Anthropologists tell us that the earliest human societies were organized and led by women, and that they worshipped goddesses. That is not surprising as men were off hunting and women and children gathered foods near their settlement. The people would have perceived in the Divine the very good feminine qualities attributed to their goddess -- nurturing, relationship, reconciliation, devotion. As agriculture kicked in men and women functioned side by side, and the divine patheons came to be populated by both male and female deities. As populations became more dense and human social organization grew more complex, male deities began to predominate. For example, in early Hebrew religion, the great Canaanite god El became the sole divine partner in covenant, and El's wife Ashterah was fired. In the Jewish Bible, we discover that Ashterah continued to be popular with Jewish women and, so, worship of her had to be suppressed.
Patriarchal Judaism naturally began to attribute to God masculine qualities. Unfortunately, in this exercise of men making God in their own image, God came to have both positive traits, like leadership, counsel, and protectiveness, but also the negative traits like being capricious, angry, jealous, bloodthirsty, and in favour of violence, war, and conquest, as well as cruel and unusual punishments for misbehaviour.
It is only natural to anthropomorphize God, as it is easier to imagine and relate to a deity we do identify with a gender. But it can also be dangerous when it is used to justify injustice, genocide, oppression, and cruelty. Fortunately that old tribal view of God is gone -- at least from those of us practising liberal Christianity. God has not changed or "evolved," our understanding has improved.
Today, on Father's Day we want to lift up the best aspects of manhood. The good father loves and values the child, forms and models for the child, knowing that ultimately our efforts are in God's hands, so to speak. The Prophet Samuel is an example of someone who apparently did all that he could do for his two sons, and they turned out to be corrupt and incompetent. So much so that he had to replace them as judge-executives with their first king, and that king was a loser. In our reading today, Samuel tries again, and this time lands David, who for all his sinfulness, will become Israel's paradigmatic monarch, eventually to be touted as an ancestor of Jesus.
Jesus tells us that even the smallest amount of faith, "like a mustard seed," can empower us to move mountains -- to do things we never thought we could do. Paul, in our epistle reading [II Cor. 5: 6 et seq.], reminds us that we walk by faith but will be judged by our actions. James, step-brother of our Lord, said faith and works are inseparable. There seems to be no room for the nonsense that we simply sign some statement of opinion about Jesus, thereby "get saved," and can be raptured to a replacement planet after death. Clearly we are being called to build the Kingdom and to be judged accordingly. We sow the seed of the Gospel through faith-impelled action, and God will bring in God's harvest in God's good time. A harvest of love, justice, and peace on earth.
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