a question of honour
Without specifically admitting what I do for a living, let me share that often on my work days I hear the following statement:
All rise. This ‘n’th division of the [n] court of victoria is now in session. All who have business before this court are commanded to give their attention and they will be heard. God save the Queen
And while this is happening, a judge or a registrar or a master walks into the room and s/he bows stiffly to those in the room and we all bow back. We address people as “Your Honour”, “Your Worship”, “Master” or “Sir”. We avoid the use of the vulgar naked pronoun “you”, preferring instead to use phrases such as “Does Your Honour wish to consider X?”. Sometimes these grammatical machinations become a little difficult, but you soon understand the way that we must pevert the language to show the appropriate honour. Even our opponents we refer to not by name, but as “my learned friend” or “my colleague”. This leads to the vague absurdity of making a statement such as “My learned friend’s position is ill-thought out, simplistic, illogical and unsustainable”. Perhaps he or she is not so learned after all.
But these places are not, as you might imagine, solemn, airless chambers filled with dour faces. The good natured sparring between opponents, the cheeky hypotheticals advanced by the judge or master and the familiar banter using well-worn arguments to support one’s case is not solemn at all. Last week in court a colleague referred to Adam Gilchrist’s actions in the Cricket World Cup to support a particular path he was advocating.
Timewarp back several years to a prayer session for a Beach Mission team I was a part of. The prayer leader opined that we consider God’s Lordship far too infrequently and asked for words which evoked this idea of God as Lord rather than friend, protector etc. I disagreed with the whole tenor of the prayer session so in a truly unhelpful way, I kept throwing in words such as “friend”, “victim”, “refugee” and stuff like that. It was fun. (It was probably less fun for the leaders of that team having me there).
I have always associated the idea of God as Lord as distancing God from his creation - making him some arms-length ruler or overseer like a King or a Ruler, and all of us just serfs and peasants who cannot come close to the seat of the throne. And I have this association of dour and lifeless worship spent in solemn worship of some distant deity. Plus, and this is probably the big one, the idea of Lordship seems to negate our capacity to struggle with God, to wrestle with him, to question him, doubt him and to disagree with him. And these are several of the ways that I frequently engage with God, so Lordship has no appeal to me.
However, a vision that I can grasp hold of, is the concept of honour. And I can get on board with the idea of honour. I work in an environment where respect and honour clothe passionate argument and disagreement, where respect and honour soften debates about justice and injustice. I can honour my God, my leaders, my colleagues and others in my community without feeling like that is a whitewash of the complexity of my relationship with those people.
I like the idea of honour. We should have more honour in churches and less Lording it over other people.
April 5th, 2003 at 6:17 pm
@ 04/02/2003 13:17:
And you were honoring the people of the beach mission team by disrupting the tenor of a prayer session with your “fun”? Like it or not, the leader had a biblical basis for his request.
@ 04/02/2003 13:18:
As well, throughout the OT, people like David, Abraham and Job had no problem holding the concept of “lord” while still wrestling with God.
April 5th, 2003 at 6:18 pm
I guess then as a 16 year old, I might have dealt with things differently than I would choose to now if the situation arose. This is probably part of the reason that the incident has stuck in my head. As for the question of Lord, I use the word, and in one sense I think it is great, but another sense of it rubs against me and is inconsistent with my understanding of God.
@ 04/02/2003 14:05:
n addition, there are many descriptions or God or attitudes of worship which have a biblical basis, but which different people might have struggles with. There is a long biblical history of the notion of God as Father, but I know plenty of people for whom the concept of Father has bad connotations and they choose not to use it.
Similarly there is a biblical tradition of describing God as female, but plenty of people have problems with that.
April 5th, 2003 at 6:19 pm
@ 04/02/2003 22:22:
Arrgh. I hate the 400 character limit. I can’t even delete a character when I get to the limit!
@ 04/02/2003 22:25:
Dan, good points. But certainly part of maturity in Christ means an acceptance of God in all of God’s descriptives, rather than ignoring or diminishing one or more descriptives because we are uncomfortable with them.
The problem with God as father is not with God, but with us. The struggle should be to understand and accept those characteristics.
@ 04/02/2003 22:26:
I don’t have a problem with the feminine descriptions of God, but most of the people who push those feminine aspects in the U.S., at least, do not do so to honor God more, but for their own political/identity reasons.
April 5th, 2003 at 6:20 pm
@ 04/03/2003 08:56:
I disagree about accepting all of the descriptions of God. If one of the ways of describing or relating to God is actually a barrier to him rather than an assistance, I think God is big enough to handle different people connecting with him in different ways. After all, this is the process that the gospel-writers went though – choosing the stories and images of God which would connect with a particular audience.
Unlimited comments coming soon, but in the meantime, if you cut and paste from a text editor, it allows you to make longer comments.
April 5th, 2003 at 6:21 pm
@ 04/03/2003 14:03:
Well, we’ll just have to disagree. As we grow, God calls us to a fuller understanding of him. That means accepting and overcoming some things that were formerly a hindrance. I’m not saying you *start out* connecting with him in that way, but you don’t neglect it in perpetuity.
@ 04/03/2003 14:05:
To do otherwise *limits* your Christian growth. There are whole areas you cannot appreciate because you don’t deal with God in relation to those attributes.
Like a parent. When I’m a child, I can’t deal with my mother (or father) in the same way as when I am older. I don’t understand certain aspects of their personality.
May 1st, 2003 at 2:18 am
“Accepting” God
On March 31, “signposts” had a blog entry about the concept of God as “Lord”, which sparked a discussion about the descriptives of God. I want to revisit this, because I am convinced on this point: To grow to a…