When Jesus shared with his disciples the passion he had to be change he wanted to see in the world, he said to them, ‘this is how you ought to pray’:

‘Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.’

Matthew 6:9-13

Jesus does not talk to God as ‘Yahweh’ or ‘Adonai’ – but as ‘Abba’ – or ‘Papa’. Some of us may have been badly abused by an earthly ‘Papa’ and may find it  easier to relate to God as our heavenly ‘Mama’ rather than our heavenly ‘Papa’. Whatever our term of endearment might be, Jesus invites us to relate to God as a committed, caring, kindly, protective, nurturing, loving parent.

As we have seen, Judeo-Christian faith involves ‘deep trust in the watchful love of God for all God’s children. According to the prophet Isaiah, even in the midst of the most terrible circumstances, those whose hearts are centred in God’s faithful care “shall renew their strength, they shall mount up on wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint”.’ [i]

David Benner reminds us that ‘while human love can never bear the weight of our need for divine love, it can teach us about divine love. Human love can communicate divine love. Experiences of human love make the idea of God’s love believable. The relative constancy of the love of family and friends makes the absolute faithfulness of divine love at least conceivable.’ However, Benner  repeats, again and again, there is ‘no substitute for learning what love really is by coming back to the source. God’s love is the original that shows up the limitations of all copies. Only God’s love is capable of making us into great lovers [ii]

Wayne Muller says ‘it is not the fact of being loved that is life changing. It is the experience of allowing (ourselves) to be loved’. [iii] This experiential knowing of ourselves, as deeply loved by God, deepens our thoughts with new data about our world, and deepens our feelings with new attitudes towards our world. In the light of our knowledge of God’s love we know we can trust God, take risks and embrace the world that we live in courageously.

God’s love connects us to all of God’s creation and all of God’s creatures. It moves us ‘from the isolation of self-interest to a connection with life that cannot allow any ultimate divisions. It does not allow (us) to limit (our) interest to those within (our) tribe – whether those tribal boundaries are understood in religious, ethnic or national terms’. Instead it involves us in a ‘movement beyond the hardened boundaries of the isolated self to the selves-in-relationship that make up community’ leading to ‘a sense of (our) oneness with all’ life. [iv]

If we all relate to God as our parent, that makes us all siblings. With the intrinsic connections that brothers and sisters have with one another. And few of us have understood the implications of these connections like Desmond Tutu.

According to Desmond Tutu, ‘God’s dream is that all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness. In God’s family, there are no outsiders, no enemies. Black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, Jew and Arab, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Buddhist—all belong’.

Tutu says ‘God is not upset that Gandhi was not a Christian, because God is not a Christian! All of God’s children and their different faiths help us to realize the immensity of God. No faith contains the whole truth about God. And certainly Christians don’t have a corner on God. All of us belong to God.’

Tutu says that ‘God’s love is too great to be confined to any one side of a conflict or to any one religion. People are shocked when I say that George Bush and Saddam Hussein are brothers, that Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon are brothers, but God says, “All are my children.” It is shocking. But it is true.’

Tutu says ‘this dream can be found throughout the Bible and has been repeated by all of God’s prophets right down to Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. (But) love is universal. You don’t have to believe in God to know that loving is better than hating. When we start to live (in love), as brothers and sisters, and to recognize our interdependence, we become fully human’. [v]

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[i] Wayne Muller Legacy Of The Heart p27 (Isaiah 40:13)

[ii] David Benner Surrender to Love p84-5

[iii] Wayne Muller Legacy Of The Heart p27

[iv] David Benner Surrender to Love p93-4

[v] Desmond Tutu Desmond Tutu’s Recipe For Peace  www.beliefnet .com 2004

Dave Andrews

From Hey, Be And See (Authentic)