Pastor Amy's Thursday Thoughts

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------As Father’s Day approaches, I know that (like Mother’s Day) this can be a complicated day for folx. Many of you have lost your fathers or had fathers who weren’t present or were harmful. I want to make space in our Christian faith and community for the complexity of remembering fathers, and call for grace toward one another when someone else’s experience of fathering was different than your own.

Traditionally, the church has called God “Father” - including every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer or sing the “Gloria.” And I want to hope that the way we experience God’s parenting shows us how fatherhood can be - present, merciful, gracious, tender, protective, and powerful. Jesus shows us this when he is praying in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before he was crucified and he prays for God to step in and save him from what he knows is coming. In that prayer for God’s power, mercy, and presence he calls God “Abba.” “Abba” is the diminutive for “father” in Aramaic - the equivalent of calling God “Daddy.” Power and tenderness.

We use our human experience to talk about God - including motherhood and fatherhood. And also, we can use our experience of God to shine light on our human experiences of motherhood and fatherhood.

Be gracious to yourself this weekend, and perhaps use a few minutes to bring to mind the adults in your childhood who reflected God to you: who were present, merciful, gracious, tender, protective and powerful. And give thanks for that light.

Blessings,

Pastor Amy

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