THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD: A Journal Article Major Lindsay Rowe
There is a sense in which each successive generation seeks to define its God in light of its own unique culture and times. I guess that's why I don't have a great deal of difficulty with contemporary Christian music and even current attempts to make the language of the church a little more inclusive.
These approaches to worship are a reflection of what is happening in the society around us. In fact the church should gain a great deal of comfort from this reality for it reflects that this generation has not rejected the message of the church, it merely seeks to make it more intelligible to the average seeker.
The proliferation of new, modern-language translations of the bible is, no doubt, a result of such seeking. Having said that, however, any generation that seeks to make the Word of God more accessible and interesting, either through inclusive language or contemporary hymns, needs to follow clearly delineated rules and biblical guidelines. We do not often follow our ideas to their logical conclusions before we embrace them as good ideas and implement them into our thinking.
One very poignant illustration of this is our propensity to preach sermons and form conceptualizations of God as "mother" especially at this time of the year. In doing this we often fail to distinguish between saying, "God is like a mother," and concluding that "God is our mother." There is no doubt that God is like a mother in many ways. In Genesis 1:1 he is brooding over the creation like a mother hen. In Isaiah 49:15 his compassion and love are like a mother with a child at her breast, and in Isaiah 66:13 it says, "As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you_" But it is a huge step from saying that God is like a mother, as scripture supports, to concluding that God is our mother, a claim that the bible does not make.
Why am I being so sticky about this? Because it is one of those ideas that sounds attractive because of its inclusiveness but which is dangerous because of the erroneous and unbiblical perception of God it evokes.
Jesus, who surely has the last word on who God is and what he is like, constantly referred to God as his Father and never as his mother. That reality cannot be explained away by appeals to the patriarchal nature of his culture for even his Jewish counterparts were flabbergasted with his use of the Aramaic "Abba," literally "Daddy," to refer to God. Such intimate familiarity with the Almighty was not acceptable to them for it violated their notion of the transcendence of God.
When Jesus called God "Father" he was saying something about God that "Mother" just could not capture. There is no disrespect for motherhood here or for women in general. Jesus was far beyond his times and outright revolutionary in his respect, dignity, and acceptance of women in his ministry.
The fertility cults that were so common in the Ancient Near East, featured gods and goddesses who were sexually active to procreate the seasons, the crops and so on. But from its very inception Jewish, and later Christian theology, emphasized that God was over and against, "high and lifted up" above his creation. He creates and lovingly sustains all things but they do not exude from within him, they come about because of the word of his mouth, he speaks them into being, he does not give birth to them.
"God our Father" retains this distinctive theology, "God our Mother" does not. Those who want to make this a feminist issue do an injustice to scripture, it is theological not cultural or gender in nature. God is neither male nor female, he has no sexuality, he is uniquely "other" than his creation. Let us recognize and value the feminine qualities of God, especially the lofty appreciation for women that Jesus reflects. But let us also recognize the limits of all analogies, both male and female, and worship our God who is adequate for all. After all, in him "there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus' (Galatians 3:28).
Here is a God with whom we can all identify and one who can empathize with and redeem each one of us.