God the Father and the Love of a Daddy

People tend to assume that I’d happily purge our theology and worship of all male-centered language. It’s an honest assumption. I consider myself a decent feminist. I’ve had to be confident that women can do everything as well as men, given that I work in a profession that many people still consider “men’s work,” some of whom don’t think I should have the right to do what I do. I like connecting to the feminine divine, not just in the women of the Bible but also in the personality and nature of Jesus Christ, as well as that of the Holy Spirit. The women should be recognized alongside the men, and we should all study and understand the feminine characteristics of God. I believe Paul when he writes, “there is neither male nor female.” (Galatians 3:28) We are equal in the eyes of God and have particular gifts of the Spirit to share for the building up of the kingdom.

That said, I love the language of “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” for the Trinity. The relationship recommended in that language says volumes about the love that binds the Trinity together and that pours out on all of creation. The bond between parent and child is dynamic, intricate, and multifaceted. No other way of referring to the Trinity comes close to imparting the same meaning and connotation. Everything else feels too cold or distanced to me.

I particularly love Christ’s referring to God the Father as “Abba” in the Lord’s Prayer, which is better rendered, “Daddy.” He invites us to share in his intimate relationship with the Father, knowing we can call on God as we would our own daddies. It is a tender connection full of unbounded love.
This is where I must confess my own bias. I come to the language of “father” and “daddy” with a particular reference point: my own father. It was at once surprising, naïve, and heartbreaking for me to realize not everyone had the same warm feelings associated with the word, “father.” My own experience has been fundamental to my understanding of God as the father who wants to adopt us by the unconditional love of grace.

In the collect for Proper 17, we pray in the Episcopal Church, “Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name.” (Book of Common Prayer, page 233). I love the idea that God would graft part of his love onto our hearts so our hearts might grow and be transformed.

For my brothers and sisters who have visceral reactions to the “father” language of the Trinity, I wish I could graft some of my own heart to theirs. I wish everyone had the same abiding warmth in their hearts as I do, so as to remove any barrier they might have in connecting to God, the daddy who would welcome us all home with open arms.

My father taught me the shape of the love of a daddy. He sacrificed much of his time for his vocation so he could provide for his family in abundance. He is a doctor, and his beeper called him out of countless family dinners and movie outings. I don’t know that he sat through a whole movie at the theater with us when we were kids. When he started his work, he was one of just a handful of orthopedists in our town, and there were more than enough patients in crisis in the emergency room awaiting his care. He lost personal time for hobbies and self-care because he was needed and he felt called to respond.

But his dedication to work hasn’t simply been in response to his need to provide for us, his family. He loves his work because it’s the work God called him to do. He has a gift for working with patients, not only to meet their immediate physical needs but also to tend to their emotional concerns by taking the time to listen to them. He genuinely cares about people and is compelled to improve their lives in any way that might be within his capacity.

I never felt abandoned by his departure. He managed to be on my t-ball and softball fields to help coach my teams. He was in the stands at my ballgames whenever his work allowed. After my brother went off to college, my mom was in politics and spent most of her weeks in Atlanta when the legislature was in session.  This left only my dad and me at home. I hadn’t found my love of cooking and neither of us had time to cook, so we ate out most nights at one of our favorite restaurants. He made the time to have dinner and listen to his teenage daughter chatter on about school and basketball and life. He never talked down to me or was patronizing. He treated me as an intelligent equal and we regularly talked about politics and current events.

I have never wondered about my father’s love. I know that I will always have it. The story of the prodigal son becomes vivid and imbued with meaning because the father in the parable behaves as my father would. It takes no stretch of my imagination to envision a father delighted at the return of his son, despite the son’s actions. My brother and I each had our turn to call our dad and say, “Dad, I got in trouble, but I’m ok.” He responded with laughter at our mishaps and pride at the handling of our respective run-ins with the law.

When Christ tells us to pray, “Our Father,” I willingly fall into that language, finding the idea of God as “daddy” to be a source of great comfort and encouragement. Would that I could graft some of this love and understanding into the hearts of my brothers and sisters who were not so lucky to have an amazing Father. I give thanks for my daddy, who gave me the template for understanding the depth of the love of a God who would condescend to be the Father of us all.