Life Metaphors

Any and all language about God is metaphorical. And that does not lessen the power of the words we use, merely tempers them a bit. And so whether God is Father or Creator or Mother or Papa or יהוה any of the other numerous possibilities, the best any word can do is describe a tiny bit of the one who is utterly indescribable.

Likewise, we use metaphorical images to describe life. The words we choose to describe the life God gives are powerful, but similarly tempered by their symbolic roles. So if we describe life as a battle against cosmic forces, we don’t mean literally a battle with literal armies lined up on opposite sides of a literal battlefield literally attacking each other. We mean battle as in a struggle, or opposition to a force at work.

There are other metaphors for a life of faith, of course. I have heard it described variously as a race or a dance or a journey, for example. None of these are literal, but supply symbolic meaning to our approach to living.

I happen to believe that any of these other three metaphors are superior to the metaphor of the battle. My last post explained some of the reasons why I think the battle image doesn’t work as well any more, focusing on the “Armor of God” passage in Ephesians 6. I think, essentially, that what the image conveyed in that letter 2,000 years ago doesn’t get conveyed today.

At different times of life, different metaphors work better than others. There are times when my life has felt like a battle, to be sure. But it was always a temporary deal. Like when the thing I was battling was out of the way, I moved on. So I guess I think of it more as an obstacle in the way of my journey than a battle. The devil doesn’t so much fight me as put things in my way.

What does that say about my theology? I’m still thinking on that, but part of what it says is that I really do think about salvation as a way or a journey. I thought about it that way even before I learned enough Wesleyan theology to realize that’s what I thought! Of course the Wesleys used multiple images to describe salvation, but the metaphor of a multi-stage journey toward “perfection” is the dominant one.

So I think of the driving force of faith as an impulse to get somewhere, much more so than an impulse to defeat something. There will likely be metaphorical obstacles to overcome and metaphorical adversaries to fight against as we go, but ultimately we’re doing it because we’re going. The point is not to conquer the enemy; the point is to get to the place where the enemy doesn’t want us to go.

In Ephesians 6, the term “full armor” is used - πανοπλίαν – and it is only used one other place in the entire New Testament. This fact highlights its significant, particular meaning. The soldier must put on the “full armor” specifically contrasted with only partial armor, in order to be fully prepared for battle. The point being that one must be fully prepared for the work to be done.

And so I can convey the same meaning by saying that we need to be fully packed for the journey, not just a water bottle and granola bar for an afternoon hike in the woods, but the back of the mini-van stuffed with every thing we might conceivably need for the two week vacation. And if I can convey the same meaning using a different metaphor, I think that’s okay.

Finally, I just think life these days is too violent to add to it with violent faith images. Recent pictures of people wielding assault weapons at a public rally only serve to solidify that point. Violence has become normal, expected, no big deal. Why add to that with equally violent responses? Shouldn’t people of God offer an alternative? Something different?

We’re not supposed to meet evil with more evil. We’re supposed to meet evil with good. (Romans 12) In The Screwtape Letters (still my favorite C.S. Lewis book), this quote of Luther appears just after the preface: “The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to the texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.” The devil hates joy, and I find that to be much more useful in overcoming those obstacles than anything else.

What’s your favorite metaphor for life? What words do you use most often to talk about living the way God intends that we live? I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

God's Language

At the "Talking Box" last week (our Children's Sermon), I pulled out a few foreign language dictionaries to look at and asked the kids if they knew any words in another language. A few did - we had Spanish, German, Japanese. Then I asked the kids what language did they think God speaks. There were probably 25-30 kids up there, and so there were quite a few voices who all said at once, "Every language!"

We all had a chuckle, then one boy put his hand up. "Yes, Preston?" I said.

"I think God speaks God-Language," he said.

That was a pretty good answer, I thought, and close to the message that I wanted the kids to hear, so I was getting ready to go with it. However, just then I noticed a girl (happened to be Preston's sister) who had her hand up, as well. "Summer, did you have something else?" I asked, ready to get on with the God's-language-is-more-and-bigger-and-different-than-any-words-we-could-use lesson of the day.

Summer said, "Maybe God's language actually is every language."

At first, I thought Summer had said the same thing we said originally, which was that God speaks every language. But as I thought about it, I realized there is a subtle difference. It is a different thing to say "God speaks every human language" than to say "The language of God is comprised of every human language." The first makes me think of God sitting there in the heavenly language lab, slogging through word by word vocab memorization like I did with German in college. The second makes me think of the words I know as if they are gifts God has given me so that I can communicate with other people.

I like that second one better, I think. If English is a little portion of God-language that God has given me, then Spanish is a little portion God has given another person, and French, and Japanese, and Quiche, and so on and so forth. Thinking of language as a gift that God gives makes it impossible for me to insist that another person learn "my language" so that we can somehow manage to get along. Rather, each of us can figure out how to communicate, using the little bits of God-language that we share in common.

It is fascinating to me how many people are so angry about people who speak languages other than English here in the United States. I'm trying to figure out the source of that anger. Is it fear? Is it pride? Is it arrogance? Is it some strange form of patriotism? To be sure, having a common language makes it much easier to communicate with each other. But why in the world does the phrase "Please press 1 for English and 2 for Spanish" make some people so cranky?

Whatever the national, secular, "official" language issues may be, what Christians read in Acts 2 is quite clearly that the disciples spoke in many different languages, empowered by the Holy Spirit. It wasn't the other way around - the Holy Spirit did not empower all of the other people to understand one language - Aramaic, for example. I think that is because the message entrusted to disciples of Jesus is just so vitally important that disciples need to figure out how best to communicate that message, in whatever language it needs to be expressed.

That means instead of insisting non-English speakers learn English, Christians maybe should learn other languages, with the goal of communication in whatever language(s) work(s) best. Not just foreign languages either, but the lingo of different age groups, the dialects of different cultures, the media of different generations, and so forth.

Remember the Tower of Babel story - a quirky little tale that illuminates the human tendency toward homogeneity, countered by God's desire for diversity (Genesis 11:1-9). Well, Pentecost wasn't the opposite of the Tower of Babel, as I once thought. I used to think that the Tower of Babel story confused all the languages and the Pentecost story brought them all back together. But now I think rather that Pentecost reinforces Babel, emphasizing the reality that God has made people different - cultures, places, languages, ages, etc. The Holy Spirit then empowers us to connect with each other within that diversity, it does not eliminate that diversity for the sake of an artificially imposed uniformity.

Language is a human creation, but I believe that God empowers that creativity. That means, for me, that language is given by God and is therefore sacred. We then can choose how to use it - to help or to hurt, to build up or to tear down, to love or to hate, to share good news or to condemn. If language is a sacred gift, how we choose to use it would then reveal something of what we think about God. So I think Summer is right - God's language actually is all languages together. And so learning another person's language teaches us something more about God.