A long, long time ago, a deeply faithful people were given a name. A very important name. The very name of their god. The same god who was revealed without a proper pronoun, but a description. The popular translation is

I AM WHO I AM

But even these words in English don’t capture the movement and power present in the Hebrew.

EHYEH ASHER EHYEH

Everett Fox, in The Five Books of Moses suggests

I will be-there howsoever I will be-there.

Not so poetic as the Hebrew, but much closer to what it communicates to the reader. For this god who is being revealed as EHYEH ASHER EHYEH isn’t saying I am timeless but that I will be. And more, that this god will be there where the people are. At the Exodus, in the desert, at the homecoming.

This revelation of a “name” became the name used: YHWH. It is likely pronounced “Yahweh” and comes from a form of “to be”.

A new name

Other faithful people suggested that we stop using the name. Wherever the name is used, we put a marker, so as not to defile the name or take it in vain. They even began altering our scripture so that the name would not be printed for us to see. Unfortunately, the name’s placeholder came with a ton of baggage: LORD.

This of course isn’t enough. The LORD is not our god among many, they argue. But the only. Let our LORD become God.

And God became Father, man.

The Pronoun

I have written before of my struggle with the divine name and with the personification of GOD. I sincerely struggle with the ineffectiveness of our language and the imprecision of our preferred words. That’s why I found such kindred thought in Sarah Bessey’s writing on the pronoun problem.

Bessey is an incredibly thoughtful, precise, and honest writer. Her prose in “Pronouns: Or, why I still use masculine pronouns for God” vocalize my own feelings on language and experience. Her concern for those hurt by the masculine pronoun and those who demand we all use it encourages my deepest sympathy and concern for a church that is for all.

I can totally relate.

And yet, I come to a very different conclusion.

I want us to communicate our best, not just the language of our ancestors. But I used to think exceptions should be made for the sake of community. The argument I made was about The Lord’s Prayer. It was much like Bessey’s: though I would prefer the use of the “modern” Lord’s Prayer, many people have a deep affection for Elizabethan English. It is how they memorized it. For the sake of community, we can throw them this bone.

This was my compromise. I was doing it for the church. Then I had my son and began to pray with him at night, rocking him to sleep. And the newer version came so easily, so rhythmically, so naturally from my lips. It is the prayer as he is coming to know it. The prayer that is already his.

I refuse to deny my son his prayer. The prayer that is closer to him, that makes more sense, and is much more poetic.

There is so much more to GOD than being a He.

And so much more to us and how we relate, than our calling GOD a He.

The page of this life is far from full.

zero-sum

Using masculine language or the “traditional” Lord’s Prayer aren’t compromises, but artificial victories in a zero-sum game. It is not speaking faithfully in a way that some need to hear it. It is maintaining traditions for the sake of ignorance. For if there are people that cannot hear Bessey’s prose about faith and about GOD and know GOD in the entirety of her writing, regardless of the pronouns she uses, then I doubt that knowing GOD is what they want.

Language, like faith, is imprecise. It is not only about what we want to say, and it certainly is not about what we demand to hear, but the respect and dignity of an imperfect attempt to put into the finitude of words, the infinite. It is not a battle about my words vs. your words or new words vs. old words in some winner-take-all deathmatch in a steel-cage.

Real compromise, the kind Bessey is describing has no winners or losers. It isn’t about the pronouns she adopts for herself to which she has trouble relating purely for the comfort of the other. It is only compromise if her gift is reciprocated: if she is joined in compromise. If there will be true learning and respect for the great number, ever increasing number, that struggle with a masculine pronoun for an infinite source of all life. The one who will be-there howsoever the one will be-there. A sincere effort to learn about GOD and why words matter.

That right there, is holy work. Work we continue to do. For our sons. For our daughters. For ourselves. For a present and a future that are much closer to GOD’s dream for us than the dress-up games of our childhood. For all words lose their meaning, even the very Logos, GOD’s Word made flesh, even that Word will lose his meaning if we aren’t building the kingdom.