“An Image of God”

When I was working with the peace movement in Germany, a Lutheran friend took me to a thirteenth-century Cistercian monastery. As we came into this old church, there on the wall was a picture that really expressed some truth about God and the Church.

First, it’s a picture of the Father in the traditional style: the old, bearded man. But in this case he’s holding the orb of power, that golden ball that kings held at one time. But it’s sort of slipping out of his hand. And there was my first clue that this painter and I were on the same wavelength. How can anybody think that God is in charge? Much is happening to tell me that isn’t true. Or, as Jesus much more wisely said, the prince of this world is in charge. So often the lie is in charge, the world, the flesh and the devil are in charge. God hardly ever gets his way. God is a wounded lover; we are running the show. T hat’s the great risk God took in deciding to play for love instead of power.

In his other hand the Father has a sword. I suppose the imagery is dangerous- the God who demands and expects and desires reality to be what it is. It’s the sword of great expectation. Right across from the Father is Jesus, naked and bleeding. He’s got his hand in the wound in his side, and he’s looking across at the Father, eyeball to eyeball. It’s a gaze of great intensity; it’s a gaze of understanding, of mutual giving and receiving. There’s great power in it. And the very sword that the Father is holding, Jesus is restraining.

The Father symbolizes that part of God that demands and desires his sons and daughters to become all they can be, that demanding expectant part of God. Parents surely see that in relationship to their children: why it is sometimes had to be soft or nice to them. If I don’t teach them this, you say, then they will screw up or not live a good life; I’ve got to help them in this way, I’ve got to teach them. We call this the angry God in the Old Testament. That’s not the right work. It’s tough love. It is a necessary part of love. I call it the masculine side of love and the masculine side of God.

Jesus for me represents that part of God that is wounded, that part of God that is losing, that part of God that is failing, that part of God that doesn’t get his way, that part of God that is broken and that we celebrate in every Eucharist. That part of God who has involved himself in love and therefore is involved in the suffering of the world: the Lamb of God.

So between the Father and the Son is the perfectly horizontal line of this sword, and yet there is a love gaze between the Father and Son; they’re looking at one another intensely. It’s a great image: They perfectly accept one another from their different positions- the Son, the weak part of God, if you’ll allow me that word, and the Father, the powerful part of God. Maybe the Father is the powerlessness of power and the Son is the power of powerlessness, which is precisely the image of Jesus. They complement one another.

The picture doesn’t stop there, because on that sword held between them is the dove symbolizing the Holy Spirit. In that relationship, when each part accepts the other, there is a huge explosion and release of power we call the Holy Spirit, the relationship between strength and vulnerability. There is the power. There is the passion. There is the water, there is the breath, there is the air, there is the wind. The Church is born in that creative love and tension between the Father and the Son.

But that’s still not the whole picture: There’s a big space, and on the other side of that space is the woman. It’s obviously Mary, but it’s also the Church, the Church that is feminine before God. The Church that is always receiving and believing and becoming pregnant; like Mary, saying, Let it be, let it happen. I trust it. Mary is standing there in a big and beautiful robe, looking across at this mystery of the Trinity. She’s got a great Mona Lisa smile on her face, deep satisfaction and joy: She loves what she sees and she understands it. She lets it be; she doesn’t try to explain it. She can live with the mystery and paradox. She’s holding up, with her left hand, one of her big robes. Behind her robe are a bunch of abbots, cardinals and bishops. And they’re all in their tiaras, crosiers and miters, sort of peering over the top of Mary’s arm. They’ve all got a quizzical look. What’s going on over there? It’s like they’re not sure they understand.

Mary is holding up her robe, and with the other hand she seems to be gesturing to them: Boys, I don’t think you’re ready for this yet. Just stay back there. I don’t think you’re ready for what’s happening. You’re probably going to go on another thousand years trying to explain, “This means this” and, “That means that” instead of quite simply diving into the abyss, where it doesn’t make a lot of sense, where there aren’t a lot of answers, where there’s only mystery, journey and an impassioned God. God oft-times doesn’t give a lot of answers but just keeps telling us who we are. God just keeps inviting us into that place where love is alive and where God is in love.

from Richard Rohr, A Man’s Approach to God and The Passion of God and the Passion Within

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