Our Father

Papa, Dadda, so close You are known in the first sounds to cross our lips and teach our tongue.

Momma, Papa, essential and intimate,
heart and home,
sweat and blood,
milk and bread,
tough and tender,
the essential helix weaving us into life.

Dadda, Momma, the one to nourish,
the one to whom we cry, and rage
and shout and throw a fit knowing we will be loved, anyway.

Mom, Dad the names we yell when at last we arrive home,
dropping our bags, announcing our presence,
claiming our space and knowing we are never alone.

Dad, Mom, Grandpa, Auntie;
the ones we call when we need a way out of no way, wisdom for the next step
or a ride home to safety, no questions asked or eyebrows raised.

Mamma, a cry for life, for safety, for bandages and hugs
for food, for more, for help
for breath.

My God, our Father, what a claim
Papa a Revolution, Mamma a Revelation

Intimate as family with God Almighty,
kin with the weaver of the universe, sharing the substance of stars
Siblings of all creation, each lake and stream and tree,
each creature and each face near and far
Our Father, A Holy birthright gifted to all, not owned by a privileged few.

My God, what a claim!
All of us kin,
sacred and beloved children of God.

My God, what a claim,
a world teeming with the holy,
all of us family.

My God, Our Parent, tending our dreams, seeding us with courage and gumption and grace.
Our Mama, drawing us close like the hen gathering her chicks and
protecting us like an eagle guarding her nest.
Our Father wiping our tears, holding us close and promising better days.

My God, what a claim.
For Your love we give thanks and for all this bond of kinship expects of us
may we have the courage to be your children, reflecting Your All-Loving image.
We pray with the one who taught us to pray, Amen.

—
Jesus probably didn’t say Our Father to be formal, he said it to show how we are connected to God of the Universe. And the truth, Abba is probably more similar to saying Dada, Papa or Daddy rather than the formal “Father,” which if you are like me, you have only used in the same tone as when your parents call you using first and middle name. When the disciples ask Jesus to teach him to pray (btw, they know how to pray…they come from a tradition of Psalms and daily prayer) Jesus invites them to remember God as parent, you might imagine Mama and Dadda. God so present, so connected, we name that relationship in the first syllables to pass our lips, the first ways we cry out for help, for love, for food, for more.

When I was in seminary, there was this budding star on the new church start scene and even though he was focused on justice, some women came to him in his congregation and asked him if they could use more images for God in worship including feminine names and pronouns for God. This young preacher responded something like, “Jesus calls God Father and he would want us to do this, too.” This for me is tragic and probably not in the box of “What Would Jesus Do?” I don’t think Jesus invited folks to pray the Lord’s Prayer so that he could affirm a gendered hierarchy that places masculinity on the top of the spectrum, like he is the best of all the pronouns, and Jesus certainly didn’t invite anyone to offer the status quo in systems of domination, ever. No one actually imagines God to have male anatomy when asked a question about can we call God Mother, but this name is not the norm for our context so it pushes us to let God out of Her box. It matters that we name the fullness of God so we can honor the fullness of God in creation and people all around us. It matters that the oldest church asks you to call the Priest “Father” after you have named God that way in communal prayer. It matters that naming God only as male privileges male authority and voice all around us and I just don’t think that is what Jesus was trying to do. This is one metaphor and every metaphor has its limits.

Another limit on “Our Father” is some folks around us have really shitty Dads. Not every person has parents who are ready to parent, able to parent, healthy enough to parent and some parents have wounded with words and hands the very sacred little souls they are suppose to be tending, loving, teaching and nurturing. If that is you, I am sorry, and this metaphor may hurt at times or it may heal heal at times. But it is only one metaphor for God.

When I imagine Jesus inviting his community past and our community present to name God as parent, as Dada or Mama or Papa, I imagine God as the one that makes us safe and answers our first cry for food, for love, for more, for attention, for a change of diapers. I imagine God as Papa, the one who swings you up high and the one who catches you. I imagine God as the Mama hen, a metaphor Jesus knew, drawing us close in her wings. God as Mama bear, another metaphor Jesus knew and he didn’t have to watch a YouTube clip to know that a Mama bear will cut you if you mess with her cubs. Jesus names God as “Father” and I imagine my Mom - the one I can cry to and yell at and rage and throw a fit knowing I am loved anyway. God as parent reminds me of coming home, dropping my bags and the first thing I shout is, “Mom! Dad!” This is an invitation to the safe space, the space where you can drop your bags and your guard and be exactly who you are. It is the space of love that is both tough and tender, love that wants you to grow and soar. Jesus says to his no-body disciples that are hassled by everyone, God is your parent. I hear it in every Mama and Papa and in George Floyd’s last cry for breath and life, he called out, “Mama.”

That’s where the power is, Jesus says to a bunch of no-bodies, fighting for life and breath and existence that isn’t one of drudgery and dehumanization that God is their Father. He says this in a culture where birthright means something. It doesn’t matter if your Daddy is Caesar or a Carpenter, you are sacred, you are all beloved. Praying this prayer asks us to see one another as kin, as family. All of creation connected and woven together with God’s love. And praying this prayer reminds us of the image of God we are called to embody. We are sacred children of God and we are made in God’s image, called to grow up into offering this profound love to others. In her “Poem at Thirty-Nine,” Alice Walker talks about her father. She begins with all she learned from him and closes:

“How I miss my father
He cooked like a person
dancing
in a yoga meditation
and craved the voluptuous
sharing
of good food.

Now I look and cook just like him:
my brain light;
tossing this and that
into the pot;
seasoning none of my life
the same way twice; happy to feed
whoever strays my way.

He would have grown
to admire
the woman I’ve become:
cooking, writing, chopping wood,
staring into the fire.”

We become our parents. Maybe some of us see that in the kitchen or in the phases we share with our children, the nose we see in the mirror or the gestures we catch ourselves using over and over and over. Hopefully we are wise enough to nurture the best of the earthly parents and caregivers and mentors in ourselves and faithful enough to lean into the tremendous love of God. Jesus invites us to pray and to name God as that most intimate, loving, tender, brave presence and calls us to be that for others.

May we have the courage to pray this prayer with our very lives. Amen.


Questions to explore:
• What does a loving parent look like to you?
• What names did you use for parents, Grandparent or other caregivers? How does it feel to call God papa or mama?
• When have you witness or experienced this?
• Where do you feel called to grow into offering this kind of love?