#MeToo Lady Wisdom
Scripture Reading: Proverbs 8:1-11
Wisdom is not silent; She boldly raises Her voice above the din. She stands upon the most desolate peak, and the busiest highway, at every intersection, gate and doorway: Listen to Me, all of you! Listen to Me, for I speak of noble things. Truth comes from My lips; My words are just and simple. Reason and understanding will show you the righteousness of My words. Accept Me rather than silver and fine gold. For I surpass rubies; nothing equals the gift I offer you.
#MeToo Lady Wisdom
This scripture invites us to hear Lady Wisdom, the powerful feminine divine. In Greek she is Sophia, and she persists even in a history that might have edited her voice out entirely given the chance. Perhaps this is the first time you have heard that her voice is a part of our tradition and, if so, you are not alone. Perhaps it is because other parts of the Bible would tell her to be quiet in church. We have a history of limiting women’s voices and bodies, just like all of the cultures and histories our tradition has been woven through. We are gathering in this season of Me Too and Never Again to reflect on the church’s work in changing the systems that fuel sexual and intimate violence, harassment and stalking. We have a history of struggling to value voices and bodies and this is a season when we not only work to change, but make amends for the sins of our silence and violence in the past.
We are in an epidemic of violence: 20 people every minute are abused by an intimate partner, 1 in 7 women and 1 in 25 men have been injured by an intimate partner. Every 73 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted, 1 in 33 men and 1 in 6 women have experienced attempted or completed rape. The majority of this violence is committed by someone the victim knows; 45% in their own homes and 12% in their work place. 63,000 children a year experience sexual abuse and violence and 34% are under the age of 12. This is an inexcusable epidemic of brokenness and it has lasted for a long time this way. Why? Why do we struggle to act? Why do we struggle to condemn and change? Why do we permit such toxic, controlling behavior primarily by males?
I believe the church has failed to speak up, not only against this violence in homes and schools and churches and work places, but we have fueled it by our limitations of seeing the divine. We see God as male, it is our default position. And probably, if we are honest, we take a page from the Sistine Chapel and see God as a very buff, bearded Santa Claus. The Bible presents a diversity of names and metaphors for God. I have woven them through our worship. Praying to God as Living Water that quenches our thirst, God as the Cypress or Oak, rooted and stretching, strong and flexible. God as mountain and God as sea, vast, bold, all-encompassing with boundless resolve. God as Mother Hen gathering us in the shelter of her wings or God as Mama Bear or Mama Eagle, which should remind every greedy predator to stay away from her beloved children.
Every week we pray, “Our Father” in the Lord’s Prayer and no one has ever sent me an e-mail to complain. No one has ever messaged, “Pastor Debra, I think it would be more Biblical if we called God Papa or Daddy,” which, to be honest, might be true. Jesus is using a term of an intimate parent, not an authoritarian Father. No one has ever complained or laughed or looked surprised by a male pronoun, but pepper in She or They or Mother and eyes get wide, even if people are not offended, they are surprised. That is when I get an e-mail. What does it say about us when calling God a “girl” is the most offensive thing we can do to God? What does it say about how we value the feminine, the mothers, the girls, the bodies that are not cis-gender heterosexual male?
The ways we name God are ways of naming our values. And churches have valued masculinity (and mostly a pretty toxic masculinity) to a fault and have been unwilling to see the brokenness this creates. We see this in practice and policy as the voices of Women and Queer folks of faith are marginalized from the table. This attitude is alive and well in this day. All you need to do is Google, “Why can’t women be pastors?” and you will find gems like “Why Christian Women Don’t Need To Be Pastors To Be Equal with Men.” (https://thefederalist.com/2019/08/01/why-female-christians-dont-need-to-be-pastors-to-be-equal-with-men/) In this and other articles, the pastor or professor agues that “equality isn’t sameness” and rejecting the notion that excluding women is sexist because God’s design is for men and women to be different. And even though he can be a pastor, he names that being a pastor isn’t a sign of being more important in the church’s work. Most offensive (and I suppose enlightening) about his ministry is that he loves women so much, he wouldn’t send them into hard spaces. He then proceeds to compare ministry to military battle and that we wouldn’t want a woman to have her “face blown off.” Which honestly suggests he thinks getting a few mean e-mails is like being sent to a war zone and, frankly, is why women have also had to fight to use their gifts in all of the branches of military service.
Most of these kinds of articles rely on a few verses attributed, often wrongly, to Paul or the sin of Eve in the second creation narrative (that’s right second, there are two). Not one of these men and many other explain the presence of women with Jesus and with Paul - not Mary, not Martha, not Lydia, not Priscilla, not Phoebe - and when they do, they name this as irrelevant, anomalies and point that women doing things that God made women to do isn’t sexism, it’s love. It’s not sexism that a woman’s voice is bound to home or service without authority over men, it’s love and it’s ordained by God. Not one of them consider the changing context of the Christian community in the early days of Jesus and later Paul, and not one of them consider the changing context of this day except to lament and long for the way they imagine the 1950s. And it will not surprise you that they use masculine language over and over, they almost never even refer to the Divine as a non-gendered God.
We are “His children” doing “His Will” and He is Lord, God and King. Mary Daly reminds us that the way we name the sacred impacts how we see each other and ourselves. “If God is a man, men are gods.” Language matters; it impacts how we see others and ourselves, it impacts the voices we value and the voices we grant authority, it makes us more open to hearing, seeing and honoring the sacred. And if God is default male, male is default authority and highest values of the most worth.
The theological lens we use is a choice. It is a choice to limit or include voices, it is a choice to value or devalue bodies and beings. It is a choice and I am asking you to push your own boundaries. Do you default to a male pronoun for God? Do you imagine God as Zeus’s cousin or kin to Santa Claus? It’s ok if you do, but I want to ask you to imagine God in the feminine for a moment. What does it open up to call God Mother? To see the sacred in the queer young person using They as a pronoun. What does it do to imagine God in brown and black hues, what does it do to imagine God as the sacred forests and the majestic mountains? Would we value creation rather than exploit her gifts and resources? If we could see God in the Queer youth, would our rate of homeless queer youth be zero? Would we have the lowest maternal death rate if we could see God as Mother and her power in birth rather than domination? Would we change the systems that lead to sexual and gendered violence if we saw bodies as valuable, even if they are young and vulnerable as Tween Jesus in the temple when his parents searched high and low for him? Would we end all forms of degradation and exploitation if we saw it as violating the sacred and destroying the divine? I believe we would and I believe we have a choice. It starts with you and I, expanding the sacred that we see and inviting others to look with new eyes and to hear with new ears. Lady Wisdom is speaking, will we be the Church that listens?
May we have the courage, Amen.