Chapel Matters

In these extraordinary times, how extraordinary is your God?! In chapel this week we heard the story of Moses encountering God in the burning bush (Exodus 3); while Moses is going about a very ordinary day, he has an unexpected encounter with God and discovers that God is quite extraordinary! Unlike most other gods who have names (such as Zeus, Thor, Tane etc.), God wants to be known as the verb “to be,” as in, “I am”! God simply exists! God isn’t just limited to a domain – as god of thunder or god of the forests – but God “is” and “was” and “will be,” everywhere and anywhere, unlimited and without boundaries!

In relation to this, we also looked at some of the feminine images of God in the Hebrew Scriptures, in particular God as a mother, a seamstress, a mother bear, and a mother eagle. Given that the cultures out of which these scriptures emerged were all male-dominated and patriarchal, this is quite extraordinary! God is also a father, a warrior, a king, and a shepherd, of course, but these images are so familiar that over-use of them can reduce God to something ordinary and containable. Imagine a God who is a fierce mother bear who is protecting us, her cubs! Or as a mother eagle, who guides and teaches her young to fly and be independent, catching them when they fall! Or as a pregnant woman groaning in labour, and a mother who looks after her toddler, making clothes for it (as with Adam and Eve in the Garden too!).

If we can enrich our understanding of God to include these biblical images of God as feminine, then our God might become quite extraordinary, which might be just what we need in times like this.