What is God's Gender?

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One day, when my children were small, I picked them up from daycare at 5pm, brought them home, settled them in with a few toys, took off my clergy collar, set it on the kitchen table, and began to prepare supper. My son Duncan was about 5 years old. He loved to joke around, so snatched up my clergy collar, wrapped it around his neck and exclaimed, “Look! I’m a Mom!”

For him, not having known anything else, it seemed perfectly natural that the priesthood was a sign of motherhood. He could not conceive of it any other way. While priesthood CAN be a sign of motherhood, it is not always the case. How often do WE make assumptions about things because we simply have not considered another way of thinking about it? Assumptions can be helpful for guiding us in quick decisions, but they are unhelpful if they build walls which prevent us from considering the fullness of God and God’s creation.

I remember a riddle from my teens in the late 70s which went like this: “A father and son were in a car crash. The father died and the son was seriously injured. The son was brought the hospital for surgery, but as the doctor was about to begin, the doctor stopped and said, ‘I can’t do this. This young man is my son.’ How is this possible?”

The answer, of course, is, the doctor was his mother. But back in the day, a female just wasn’t the image that the average person had of a doctor. The riddle stumped most everyone, including me, the first time they heard it.

What about God? How do we imagine the gender of God? The standard Christian trinitarian formula is that God is “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” and that is great! A beautiful, loving image of familial relationship. And if you used only that the rest of your life, that would be just fine. However, if by using that language you assume that it means that God is only male, you would be incorrect.

In scripture we are told,

“God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” - Genesis 1:27

In other words, the fullness of God is expressed not just through men, and not just through women, but through both. In other Bible passages we are told that God has both male attributes,

“You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation!” [Ps. 89:26]

and female attributes,

“As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you,” [Isaiah 66:13].

Sometimes when people insist that God is only male, I say, “Thank you! What a compliment!” Because if they really believe that, then I, as a female, can be something God is not. I can be female and God can’t. To say that God is only male is to say that I have some ability that God doesn’t. Wow! I didn’t know I had that kind of power!

In reality God is both male and female; God is all genders; God transcends gender. Gender is a characteristic of the physical world, and God is so much larger than language, gender, and the physical world can express. So in my prayer life I find it helpful to mix it up a little. Sometimes I use male words for God, sometimes female words, sometimes gender-neutral. Father, Mother, The Merciful, Beloved, King, Queen, Light, Friend. They are all true; they are all insufficient. God is love, God is Light, both of which are beyond gender. In your own prayer life, use whatever language you find helpful, which expresses a loving Creator and which draws you closer to the Divine.

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All Scripture quotes are from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Image from https://northstar.church/the-power-of-god-3/