Is your God too small?

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.  See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands (Isaiah 49:15-16).

            Some reflections from Martin Luther:  “Here you see the comparison.  How could God speak more sweetly than in transferring a mother’s experiences to Himself, and the most concerned experience is carrying a child in the womb.  The highest honour should be given to her who is pregnant.  Here consider God’s zeal and care for us.  Is not the maternal instinct constantly concerned about the infant?  So God cares for us with an everlasting maternal heart and feeling…. The fetus knows no concern.  All the concern is in the mother, who looks after her tender belly.  So God is likewise concerned for us.  Therefore He wants to say: ‘Leave your cares, which look for ways of escape and other places of refuge.  Come to Me, I will carry you in My womb.’ The uterus and womb of God is the divine Word, by which we are fashioned and borne, as Paul says to the Galatians [4:19], ‘My little children, with whom I am again in childbirth until Christ be formed in you!’ … It is an outstanding and very firm comfort for the godly that God cares for us.  Therefore we must strive with a single heart that we abide in the Word.  The Lord will reject no one, however weak, if only we cling to the Word, the womb of God.  Thus, then, we must believe in our weakness that we are borne in the womb of God, who will care for us with supreme devotion and will never reject us…

            These are supreme consolations.  They should be written in golden letters.  Let us just cling to the Word alone, and we shall have God as a mother who feeds us and carries us and frees us from all evils.”  (Lectures on Isaiah, as quoted in For All the Saints: A Prayer Book For and By the Church)

            I find it truly amazing that Martin Luther wrote this way back in the 16th century.  Seriously, have you ever imagined yourself in the womb of God?  Yet, this is not so far-fetched.

            All through the Scriptures, there are both masculine and feminine images that are used to describe God – all of which are inadequate and incomplete since we can never fully comprehend or describe God.  In the same way, our language is always inadequate and incomplete when it comes to God, for – at least in English – there are only two pronouns to choose from: he or she.  Yet, Genesis insists that both male and female are created “in the image of God” (Gen. 1:27).

            Ultimately, the descriptions that we come up with for God are always too narrow and too small.  We tend to try to describe God in human terms, yet God is so much broader and more expansive than we can imagine.  The book The Shack picked up on this really well by portraying God the Father as a black woman named Papa.  God defies all expectations and shatters our well worn assumptions.  In fact, if we are to believe the gospel of John, “God is spirit, and those who worship [God] must worship in spirit and truth” (4:24).

            Is it too much to believe that God could be both mother and father – could be referred to as “he” and yet also have a womb and a bosom?  May our minds and our hearts expand, as we realize how fully and deeply we are loved.

                        In Christ,

                        Pastor Lynne Hutchison