Cursing and mathematics were second nature to Dad and served a similar purpose. Both were a creative outlet and solved problems. He would tell dirty jokes at the supper table regardless of Mom’s frowns and I would laugh when he laughed even if I didn’t understand the punchline. Dad was a voracious reader with an amazing memory which let him recount Civil War battles as if he had been there. He read books like “Tom Sawyer” and “Swiss Family Robinson” to me before bed and our summer camping trips would not have been complete if he didn’t read to us by the light of the lantern as exotic beetles and moths threw themselves into the hissing light. Dad also had an explosive temper that was always hovering just below the surface, like a hungry shark cruising calm waters. There was no avoiding it.
This partial description of the complex man that was my father could have skewed my vision of God the Father but it didn’t. Having met all my friend’s fathers I knew that my Dad was not the only form of father out there. These men were all different and we both loved and came in conflict with them in different ways. Somehow we instinctively knew that fatherhood wasn’t completely embodied in any these men and yet they all exhibited, to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the man, certain traits we call fatherly. We saw them as authority, provider, rule-maker, judge, teacher, role-model, giver of love, etc.
When I became a father the last thing on my mind was, “will I enhance or destroy their image of God the Father?” No, I arrogantly decided I knew what to avoid from my Dad’s example while being blind to my own weaknesses. Yet, despite the inevitable flaws of the world’s father figures…
Jesus wants us, commands us even, to consider God “Our Father in heaven.”
We have begun considering God as Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) class in the Catholic church. This dogma of Christianity, that there is only one God who is also three Persons, is one of those Divine Mysteries that is only attainable through faith. This may seem unfair, a cop out in this rational age, but it may be more clear if we first consider the nature of sin.
The Genesis Eden story is not meant to be taken literally but it tells us more about ourselves than a stack of psychology books and it tells us a great deal about God too. In that story we see sin revealed in two ways:
Grasping at God (to try to manipulate, control or dominate Him) and
Running away from God.
If we consider our relationship with our parents we can see the truth in this because at times we tried to dominate our parents and at other times we found various ways to evade them. It’s ironic that, whatever form the conflict took, it showed who was the rightful authority. Nobody tries to take the place of those who are beneath them nor do we run away from someone weaker than ourselves. Oddly enough…
Our sins point to who God is.
If I demand miracles from God I am acknowledging that He is capable of performing them.
If I use His name to cover my lie I am saying His name represents all that is true.
If I show ingratitude I’m admitting that God is the source of all I have.
If I am indifferent to Him I am confessing that God exists and deserves my love.
So should we sin more to prove that God is awesome? Don’t make me come over there!
Why does God seem to be such a paradox? Why is He a mystery?
The Greek meaning of the word mystery is “to shut the mouth”which tells us that our first reaction to our Father in heaven should be to listen and obey. When God revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush and Moses wanted a name God replied “I am who I am.” God is not a being with a name and a form; if He was we would immediately take it for ourselves or use it to manipulate Him. “We know who you are,” we would shout, “now do what we want!”
God’s unhelpful answer to Moses was intentional, it was a way to show how God transcends everything that we know. Our first duty to God is not to understand Him but to say “hallowed be Thy name” and to show we believe He is worthy of our praise. The image of the Triune God, three in one, is meant,in a way, to confound us. Just as the name God gave Moses was meant to keep the Israelites from believing they could grasp at God so too the Trinity reminds us we don’t have God all figured out.
We acknowledge that God is not a being but being itself. How do we wrap our finite minds around that? We say God knows all but really what we mean is God knew everything into existence. We say God is everywhere but we’re really admitting He is always with us “to the end of the age.” We understand God is all powerful but know it makes Him completely reliable. We want to say God loves us but we are told instead “God is love” which makes our relationship with Him so much more complex.
Our Father in heaven is all these good things we can name, and more, but never completely fathom (which is a hint at why heaven will be so glorious; we’ll have forever to get to know God better). Yet we have enough understanding to know there is a difference between the Creator and we the created which makes God worthy of our adoration. We are meant to adore, reverence, praise, and worship God and God only. This isn’t a restriction. This doesn’t belittle us or slap us into our place. This is an invitation.
We are invited to practice the virtues of Faith, Hope and Love!
Faith, that amazing gift of grace nourished by the Holy Spirit is our invitation to freely respond to God’s revelation of Himself to us. When we reject God we are showing ourselves to be immature teens demanding God be all we want Him to be.
Hope is that wonderful confidence that God is with us in life, that in fact our life would be impossible without Him. It doesn’t mean we presumptuously claim to have salvation in the bag or despair of ever seeing God which are both me-centric ways of thinking. Hope is the virtue of the humble.
Finally, when we stop grasping at God or running away from Him we are left with a relationship, a relationship of love.
I did not try to control or dominate Dad, I was into avoidance. I was the same way with God which is why when I read John 14:23 that summer day so many years ago it sent a shiver down my spine. That verse not only marked the beginning of the end of my evasion of God but it showed me the way forward, it showed me the way toward a relationship with my Father. May it do the same for you.
Jesus answered and said to him, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”
There are times I look at the Sacraments, the water, the wine and bread, the oil, the words and actions and I wonder how such common things can bestow grace. They seem like a rickety bridge to God, better yet would be flames on our heads or foreign languages spouting from our mouths. Maybe a voice from heaven or a rumble in the earth would be a better sort of sign and symbol for us rather than getting wet in front of the congregation.
What really gets me though is the conversation between John and Baptist and Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew.
Is God a huge super being up there, separate from us and beyond our comprehension? Or is He something else? In the RCIA class at the Catholic church we have been learning about the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, those three distinct Persons who are yet one unified God. We began a couple weeks ago by 
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