God's Tender Touch

Psalm 37:4-5
Hosea 11:1-4
Mark 10:13-16

"God": Bendicion
Leader: Dios te bendiga

How often before today have you seen or imagined God in a silver-blue dress?

We don't often see God that way. It's the Virgin Mary's outfit, isn't it? When we think of heavenly tender touch, many of us, at least the Romans among us, think of Mary. And for all that we have a sizeable list of Venezuelan faith groups on our service sheet, Venezuela is 98% Roman Catholic. The Virgin Mary is so familiar and much loved that we often forget that those motherly, feminine, "tender-touch" gifts belong to God. The Venezuelan women who offered today's worship service have reminded us that the Bible does show us a God who also has a feminine, motherly way of loving -- "like those who lift infants to their cheeks" or take little children in their arms.

Powerful and usually male images of God are our cultural inheritance. And it's a wonderful and true inheritance, God as Father and King, but it isn't all that God is.

Once when I was at the grocery store, wearing flannel and jeans, I saw a toddler from one of my congregations. I grinned and we played peek-a-boo around the cookie display for a while until he ran off to hide behind Mom, squealing, "Look, Mom. There's God without her fancy dress!"

How easily we pick up what our culture shows us. But children see things anew. In one church where both clergy were women, when the preschoolers were asked to draw pictures of God, most of them drew a woman. And they didn't share the amusing confusion I faced: These kids knew their priests were not God. But they knew their priests were like God.

I came here yesterday to prepare for today's worship, wondering what this group expected God to be like. I asked the other ministers "What does God wear? The unanimous response was "God wears whatever he wants to." I heard the "he" in that image. And I heard also the "whatever God wants to" -- God's power. Our God is powerful and male.

So, what does God wear? We often picture God wearing brilliant white or powerful red-gold or elegant shining royal purple. How do you picture God? God did give us one quite perfect picture: Jesus. And what did he wear ? mostly ordinary clothing -- what everyone else wore When God wears whatever God wants to, God chooses not shining silver blue but ordinary human colors.

In the incarnation -- in God's coming into this world -- "God" says "Bendicion" to us. God asks us for a blessing. God comes to us as a helpless baby. God not only puts on our clothing, but God truly becomes one of us. The incarnation is more than God dressed up as a human. God's becoming human is more than skin deep.

God came to us as baby. In our reading and in Carmen's song today, Jesus asks us to come to God in the same way he came to us -- as little children saying, "Bendicion." Jesus gathers around him those who most needed blessing: the poor and homeless, pregnant teens and victims of violence, the hungry and the unemployed.

This is not a God dressed in royal colors. What does god choose to wear? We are the ones who dress God in powerful red-gold or heavenly silver-blue. God dresses Godself like us -- in bright Venezuelan colors or ordinary Minnesotan coveralls. God dresses like the poor and the broken, hurting and lonely among us In Christ God puts on all that we are: (priest puts on multi-colored stole to represent the colors of the earlier offerings of brokenness represented on colored banners) the burdensome blue of teenage pregnancy, the glaring yellow of violence, the aching red of malnourishment, and the forsaken green of homelessness and unemployment.

God wears many colors and comes to us in many images. There is truth in nearly all of the images we have of God -- king, shepherd, father, mother, baby, love, silence, rock, light -- but no one image is enough -- God is always more. So God continually dresses herself in new and surprising ways. Keep your eyes open for it -- for God's touch in our lives.

• God's tender touch comes to Venezuela in their delight in creation in the midst of suffering and violence
• God's tender touch comes to us in Paynesville in the gift the Venezuelan women have given us in showing us a new image of God
• God's tender touch comes among us as we reach out to share God's tender touch with each other.

Worship ministers were Christian Women from Paynesville, Minnesota.

The cross on this page was made for World Day of Prayer to represent "God's Tender Touch by ceramic artist Maria Gerarda Arocha Yanez.