Nov. 5: 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Metaphor in Scripture

Mal 1:14b-2:2b, 8-10; Ps 131:1, 2, 3; 1 Thes 2:7b-9, 13; Mt 23:1-12

Popular writers and speakers have one talent in common — they enable us to feel their message. Good writers and speakers succeed not because they supply us with information that otherwise we would not have, but because they are able to touch us and move us.

Take, for instance, President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. It was a short speech lasting but two minutes.

Today, more than 200 years later, school children recite it, and scholars analyze it to find out why it was so successful at moving the audience to see the Civil War as something more than a struggle to save the Union, but as a new birth of freedom.

What tools do good writers and speakers use to move their audience? A most valuable and effective tool is metaphor — a figure of speech that helps us understand a new concept or idea by relating it to something that we have already experienced. Today’s Scripture lessons use a metaphor that we know very well.

The first reading and the Gospel speak about God as Father (Mal 2:10; Mt 23:9). This metaphor has become common among Christians because of its use in the Lord’s Prayer.

Speaking of God as Father involves the use of figurative language — the language of imagery and metaphor. It helps us to have some inkling of what God is like because we know what fathers are like — we know what our fathers were like.

The problem with metaphorical language is that it does not always work as intended. What does calling God “our Father” say to those who grew up without a father? What does it say to someone whose father was abusive? Still, the metaphor works for most people because they were blessed with loving, caring, supportive fathers. Still, we need to remember that when we call God “our Father,” we are saying that God is like a father.

The Bible also employs feminine imagery to speak of God as “mother.” This is the case with today’s responsorial psalm: “I have stilled and quieted my soul like a weaned child on its mother’s lap” (Ps 131:2). Those who pray this psalm identify themselves as those who have found peace and safety like a child in its mother’s lap.

The clear implication is that the mother that comforts the child is God. Here, the Bible plainly uses feminine imagery to speak about God. God is like a mother. That is imagery that plays on the emotions just as the image of God as father does.

Both metaphors exploit the fond memories we have of our mothers and fathers as they attempt to evoke a similar emotional response to our experience of God. Both images seek to engender trust in God by suggesting that God is like our parents on whom we relied to love us and care for us from the first moment of our lives.

The reading from Malachi uses two other metaphors in speaking about God: king and Lord of hosts or armies (Mal 1:14b). These metaphors spoke to the people of Judah and are less effective today. Their martial tone is off-putting to many people.

God as our Father, however, remains a familiar, powerful and effective image to help us understand who God is and how God acts. The responsorial psalm offers a complementary image as it likens God to a mother comforting her child. Although the metaphor of God as father occurs more frequently in the Scriptures, we ought to be comfortable with both images for they speak of the love and constancy of God’s care for us.

Paul co-opts the maternal metaphor to respond to accusations that he sought only to make a name for himself and to enrich himself through his ministry. The apostle assures the Christians of Thessalonica that his sole concern is to share the Gospel with them, and that his devotion to them is like that of a nursing mother toward her baby.

Metaphor is a powerful and effective tool in arousing our emotions. The paternal and maternal imagery that appears in today’s Scriptures seeks to use our memories of parents to evoke a loving and grateful response to the God who loves us like a father and a mother.