Beyond Male and Female

Gordon and Gloria lived in the building across the street from us. Well, actually, they didn’t live in the building, they lived on the rooftop patio of the Roger’s Communication Headquarters, and our condo unit in Toronto, was at exactly the same height as that rooftop patio. In the Spring of 2024, when the Roger’s staff weren’t using the rooftop patio because the weather hadn’t warmed up yet, we watched as Gloria and Gordon set up shop there. Then later in the Spring, Gloria and Gordon were joined by their two children. We didn’t know the names of the children.

Eventually, we called Roger’s security staff to tell them about Gloria and Gordon living on the roof with their two offspring because we were worried about them, and how they might feed their young ones. The next day, we watched as two municipal employees appeared on the rooftop patio. They threw blankets over Gloria and Gordon, and their two young ones, and hauled them off … we don’t know where …

Oh, by the way, did I mention that Gloria and Gordon are the names we gave to those two geese who were nesting in the planter on the Roger’s rooftop patio? Yeah … I think I forgot to mention they were geese … sorry for the confusion …

Now, I need to tell you, when those two workers came to remove Gloria and Gordon, they had a tough time!

Those geese were mean!

Have you ever tried to intimidate a goose?

They don’t scare easily. Sometimes they like to hold their ground against human encroachment.

As they were trying to trap those goslings, we watched as that mother goose, kind of lowered its body to the ground, sticking out her neck, and then … from the depths of hell, letting loose with this unearthly hiss.

If you want more examples, you can go to the internet, and watch a video of a man and his dog. They’re in a boat. They stray into the territory claimed by a mother goose. The video goes on for several minutes … and that goose will just not let up. The guy keeps pushing the goose out of the boat. The dog is alternating between running from one end of the boat to the other trying to get away, or cowering in the bottom.

Eventually he starts the boat motor and they take off across the water. In the background you can see this mother goose flying after them. Actually, chasing them away!

Is there anything more humiliating than being scared away by a mother goose?

But, in a way, we all know we’re up against more than just a goose. We’re up against a universal truth, when it comes to her children … a mother is not messing around.

And if she feels you’re a threat to her babies, you are in trouble.

I remember my daughter Laurie telling me stories about her time living in a village in Uganda. And she said, first thing in the morning, the women of the village would collect up their three big red five gallon jugs - we usually use them to carry gasoline. They used them to carry water. These women – these mothers - would walk almost five kilometres to a place where they could get clean water, fill up the jugs, and then walk back those five kilometres – one jug in each hand and another one balanced on the top of their head. And each one of those jugs would weigh almost fifty pounds.

And then, they would do it the next day, and the next day, and the next day … every day … so their children would have clean water to drink.

This is the maternal instinct. It transcends time. It transcends culture. It transcends economics. There is an ancient mothering impulse.

And it’s also a divine impulse …

Throughout the Bible, it is said, “God is compassionate.”

In ancient Hebrew, the original language of the scriptures, the word used to describe the compassion of God, is the word “roham.”

But, here’s an interesting fact, that’s also the word for “womb.”

So God is compassionate … God is womblike? This is a feminine image for God.

You see, a lot of people are comfortable with male imagery for God. So, God is the father, God is the warrior, God is the judge. God is the lawgiver. But, there are some people who are not so comfortable with feminine images for God.

There’s this great line in the Old Testament Book of Job. God is pointing out the complexity and creativity of creation and essentially says to Job, “Who do you think made all this?”

God asks Job, “From whose womb came the ice. Who gave birth to the frost from the heavens.”

God’s answer to Job is … God … God’s womb? God gave birth?

Obviously, it’s poetry here, so you can’t take it too literally, but this is feminine imagery for God.

And these images can be very helpful in describing the divine – in helping us to understand who God is.

Now, of course, as Jesus said, “God is spirit” – God has no shape. God has no form. God has no physical essence.

What I think is this … God is beyond gender. Perhaps we could say it more accurately, “God transcends, but includes what we know as male and female.”

We read this morning a part of the creation narrative in Genesis, Chapter 1. It says about human beings, God created them male and female – in the image of God they were created.

So, a man is created in the image of God. And a woman is created in the image of God.

And this actually goes way beyond whether a woman is a mother or not. Because some women are mothers, and some aren’t. But there is a masculine dimension to God, and there is a feminine dimension to God.

And it’s so interesting that the early Christian church recognized and valued the contribution of women. It was revolutionary for its time.

Women were witnesses to the resurrection. Women were leaders and organizers and decision makers. And as we read in the gospel passage for today, it was women who supported Jesus in his teaching and his travelling - women who paid his bills.

And so it is, in the letter to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul wrote, “In Christ – in this new reality of Christ – there is neither male nor female.” A lot of scholars debate this question, but it’s possible, this is the first place in human history where somebody argued for the equality of the sexes.

If you don’t have her leadership. If you don’t have her wisdom, her voice, her perspective, you’re not just missing her, you’re missing something central to the very core of who God is.

So, if you’re a woman, and you’ve been made to feel second class – at work, or at home … or in the church. Maybe you’ve been taught blatantly or you’ve just picked it up, that, “It’s nice that you’re around here, but men do the real work.”

That is just not right! I’m sorry you’ve had that experience, because it’s not what God has in mind.

Now, sometimes what happens is that equality gets confused with difference – as if we’re all the same … and what gets lost in the process is the uniqueness of each of us being, “Who we are made to be.”

So we don’t need to run from the differences. We can embrace them. Some women are mothers, some aren’t. Some run companies. Some stay at home. Some live out very traditional roles. Others break all sorts of new ground. And it’s all a reflection of the creativity, of the diversity, of the variety of the God who’s bigger than any merely human language can encompass.

In the Book of Isaiah, the prophet speaks to his people. They’re in exile – they’re miles from home, and they’ve been crushed and broken and destroyed. They’re wondering if they even have a tomorrow.

And Isaiah speaks … “This is what the Lord says, “As a mother comforts a child, so will I comfort you.”

Let me tell you a story …

Years ago, my older brother contracted encephalitis, an infection and swelling of the brain caused by a virus carried by some mosquitoes. He was hospitalized for weeks. At some points, it was touch and go.

I would go and visit him, and every time I would go and visit him, my mother would be there …

She’d be somewhere in the room. She’d be beside his bed. She was all over every detail of his recovery.

And when Isaiah is speaking to his people, who are wondering if they even have a future – they’re disillusioned. They’re filled with despair. They don’t have any hope.

Of all the images Isaiah could use … Isaiah essentially says to them, “Have you ever seen a mother comfort a child?”

“Well, that is what God is like, and that is what God is going to do for you.”

None of us had anything to do with our birth. We received it without giving anything. We were totally helpless, and some woman somewhere – Your Mother – brought you into this world – her labour, her work, her pain – for your life …

When you see a mother doing her mother thing. When a mother’s heart breaks for her children, she’s tapping into the very nature of who God is and what God is like. And that is a gift. That is grace. That is divine.

So, this Mother’s Day, may we embrace the God who’s bigger than any of our language.

Is it possible for us to celebrate all the images, the pictures, the metaphors, that help us better understand who God is and what God is like ... and may we, in the storms of life, be comforted, by God, as a mother comforts a child …