Springer
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