Has it ever occurred to you that God might actually want our company just as we enjoy the company of friends?
I’m sitting in the house of friends, with a mug of coffee beside me with six geese and the words ‘Birds of a feather flock together’ on it: it’s how we’re made! We like to be with others – to have companions.
The Bible starts the account of creation with ‘in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” In the story of the Garden of Eden we read, ‘and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the evening… the Lord God called to the man, “where are you?”‘
Sadly the point here is that they had muffed it badly and upset their relationship with God, but nevertheless the story suggests God dropping in for a chat and an evening stroll together. Then, much later in human history, God took on human existence as Jesus of Nazareth in Palestine 2000 or so years ago – close companionship indeed. To those who were his followers, those who were ‘in the know’, he made a point of telling that they were not ‘servants’ merely, but ‘friends’. However, over the centuries the Christian church has tended to become institutionalised and turned God into a distant presence ‘up there’ who, if we behave ourselves, will support us by doing things for us, but has lost touch with the fact that more than this, he offers to be with us, our companion.
Richard Rohr puts it like this: God for us, we call you FATHER. God alongside us, we call you JESUS. God within us, we call you HOLY SPIRIT.
Lynette Weekley, Holy Saviour Church.
