Hilton Head Island, SC – October 25, 2020
The Chapel Without Walls
Isaiah 66:5-9; Isaiah 66:10-14
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.” – Isaiah 66:13 (RSV)
In last Sunday’s sermon I explained why I use only “Thee, Thou, Thy, or Thine” when referring to God, rather than to use the personal pronoun “you.” I am not going to reiterate what I said then; you suffered through it once, and you shouldn’t have to suffer through it again.
However, today I shall address a sermon theme which is equally if not more confounding than that one, and it is to state emphatically at the outset that God is not male, despite what all of us have been led to think. Instantly, that poses linguistic problems. In English, “God” is a masculine word. “Goddess” is the feminine word for a female deity. Thus if God is God, He has to be male.
There is no question whatsoever that in the Bible, and in both Testaments of the Bible, God is virtually always addressed or spoken of as being a male deity. The Gospels report that Jesus often spoke of God as “Father.” Although that is all true, there is a cultural explanation for that usage, which has nothing whatever to do with theology. All three Western monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - refer to God as male. But that is because all three religions evolved in highly male-dominated societies. That has nothing intrinsically to do with the purported “gender” of God. That error was purely determined by cultural prejudices.
For better or worse, most societies throughout human history have been male-dominated. There are exceptions to that, but they are quite rare. If you wonder why that is so, here is, I think, the best one-sentence explanation. Most men are physically stronger than most women, and therefore there was an implied threat that if the women didn’t do or say what the men wanted, they might pay a painful physical price for their opposition. Men are not more intelligent than women, or wiser, or more capable of leadership than women, but in most instances they are physically stronger. Thus, unfortunately, men have called most of the shots in most cultures since our distant ancestors emerged from their caves. Men like to dominate. It is in their genetic code. Wanting to maintain their own supposed superiority, it was men who demanded that God must be perceived as masculine. It is probably worse than it is better that nearly all cultures are male-dominated. The hormone which makes males the most masculine is testosterone. That is often a serious genetic drawback for the establishment of thoughtful, productive, measured male leadership.
(May I say parenthetically that my recent sermons are unlike anything in general that I have ever preached before. As I have previously intimated, it may a result of the Covid Lockdown, in which I have read much more than I do under normal circumstances. But I have concluded that I am definitely going to try, in the time I have left, to be a better teacher in my sermons than I was before, even if that might appear to make me a worse preacher. Nonetheless I’m going to do my best to teach you things you may not want to learn, but that will be my hope anyway.)
Why would I insist that God is not male? Here is why: To think of God as being either male or female is a very natural inclination for all human beings, since nearly all of us are one or the other. However, that way of thinking about God also shows how limited our minds are.
The words “male” and “female” linguistically necessarily imply sexuality. And sexuality necessarily implies procreation. But because God has always existed eternally, and will continue to do so eternally, as I said last week, therefore God does not need to procreate. God is – to coin two phrases – a supra-procreative and a supra-gendered being. He is above all that. God is neither “procreational” nor “procreate-able.”
Nevertheless, in the Bible besides its innumerable male deity references, there are a few instances where God is described as having female characteristics. They are not plentiful, but they are there. Our two scripture passages from Isaiah 66 are illustrations of that rare phenomenon.
There are only sixty-six chapters in Isaiah, so these verses are some of the last thoughts the prophet intended to convey to his readers. As I have said in other sermons, scholars believer that the first 39 chapters of Isaiah were written by a man who lived in Jerusalem about 750 BCE. Chapters 40 through 66, the scholars claim, were written by a Jewish man or men who lived two centuries later during the Babylonian Captivity of the Jews.
It is sometimes difficult if not impossible to interpret prophetic poetry with any great certainty. In Isaiah 66, after having addressed several other matters, the prophet said, with no lead-up as an introduction, “Before she was in labor she gave birth; before her pain came upon her she was delivered of a son” (66:7) The trouble is, Isaiah doesn’t say who “she” is. Is she a particular Jewish woman? Is “she” a woman at all? Perhaps, and even probably, “she” is intended to be perceived as the entire nation of Israel. The Jews had been freed by Cyrus, the king who conquered the Babylonians, and the prophet is saying that they will return to Jerusalem. There they shall give birth anew to the restored holy city and to a renewed land of Israel, which had lain in ruins for the previous fifty years.
Then Isaiah carries forward his poetic metaphor. “For as soon as Zion was in labor she brought forth her sons….Shall I bring to the birth and not cause to bring forth? says the Lord” (66:8-9). Later Isaiah continues with the obstetrical imagery: “For thus says the Lord: ‘(Y)ou shall suck, you shall be carried upon her [the restored Jerusalem’s] hip and dandled upon her knees” (66:12). And then our text for today’s sermon, one of those rare verses in which God is portrayed as female, “As one whom his own mother comforts, so I will comfort you, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem” (66:13).
That biblical verse is included in Eine Deutsches Requiem by Johannes Brahms. To my knowledge, no musician had ever composed a choral Requiem Mass in any language other than Latin until Brahms did it toward the end of the nineteenth century. His mother had just died, and he wanted to honor her memory by composing this glorious oratorio.
The fifth section of the Brahms Requiem has a soprano solo. She sings, using words Brahmas had taken from Isaiah 66:14, the words of God from the prophecy of Isaiah: “Ye that now are sorrowful; how be it? Ye shall again behold me, and your heart shall be joyful.” With that the chorus comes in softly, also as the voice of God, “Yea, I will comfort you, as one whom his own mother comforteth.” Then again the voice of God in the voice of the soprano, “Look upon me, ye know that for a little time labor and sorrow were mine, but at the last I have found comfort.” Then the chorus responds, “Yea, I will comfort you.” The soloist goes back and forth, and the chorus does the same, again and again, until the exquisite, softly sung ending of the section, almost like a Brahms lullaby, “Ye shall again behold me, and I will comfort you.”
I have been a participant in a choir on three occasions for the Brahms Requiem. It was pure spiritual ecstasy. I suppose that subconsciously the soprano in the Fifth Section of the oratorio must have reminded me of Isaiah’s portrayal of feminine characteristics of God. For me Eine Deutsches Requiem is as good as theology gets. I have always enjoyed and been greatly inspired by music, especially choral music, and probably it why I tell you the stories behind so many hymns. I hope they will become etched into your heart as they are in mine. Nevertheless, as profoundly moving as the Brahms score is, God is not truly female, either. God is far above any concept of deity we can ever fully comprehend.
Earlier I made the statement that it would be impossible for God to impregnate a human female, because God is supra-gendered. In fact, were God to do that with a woman, or with a female goddess (if there were any, which there aren’t), it would create numerous insurmountable theological problems. For example, who would be the “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” in Handel’s Messiah if there were a multi-divinized universe? Who would be the chief god, if there were many deities? If polytheism were the case, we would be no better off than the Greeks or Romans, whose religions was so highly acculturated by their particular cultures. Christianity in our own culture is also too culturally constricted in that sense. Many of us think architecture or art or literature is the essence of Christianity, but God-thought and faith and behavior and morality are much more the core of its essence.
However, God impregnating a woman is what the doctrine of the Virgin Birth seems to suggest, doesn’t it? However, no one would ever dare say that Mary was impregnated by God. (Not surprisingly, the ever-vigilant unseen editor in the innards of my computer hinted that I couldn’t say that when I typed those words into the manuscript.) Apparently that rigid cyber-cop thought it was unacceptably crass to utter such a scandalous idea. Because of that, as an alternative may I suggest that the Virgin Birth is a concept first-century Christians thought would give Jesus a unique place in Christian theology. Without question it certainly accomplished that. Also, in my opinion, without question the Virgin Birth was not meant to be taken literally, but only metaphorically. That is not the main point of this sermon, however, and in fact it is only what now is called “a sidebar.” But if it that’s the only thing you remember from this sermon, that’s okay too
In my opinion (and it also is only that), fundamentally it was unfortunate that Yahweh was ever called “God.” Yahweh would be fine, except many Orthodox, Conservative, and even some Reform Jews would object. Despite that semantic objection, it is a major theological impediment to call God “God,” or to refer to God as “He” or “Him” (or “She” or “Her”). Those very words clearly imply that God has a “sexual identity.” He/She doesn’t have such an identity, despite the weighty encrustations of the millennia (and I will get to some proposed alternative divine pronouns shortly). Whatever else God is, God is NOT a gendered being. That makes absolutely no theological sense. Is it becoming clear to you where this sermon is leading?
We are at the point of contemplating why a sexual personal pronoun for God is incorrect. The reason is as plain as the nose on our face: A sexual personal pronoun for God is not proper because Yahweh is not a sexual being. On the other hand, precisely what kind of being God is is ultimately fully unknowable to Homos sapiens, as wise as we may think we are. At best we get only divinely-inspired glimpses of the true nature of the only God who is God.
So what alternative pronouns might we create to give to the Sole Deity of the Universe when we refer to Yahweh, while also attempting carefully to maintain “His” Wholly Otherness? Having boxed myself into this corner, I had to ponder some alternatives. I came up with “He-She” or “She-He,” or “Himer” or “Herim.” But do you see the problem? Those made-up words also imply sexuality, and Yahweh (God) is not a gendered divinity. In truth, “sexual divinity” is an oxymoron; it is a contradiction in terms. In its essence, divinity cannot be sexual at all. Divinity has to be in its own category, and that cannot and does not include gender under any terms.
However, life is filled with compromises. After all this linguistic storm and stress, I now am going to come to the heart of this homily. Long ago I accepted the compromise of referring to God as “God” and also to calling Him Him or He. I do so because tradition has made it virtually impossible not to do that. Besides, He-She , She-He, Himer or Herim sound both silly and sordid. But while God surely is not a gendered being, He is a personal being. He has personhood as we have personhood, but He’s just way above our level in His personal essence. And yet He is personally concerned about each of us as though there were only one of us to be concerned about.
Some contemporary Christians refuse ever to use personal pronouns with respect to God, so they only say “God” again and again and again. For me, it is too awkward and un-euphonious always to say “God” without using a pronoun for Him. So, with my peculiar fixation upon words, I will nevertheless always refer to God as “God” and as “Thou, Thee, Thy, or Thine.” In addition, with nearly all other religious people I shall call the only deity who also is the only perfect personal being in the universe “ He or Him.” It is an unfortunate but inevitable concession to the limitations of God-language.
I further think it is a grave error deliberately to “de-personalize” God in that Lucas-Light Star Wars theological phrase --- “May the Force be with you.” That may cut it for some, but it will never cut it for me. “Force” indeed! What a farce!
This is intentionally a very heavy sermon that is also intentionally somewhat lightly addressed. I hope you will think about it, because devoting more and more thought to God is a profoundly worthwhile intellectual pursuit. No one deserves that more than God.