(Isaiah 57:15-16; Matthew 6:9, Luke 15:11-32)
Religions tend to have sacred languages. In Islam, God mainly speaks seventh-century Arabic. The Qur’an was supposedly dictated to Mohammad word for word, and so when you memorize it, you memorize it in that language—whether you understand it or not. That’s why the God of Islam is always called “Allah,” because that’s the Arabic word for “god”; and it’s why the traditional prayers are offered in seventh-century Arabic, even if you don’t speak it at all. Most Jews of Jesus’ day spoke Aramaic, and maybe Greek, not Hebrew—but prayers were offered in classical Hebrew, all the same. Some in this country firmly believe God speaks King James English, and if you don’t say “thee” and “thou” when you pray, you’re not doing it right.
And then along comes Jesus, and he says, “Pray like this,” and the next word out of his mouth is, “Abba.” It’s the Aramaic word for “my father,” or “our father”; and when he said that, the earth shook. No, not because this means “Daddy”—it doesn’t, despite what you may have heard—but with that one word, he gave his disciples a new way to talk to God, and a whole new model for what it meant to be the people of God. Gone is the idea that you have to talk to God in just the right way for him to listen; and gone with it is the idea that any one people or culture or group has an inside track on God’s love and attention and favor. All are welcome at the throne of grace.
That’s only half the punch of this word abba, though. The Old Testament sometimes describes God as father when talking about him as Creator and King, and the Redeemer of his people; and in the prophets, God sometimes calls Israel his son. But to address God as Father—and especially as my Father—that was different. There’s nothing casual about this, for abba was a respectful word; but it was also a word which affirmed a profound personal relationship. If you call God Abba, if you address him as “my Father,” you aren’t talking to him as someone who’s far distant and far above you. You may understand, rightly, that he is indeed far above you, far bigger and greater than you, and far more good; but at the same time, you’re talking to him as someone who’s right here with you, who knows you completely and loves you deeply, without question or hesitation.
Of course, we have to be careful not to let our image of human fathers control our image of God, since none of us live up to his standard, and some fall infinitely short; we need to see how Jesus describes his heavenly Father, and ours. That’s why we read the parable of the two lost sons. (Your Bibles probably call it the parable of the prodigal son, but ignore that; both those sons are prodigals, one’s just more obvious about it.) I’m not going to cover this parable in detail this morning—come back in October for that—but I want to give you an idea just how shocking this parable was to Jesus’ audience.
First, in that culture, for the younger son to say “Give me my inheritance now” basically meant, “I wish you were dead.” Second, for such a traumatic insult, the father would have been considered perfectly justified in beating his son within an inch of his life and throwing him out of the house with nothing. I heard that same reaction in seminary, by the way, from fellow students from Israel and also from East Asia. Third, that inheritance was not money, but land—the land which sustained the family; for the son to sell it was to violate the Law of Moses, to betray his family, and to make himself the enemy of his entire community. The only way he could possibly redeem himself would be to come back so rich that he could buy it all back and then some. Fourth, if he came home a failure, the village would shower him with abuse, and probably with rocks.
All of which is to say, the way the younger son acts, someone’s going to kill him, or the next thing to it—if the father doesn’t, his neighbors will. But not only does the father not punish him at all, he blesses him; and then he sits every day on his front porch, looking down the road, watching for his son to come home. And when he sees his son away off in the distance, he takes off running—and in that culture, grown men never ran, and the more important you were, the slower you walked; you wore a robe that reached all the way to the ground, and to run, you had to tuck it all up into your belt and expose your legs, and that was shameful. But he does it, running all the way through the village, protecting his son from the abuse and attacks of his neighbors by taking all that shame on himself; and then he welcomes his son back into the family, without any reservation.
This is who God is; and this is who we are. If we come to him, it isn’t as people he hopes to punish, who have to figure out a way to get on his good side; we come to him as his beloved children, welcomed home.