Carol Batdorf, who grew up in the church I serve, wrote this: “I would change the labeling of God to not be Lord or King or He but to encompass the whole collective of beings, a sliding scale of He to She.” This provocative topic has been in the church for its entire existence, and I doubt it will ever go away. There are so many facets to the question; recently, I made a bunch of fundamentalists mad because I said that God’s pronouns are “They” – when they disagreed, I asked them if they believed in the Trinity. Oh, right… God’s Gender isn’t a simple idea. It is a fact that the Holy Spirit is neutral in the Greek and feminine in the Hebrew – to argue this is to admit that you don’t know what the original languages say, which puts you in good company. Jesus tells us that God is a Spirit; Jesus also calls God “Abba” (Daddy). Jesus teaches the disciples to pray, “Our Father…”; Jesus also says that God is like a mother hen who gathers Her chicks. God’s gender is not a simple topic.
Personally, I haven’t used a male or female pronoun for God in over a decade; I even changed “Father” to “God” in the Lord’s/Savior’s prayer that we print in our bulletin. The Gospel of John calls the Holy Spirit “he”, which is a false interpretation of the passage. The need to make God male is, to me, an aspect of human frailty, and it puts limitations on God that I find curious. Why are so many people so afraid to think of God as other than male? What is it about our limited understanding that forces us to try to force God into the man-box? To admit that God might encompass all gender – or have no gender at all – is frightening to some; I personally don’t get it. The Apostle Paul is, of course, to blame for some of this. In the strangely mixed discussion about gender and gender roles in 1 Corinthians 11, the writer – this was possibly inserted after Paul wrote it – goes back and forth between mutual responsibility and male domination. In verse 7 we read, “For a man ought not to have his head veiled, since he is the image and reflection of God; but woman is the reflection of man.” The whole thing is too complicated to unfold here; you should read it for yourself.
Ultimately, I don’t understand why a non-male God is so frightening to so many believers. Genesis 1 says that God created male and female in “our” image; this seems to say that God is more that we can imagine; that God is more than male. I don’t think this means that God has any sex organs or gender aspects – or maybe it means that God has all of it! (Now I went and did it). I don’t think we are physically in the image of God – I think we have God’s Holy Spirit – God’s spark – at the root of our Imago Dei. In the final reckoning, though, how we define God doesn’t matter; it is God who defines us. Think of God the way you want to; God’s grace will cover anyplace we miss the mark. And let others do the same – it’s not your business.
Prayer – Holy God, we know so little about You, yet we argue so much about You, as if we actually know enough to have an opinion. Forgive our stubborn refusal to think beyond our baggage. Amen.
Today’s art is “In Search of Life Divine – Shiva and Shakti – Divine Love” by Pooja Bhapkar