The Feminine in God and Liturgy

Transcribed from the sermon preached Nov 26, 2006

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

St. John’s Presbyterian Church

2727 College Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94705

Telephone 510-845-6830    Fax 510-845-6837

office@stjohns.presbychurch.net    http://www.stjohns.presbychurch.net

Scripture Readings:  Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-36 Matt 25: 31-46 John 1:1-4

"For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in travail, I will gasp and pant"[Isa. 42:14].

Even though we have many diverse images of God in scripture, male, patriarchal images of God dominate our worship liturgy and tradition. Worship shapes our faith and theology through the ongoing repetition of traditional elements of worship and through creative local and temporal elaboration and interpretation.

Brown Barr, the great pastor of First Congregational Church of Berkeley in the 60s and 70s, noted that congregational resistance to inclusive language does not mean they “are simply stiff-necked. The roots of that resistance, acknowledged or not, lie very deep in religious experience…When we change words we invite a changed perception of the reality to which the words point. To demand that the words of faith change is to demand that one’s faith change. And in changing it can either grow or shrivel, blossom or die.”

Feminists are trying to convince us that though inclusive language is a change to the tradition, it is a change of significance and importance; yet it comes to us from the core of our tradition and can help our faith blossom.

Casey Miller and Kate Swift, in an April 1976 article in the Christian Century talk about using words and symbols to describe and communicate with what is by nature indescribable, except through human experience:

Since the major Western religions all originated in patriarchal societies and continue to defend a patriarchal world view, the metaphors used to express their insights are by tradition and habit overwhelmingly male-oriented. As apologists of these religions have insisted for tens of centuries, the male symbolization of God must not be taken to mean that God really is male. In fact it must be understood that God has no sex at all. But inevitably, when words like "father" and "king" are used to evoke the image of a personal God, at some level of consciousness it is a male image that takes hold. And since the same words are used in reference to male human beings -- from whom, out of the need for analogy, the images of God have been drawn -- female human beings are perceived as less godlike, less perfect, different, "the other."

They cite a small book called Children’s Letters to God. A special poignancy leaps from one page: "Dear God," wrote a little girl named Sylvia, "Are boys better than girls. I know you are one but try to be fair" [compiled by Eric Marshall and Stuart Hample (Pocket Books, 1966), unpaged].

Fundamental to our tradition is the understanding that no representation of the divine is ultimately adequate. Becoming too comfortable with our understanding of God leads to idolatry, for our images of God are not God. And pronouncing judgment on tradition is part of our tradition. Listen to Jesus: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not?" MT 23: 37-38

Our scripture this morning would remind us of the need to humbly realize that the Word of God may show up in the least expected people and places. Lord, when did we not listen to your cries for equality and justice? When you did it to the least of these, you did it to me!

C.S Lewis notes the difference between our image of God and God. “My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence?” We might reply, yes, shattering of our image of God is one of the marks of Her presence.

There are feminists who would rather toss out the three Abrahamic faiths altogether. Some evoke or draw upon Hinduism and ancient Middle Eastern faiths for female deity. But a basic glance at History of ancient Babylon or Hindu society will show that the presence of feminine names and images of God doesn’t equate with equality and justice in society, especially for women. In the same way, indigenous American religions, with the more frequent and powerful Mother Earth image, also offer mixed results in the female life conditions department. But even if there was not a perfect golden age, an ideal garden to go back to, certainly this revival of feminine memory has much to contribute to our collective wisdom and journey toward a more just, divinely inspired society.

There is another group of feminists who are critical of patriarchy, applaud the archeology of feminine history wherever it may be found, and who also find liberating tradition worth building on within the Church.

Feminist scholars have reminded us of the feminine gender of the word Ruah, or Spirit. Elizabeth Johnson, in She Who Is, points out that Semitic and Syrian early Christians did construe the divine Spirit in female terms, but that "over time custom of speaking of the Spirit in female terms waned in the West along with the habit of speaking very extensively about the Spirit at all." Revival of this Spirit tradition is worthwhile, but not enough says, Johnson. “While the Son has appeared in human form and while we can at least make a mental image of the Father, the Spirit is not graphic and remains theologically the most mysterious of the three divine persons. For all practical purposes, we end up with two clear masculine images and an amorphous feminine third.” (p. 54)

The Gospel of John takes the feminine divine wisdom tradition of this morning's proverb, and associates it with the logos or Word who is Jesus Christ. The incarnate Jesus, the man, embodied the feminine Spirit and Wisdom who was in the Beginning. “I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep.” If scripture speaks of God as like a mother, a mother bear, a mother hen, a mother eagle and a baker, if the Wisdom and Spirit of God have feminine aspects, if both men and women are created in the image of God, if the incarnate Christ is found within “the least of these,” including women, if the trinity is not a small committee but the One God in three persons, then every aspect attributable to one of the three persons applies to the other two, and therefore, we may use both male and female metaphors and images to refer to all three persons of the trinity.

Johnson again: “Speaking of God in the image of male and female has the advantage of making clear at the outset that women enjoy the dignity of being made in God’s image and are therefore capable as women of representing God. Simultaneously, it relativizes undue emphasis on any one image of one sex alone. The incomprehensible mystery of God is brought to light and deepened in our consciousness through imaging of male and female, beyond any person we know.”

So what about the practical application of inclusive language? The first step to addressing the exclusive, literal use of masculine language was to attempt to eliminate exclusive language in liturgy. For instance, Instead of mankind we say human kind. In exchange for “Father” we might insert “Parent”. Instead of saying “Praise God for He is our salvation” we may say, "praise God for God is our salvation.” You may note that the printed words for the Doxology in the bulletin are not what you learned when you were younger. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost is changed to “Praise Triune God whom we adore.”

There are several problems with this approach. First, there is a linguistic problem of putting the right words together. There is also the desire to allow historical documents, whether music, scripture or theology, to remain as they were written. The artistic mind certainly understands the issue of the fashion or thought police making adjustments to their work. Beyond the language and art issue, inclusive, gender-neutral language often fails to communicate God’s personal relationship with us.

I don’t know about you, but Triune God doesn’t sound like something to adore. When a child falls down she doesn’t cry “Parent,” she cries “Mommy.” We run the danger of turning God into something impersonal, or into a function.

Even while there is an aspect of God, which remains mysterious and indescribable, there is another element that is deeply intimate and personal. Ultimately, our desire in worship is not to talk about God - in the third person, but to talk with God – in the first person. This is what Martin Buber called our “I and Thou” relationship with God. “If to believe in God means to be able to talk about him, then I do not believe,” Buber said, “But if to believe in God means to be able to talk to him, then I believe.” This incarnational aspect of God, the God who comes to join in intimate, loving relationship with us, helps create similar relationship with other human beings and indeed, all creation. That other person is not an object, but embodies the risen Christ.

Personally, for these reasons I have tried not to overuse gender neutral language which tends to thin our language and imagery of God, and instead have kept using images like Father, and King, but tried to add in feminine and other diverse images and metaphors for God. I also understand the danger of any patriarchal or hierarchical language in liturgy, but somehow changing the image of God from Prince of Peace to President of Peace doesn’t ring true…even as we can pray fervently to the Prince of Peace for a President of peace. Certainly God as Father is too beautiful, personal and powerful to eradicate. In seminary one frequently hears prayers beginning “Father/ Mother God.” I find this cumbersome linguistically. I like to complete a phrase, thought or idea…let it evoke God on its own, and then come in later with another. A big problem is that we have a mountain of masculine tradition, well worn with use, and the burden of coming up with explicitly female affirming liturgy and music becomes our own. Quite simply, it is more work.

Feminine language for God is not only more work since we so often have to create it ourselves, but also because it points to the sin of sexism. Of little fault of its own, feminine language for God draws attention to itself as a critique of centuries of conscious and unconscious oppression of women. It is true as Brown Barr says, that “The purpose of language in public worship is not to disseminate propaganda – not even Christian propaganda – but to ‘unhide’ and re-enact in the present moment the saving event of Jesus Christ.”

It is unfortunate that feminine language for God is so noticeable that it may jolt us from the flow of worship. We are not about propaganda in our use of worship language, but we cannot always prevent folks, even ourselves from interpreting it as such.

You might remember that one day an African American woman in the South decided not to get up from her seat on a bus. That should not have been a big deal; her small act should not have been something that drew attention. Certainly few white persons noticed as on that same day thousands of African Americans gave their seats up. Nevertheless Rosa Parks has become a household name for her simple courageous, sacrificial act. And because of her act, thankfully similar acts today go unnoticed.

The church is a magic bus on the way to heaven. The solution to this strangeness problem is not to give up on feminine language for God but to find common places for its expression. This is why I have placed feminine imagery for God in our liturgy and left it there. My intention is not to shock. On the contrary, my intention is for the expansion of our image of God to become expected and common. When you go to another church and find exclusively masculine language, you might begin to feel that their god seems a bit boxed in, a bit limited, a bit less beautiful.

Even so, we realize that our talk about God doesn’t save us any more than theirs does. It is, finally, our relationship with our Father, the Father who welcomes the prodigal home, Our Mother, the Mother who will not forsake her nursing child, our brother, the Christ who showed on the cross that God's life and love is stronger than our sin or death. This is the one God we love, the one God we worship.