Image of God
Matthew 6:24-34

May 25, 2008


A common question to someone beginning to receive spiritual direction might be, “Who is God for you?” Or, “How do you image God?” The prophet Isaiah compares the compassion of God to a woman nursing her child. Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb?

Several of the hymns we are singing today bear the images of mothering. For most people today in the United Church imaging God in feminine ways is not a problem. Still, some people are not aware of how many feminine references there are to God in the Bible. I found just fewer than 50 references in one web search. Isaiah uses the metaphor of “mother’ for God several times. In today’s passage he is responding to his fellow Israelites who fear that God has deserted them. Following the above phrase, Isaiah continues: Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands. (Isaiah 49:16).

What a powerful image this is. God can never forget us because we are always before God. It is as if we are tattooed on God’s palm. I handed out temporary tattoos to the children today to demonstrate to them this concept of being “inscribed on the palms of one’s hands”. Tattoos are pretty popular with children and youth these days. Lots of young people and some older adults have tattoos. Tattoos are a form of “body art”. It seems to me that the images people inscribe on their bodies are statements about themselves and their beliefs. At Iona a forty-something woman, a cancer survivor, had the wild goose inscribed on her bald head. The wild goose is the name and hence, the logo, of the Iona Community publishing company. The pin I am wearing today is this image. While it was a bit of a shock to see a bald head inscribed, it was beautiful. While this woman couldn’t see the top of her head - unless she looked in a mirror - it was an inspiration for the rest of us who could. The image of the wild goose for us was an image of God’s spirit at work in the world.

Other feminine images of God in scripture include: women in labour (Isaiah 42:14, John 16:21 and Romans 8:22); women at their work (Ezekiel 36:25, Genesis 3:21, Job 10:10-12, Matthew 13:33); women’s wisdom (Proverbs 1:20-33; 8:22-31; 9:1-6 and Matthew 11:16-19 and Luke 7:31-35). God is compared to a mother eagle caring for her young (Deuteronomy 32:11-12; 4 of the Psalms; Matthew 23:27 and Luke 13:34) and to a protective mother bear (2 Samuel 17:8; Hosea 13:8). These are just some of the verses reflecting feminine imagery of God.

Today’s gospel images are drawn from nature. Matthew’s message is both challenging and comforting. It’s a challenge to us all as it raises that issue about money and how we use it. Matthew says:

No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

It is often the case that the more financial assets we have the more we worry about them. North America has become increasingly individualistic and focused on consuming. Yet, having more stuff doesn’t really satisfy does it? But we are still tempted aren’t we? And the churches – ours is no exception – struggle with trying to stay “in the black”. Some churches tithe, though the United Church doesn’t. We really don’t want to discuss money but know that we need to.

The good news in Matthew’s gospel is presented in images of nature. Like Jesus, the apostles often used images of nature and narratives from the common life to get their message across. “Don’t worry so much”, Matthew says, can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?

He asks us to consider the question of the quality of our life. What do we mean by “life”? Matthew asks,

Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? So often we fail to appreciate someone until we no longer have them with us. We often fail to fully appreciate the abilities we have until they are compromised. These life lessons often appear more urgent as we get older.

Matthew points to the natural world: Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

Yesterday I saw a yellow finch enjoying our birdbath. Finches don’t often appear in our yard and so we just stopped and watched, mesmerised. It was such a colourful and beautiful sight. I felt blessed.

We have been feedings birds for years but as much as I enjoy them their mess gets to me. Two years ago I moved our feeder – which had hung on a branch over our deck. I enjoyed watching the birds that lined up in formation along our fence but when we noticed that the piles of seed they dropped on the ground between our fence and our neighbours’ fence had become a condominium for mice I moved quickly to take it down. So I moved it into the garden. Then I got concerned about the fallen seeds sprouting in the midst of the perennials. So I took down the bird house. In the winter I felt guilty about not feeding the birds. By spring I was missing the sound of birdsong as I worked about in my flower beds. This spring we put up a new feeder. The problems remain but we have solved one problem – the squirrels.

I used to laugh at my mother and father in their continuing battle with the squirrels. My dad built all kinds of contraptions in an attempt to keep them out of the bird feeders. None of them ever worked. The squirrels were too smart. My mother used to bang on the kitchen window when the grackles ate all the seed which she intended for the songbirds. But I’ve tricked the squirrels. Our feeder is tricky – it throws squirrels off if they try to land on the perch. As far as I am concerned they can eat the piles of feed which the birds still messily toss on the ground!

Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them, Matthew reminds us. Yes, God does provide, but actually it’s me who is filling the feeder! And cleaning their bath.

Matthew has words for the fashion conscious too:

And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, {29} yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.

Do any of you grow lilies? I’m sure some of you do. As for me I honour my familial roots and that of my birthplace by growing lilies. Today would have been my mother’s 105th birthday. She loved gardening and nature. During the summers at the lake she would take my sister and I out walking in the woods. She would point out the woodland plants to us: Indian paintbrush, wood violets, brown-eyed susans, wild strawberries, bear berries, lady-slippers (almost extinct in nature now!) – even poison ivy! I wish though that I had been more attentive back then; I wouldn’t need to run to the plant books so often.

I have a rock in my garden painted with the words, from Alice Walker, “Searching for my mother’s garden I found my own”. It is my tribute to her. It’s where I feel my mothers’ presence.

My home town may have more lilies than any other town in Canada. I was born and raised in Neepawa Manitoba. Neepawa is a little prairie town of 3000 people. There’s verse in the Bible about Jesus that reads, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Often we tend to overlook the gifts of small towns. But Jesus was called the “Nazarene”. Good things have come out of Neepawa, too. Some of you may know that Neepawa was the inspiration for the fictional prairie town of Manawaka – the setting for Margaret Lawrence’s award winning fiction, The Stone Angel, A Jest of God, and The Diviners. Lawrence is buried in the Neepawa cemetery not too far from the real stone angel. Her memorabilia are now housed there in her grandfather’s house, now the Margaret Lawrence Centre.

While you may indeed be familiar with Margaret Lawrence, I suspect that few of you know that Neepawa is the Lily Capitol of the world! Each summer hundreds of tourists descend on the town for the annual Lily Festival held in late July. From its humble beginnings in 1996 the Neepawa & Area Lily Festival has grown to attracting 12,000 people annually from around the world. It’s a fun-filled week of garden shows and teas, entertainment and tours, pancake breakfasts and barbeques. And you can even take a special tour bus from Regina to get in on the fun. Lilies are the pride of our garden. We only have a few of the over 2000 varieties grown in my home town, but we don’t go away when our lilies are blooming.

Nature inspires and renews us reminding that at the darkest and coldest times of the year little green shoots are germinating deep down below the piles of snow. The first sight of the gentle green halos around the trees inspires and uplifts me. The sign of new life, of promise, Matthew chided his community about being of little faith when they became overly focused on basic survival. It was not because he was naive or that he did not care about the poor. Jesus preached constantly about caring for the widow, the orphan, the sick and those in prison. I’m sure he was trying to say, “look at what you have; appreciate the gifts you enjoy. Or in modern terms, “how to want what you have”. Look around you and notice the beauty of others in your world. Notice where your attention is really needed, where your ministry would really be appreciated. Have faith. And as the Sufis might say, “Trust in God but tether your camel!” God is trustworthy but really exists in the world in so much as we carry out the needs of the world. The world we live in is spectacularly beautiful. Let us enjoy it and care for it for all humanity and all of nature. Amen.

Preached by Erin Shoemaker
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan