When my sister came home from Cornell on Christmas break during her freshman year, I overheard her address our mother as “Marjorie.”  It was perfectly accurate; Marjorie was our mother’s name, but it still struck me as all wrong.  I suspect it must have struck my sister as wrong too, because after she had tried it out a couple times, she reverted to “Mom.”  (My mother, not known far and wide for quiet indulgence of her children’s foibles, uncharacteristically never made a peep of complaint about her daughter addressing her by her first name.)

There may be nothing wrong with grown children addressing their parents by their given names, but it sounds awkward to me.  I know I’m probably old-fashioned, but even though children and parents are equal in value, they are not equals in rank.  And long after we need to ask permission to stay out late or borrow the car keys, I think we still owe a certain deference to parents.

How one should address parents is not the focus of my reflection.  Rather, what’s on my mind is the so-called “kin-dom of God.”  You may be happily unaware of this turn of phrase, but it is gaining purchase in some parts of the church.

I understand the rationale behind using “kin-dom” of God instead of “Kingdom” of God.  The changed wording is trying to remind us that within the family of God we are all equal in dignity and worth.  Lots of harm has been done though the abuse of power.  Not surprisingly, this has led to a healthy suspicion of hierarchies in the church and in general  

I get all that, but renaming the Kingdom of God has a side-effect that I find unacceptable.  While all are kin within the family of God and of equal rank with one another, we are not equal in rank with Christ.  Christ is the sovereign (the King, if you will) and we are members of his Kingdom.  If the sexist language (King=male) is troublesome, we could speak of the reign of Christ or the sovereignty of Christ, just so long as we are clear with ourselves that we are not equals with the Ruler of the Universe.

All of our talk about Jesus as our “best friend” is great in that it reminds us of the intimacy we can have with Christ, but we have to guard against casual familiarity.  Friendship with God must include reverence and awe for the Divine who has graciously admitted us to this relationship.

We pray to a heavenly Parent who will always be infinitely more than we can imagine.  There’s a reason why the biblical authors stress the importance of “the fear of the Lord.”  That ‘fear’ does not mean cringing in dread of a capricious tyrant, but the overwhelming sense of one’s finitude and limitation in the presence of the God who calls worlds into being with a word. 

Before this One, I kneel. 

Prayer:  Almighty God, forgive the ways in which I rebel against your sovereign rule over my life – when I forget that you are God and pretend that I am.  Amen.