OUR CUB TROOP gathered to "obey the law of the wolf cub pack to dibb dibb dibb and dobb dobb dobb!" Part of the ritual of dibbing and dobbing was to stand at stiff attention in front of the Union Jack (pre-1965 Canadian flag), making sure to continue breathing as we sang God Save the Queen and solemnly prayed Matthew's version of the Lord's Prayer. In our ironed striped scarves and woolen jerseys, we bowed our heads and ritually intoned, "Our Father..." I could no more have explained what this prayer meant than I could tell you today what all that dibbing and dobbing was about.
In the same chapter as the prayer itself Matthew warned against our cub troops approach to the prayer:"And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition, as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words" (Matthew 6:7). We babbled mindlessly but I put a unique Baptist spin on the prayer. I was the only Baptist in Cub Scouts; the rest were Anglicans or United Church kids. The Baptists I was associated with took their prayer seriously sometimes adding fervent body language to the petition. My prayer posture consisted of holding my thumb and forefinger over the bridge of my nose, squeezing my furrowed brow and praying earnestly. Our troop leader, however, didn't read my pious body language aright. He hauled me out of line and publicly rapped my knuckles for making a mockery of the prayer by holding my nose. However much he misread my motives, he was right to criticize me—even if for the wrong reason. I had made a mockery of the prayer, as we all did weekly, by turning a heart-felt expression of devotion and trust into a joyless, brainless ritual. It was parroted without conviction. To say this prayer with integrity, comprehension and belief would need sincerity.
Years later, after moving from Winnipeg to Vancouver and beginning graduate school, I experienced a time of disorientation. Before my first summer class I sensed the need to be alone and pray. It was a desperate foxhole kind of prayer brought on by the tension of not knowing how I would navigate the changes and challenges. Excitement and tension heightened my awareness of the change in surroundings. Even the vegetation in Vancouver was so much more verdant than on the dry Manitoba prairies. Life seemed considerably juicier; I was ready to be injected with life. Image used with permission from Luis Quintero In the original context, when Jesus taught the prayer to his disciples, their attention was likely riveted on the Aramaic term "Father" . In this first century Jewish context, the intimate address "Abba" would have bordered on blasphemous sentimentality. Pronouncing God's personal covenant name YHWH was considered so holy that the pious had to substitute alternatives like adonai or Lord in order to avoid irreverence. It is understandable that the even more familiar, somewhat childish, term Abba would have been unthinkable. What was Jesus imagining calling God his dad as if he had some special personal connection with the Creator and Lawgiver? It was odd enough that he called himself the Son of God in some unique way but this prayerful familiarity was just plain odd.
Our present difficulty addressing God as Father doesn't concern irreverence; it is the masculine and patriarchal associations of fatherhood that stick in our postmodern throats. Leaving aside gender for now, we encounter, tucked in that little word "our", an even greater offense to present-day sensibilities. How can a modern inclusive person possibly use a possessive pronoun for God? What are we thinking calling God our God? What about them and their God/s? Not only does the "Our Father" sound exclusive, it is also personal! It is not only personal in the first person sense but in the collective third person manner, our abba is the God shared with others like us. Surely we are beyond that kind of anthropomorphic, tribal image, beyond dragging off God into our human categories, making him part of our team. Those who address God as "Our Father" are not limited to the living; they encompass all those who have ever lifted their spirits heavenward in the name of Abba. We sidle up to the earliest disciples, the monastics, the mystics, the reformers, the martyrs and all who have gone before. Standing with them we stand in a family tradition, which is by no means monolithic. We find ourselves standing with those we would hardly recognize as one of our kin but who by virtue of their praying "Our Father" are part of us. The existence of these fellow prayers draws attention to the reality that the Prayer is much larger than our times, individuality and locations. The first word of the Lord's Prayer is a reminder of unity in diversity or plurality of opinions and ideas. It is a term that stretches our embrace but more than that stretches our self-identity; looking down the labyrinth of Christian confessions, the Prayer demands that we admit yes, we are of this troop!
Several years ago a group of us traveled through the beautiful Qu'Appelle Valley of southern Saskatchewan to attend a workshop on imaginative prayer led by Walter Wink. During one of these prayer sessions, I experienced the feminine character of God in a way that surprised me and changed my approach to God's parenthood. After a preparatory time of complete relaxation, I entered into a state of passive receptivity where I opened myself to whatever God had for me. My mind's eye conjured up something out of my cultural past, an image of the feminine Celtic Trinity. As I lay on the floor, I felt beneath me three gigantic women: a Maiden, a Mother, and an old Crone seemed to be stretching their arms up to hold me aloft. Nothing was said and no particular insights were given but not unlike the day in Burnaby Park, when I first encountered Abba father, I experienced complete trust and containment. I was shocked by the pagan nature of my prayer and to tell the truth was frightened by the possibility that I was becoming indiscriminately syncretistic. The dimensions of the troupe (trope?) included in God's grace seemed to be expanding! While the experience of releasing myself and trusting God was identical with my earlier prayer experiences, the ancient female metaphors however uncomfortable they made me feel enabled me to perceive the universal nature of the Lord's Prayer. This troupe that I am part of and who are invited to pray the Lord's Prayer can be described in no better terms than those of the Apostle Paul: With Christ there is neither male nor female, slave nor free, Jew or Gentile. The more universal the nature of this troupe (trope?), the closer we come to the spiritual intention of the Lord's Prayer: that it be a prayer for all.