A Circle of Kinship with God

Dear Friends,  

I just read an interview with Sister of St. Joseph Elizabeth Johnson, eminent theologian recently retired. Elizabeth tells that she had no intention of writing another book, but God had another idea. She was inspired to go the route of a book of meditations on God and the earth. Its major title is “Come, Have Breakfast,” drawing on the words of Jesus to his disciples, who met his disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee after the Resurrection.  

Jesus invited them to breakfast, which he made himself, doing woman’s work with ease and divine/human dignity. 

Once again, Jesus breaks the mold of what we believe God does.  

“Everything we say about God is limited by our own finite experiences,” Elizabeth Johnson says. “God is infinite. So we have to keep breaking open our categories and letting our spirits soar into the actual mystery of God.” 

Ours is not the only generation which has stereotyped God, placing God in a distant place with words that render God unreachable -- all-mighty, ever-lasting and all-powerful, to mention a few. At the same time that we have relegated God to a distant heaven, people have created our own gods to worship. Wealth, fame, prestige, power and beauty rank high as cultural idols. We don’t need such gods. We need to make space for our humanity and space for the real God.  

Do you know the hymn that begins “Lord, You are the Center of My Life?” It evokes an intimate image of God’s presence and a truth that we welcome if we want to grow in faith. But the image of the disciples, sitting with Jesus at the seashore, offers an image we might not be used to. God joins us in the circle as we breakfast together while sitting on the earth by the sea. This does not place God in the center of our circle, where there is still a distance, but God next to us. God at our elbow. God stretching and reaching for another morsel of food. God eating fish and bread with us.  

We are in what Elizabeth Johnson calls a “circle of kinship” with God. God loves all people and all creation with a closeness that is immediate and unflagging. We are kin to one another and to God as we live, whether we are on the beach or in any other place. 

Today, Trinity Sunday, let’s celebrate God with us -- the real God and not our own version of God. Part of our circle of kinship. 

~ Sister Joan Sobala

* The photo above hangs over the altar at Our Lady of Lourdes in Brighton, NY.