Many of you will probably remember English lessons at school and having the meaning of ‘simile’ and ‘metaphor’ drilled into you. A simile is a figure of speech when you say something is like… or as… something else. (eg “For hope grew round me, like the twining vine.” (Coleridge – Dejection)) A metaphor is a figure of speech when you actually say something is something else. (God is a rock.)
Similes and metaphors introduce us to language that goes beyond the functional. They help us to see beyond the tangible and visible precisely by using what is known, seen and familiar and linking these to something invisible or unfamiliar. A metaphor goes further than a simile in that it actually puts the two ideas together without any linking or comparison, and that often jolts us and makes us see something in an entirely different light.
The Bible study tomorrow will be looking at 2 John, which is generally understood to be written to a church rather than to an individual, despite its opening greeting ‘To the lady chosen by God and to her children.’ Metaphors such as this abound in the Bible. Why? What’s the point in saying something is something when it really isn’t?! To the literal-minded among us, metaphors are frustrating because even when you know the plain meaning of a word, they don’t really make any obvious sense.
‘A metaphor takes a word that is commonly used to refer to a thing or action that we experience by means of our five sense and then uses it to refer to something that is beyond the reach of our immediate senses.’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘The Jesus Way’, P 25) Metaphors are useful precisely because they convey ‘in a single word the indivisibility of visible and invisible, of seen and unseen, of heaven and earth.’ (ibid.)
When we say God is a rock, we know full well what a rock is like and can picture it clearly. God is invisible, however, and we cannot easily picture what He is like. The images we have of God are refined by our understanding of a rock. Clearly, God is far more than rock-like, but the known object leads us into contemplation of the unknown. Furthermore, metaphors often leave us puzzled, surprised or even confused. They require us to think about the description, to enter into the imagery and to use discernment and imagination to see what was previously invisible.
It’s rather like the ‘Night At the Museum’ films, where the exhibits in the museum come to life at night, leaving the night watchman bemused and bewildered! During the daytime, the exhibits seem staid and rather boring, but adventures galore happen after the museum is closed. In the same way, words can seem very dry and boring, but metaphors lead us into the open air and show us all the different ways in which we can see this invisible world inhabited by God. Our eyes are opened and our world of drabness and pragmatism is suddenly invaded by light and life, miracles and angels, eternity and hope. These two worlds are not separate, even though they may appear to be. The two aspects – drabness and colour, darkness and light, life and death – are indivisible and metaphor allows us to move freely between these two worlds.
