Appalachian MCC

Inclusive Language-- Part 4

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Why Use Inclusive Language?

Inclusive Language Guidelines of Metropolitan Community Churches

TALKING ABOUT GOD (Continued)

God is not limited by our understanding of God. God is not bound by any of our cultural or personal biases. God has revealed God to have both masculine and feminine attributes. This means of course that God is beyond gender, and it is wrong to present God in exclusively male terms.

God is beyond gender, beyond race, beyond nationality, beyond any church or religion, beyond any culture or time. If God is beyond our human categories, including gender, then we need to speak of God in that way.

Our God is boundless and inclusive.

Is not this what Jesus taught and showed us about God? Jesus' whole life and ministry was an embodiment of God's boundless and all-inclusive love.

At this point some readers may want to ask, "Well, what about the term ‘Father' for God, the very gender-specific term that Jesus often used for God?" The concept of God as our loving Father is very dear and precious to many persons, both men and women. It is so deeply imbedded in Christian thought and tradition that it is hard for many people to conceive of God in any other way. "Father" is one valid way of conceiving and addressing God. Indeed, it seems to have been one of the primary images used by Jesus for God. But it is only one image, only a partial picture of God. Keep in mind the huge variety of ways that God is presented in the Bible and as ultimately beyond male and female categories.

It was not uncommon in the Jewish religion of Jesus' day to refer to God as "Father," but when Jesus used the term, he gave it a much more intimate meaning.

Jesus emphasized the closeness and loving intimacy of God. In fact, Jesus did not use the formal word for "Father" like his fellow Jewish rabbis did. Rather Jesus used the simple Aramaic word Abba to address God. This was a very informal, intimate term, and was what Jewish children might call their father in the home. The only thing close to it that we have in contemporary American English is "Daddy" or "Papa." Jesus shocked his contemporaries by talking about God in such an informal, direct, and personal way.

Jesus transformed the image of God as Father which was common in Judaism at the time. Jesus changed the picture of God from an aloof, stern, cold, demanding, distant Father into a close, loving, forgiving Abba.

To illustrate this, Jesus used both male and female images. He ascribed many "feminine" or "motherly" qualities to God, such as God feeding, clothing, nurturing, supporting, and comforting us. In Biblical times, these functions were definitely aspects of the "motherly" role, not the "fatherly" role.

What Jesus was trying to communicate was that the love and ongoing concern of God for us is like that of our parents, both of our parents. God is our Father and Mother. God is our Provider and Nurturer, the One from whom we come and the One to whom we belong. By his use of Abba and by what he taught about God, Jesus did much to break the traditional stereotypes of a male, masculine, macho God.

The contemporary English word "Father" does not capture what Jesus was getting at when he called God Abba. "Father" is formal and can be used to set apart, to distance. More accurate and sensitive renderings of "Abba" might be:

"O God, you who father and mother us"

"Beloved God"

"Loving Provider"

"O God from whom we come"

"O God to whom we belong"

Terms like "Creator," "Maker," and "Parent" are certainly Biblical images for God, but they do not really capture the intimacy of Abba. When we translate the concept of God as Abba into contemporary American English, we should do so with "drawing near" terminology. "Father" and "Parent" may not be accurate translations of Abba because they can be distancing terms, not "drawing near" terms.

When Jesus talked about what God is like, he used both male and female images, as illustrated in this following passage from Luke's Gospel:

LUKE 15:1-10--"Now the tax collectors and other disreputable people were all coming near to Jesus to hear him. And the Pharisees and teachers of the law grumbled, "This Jesus welcomes sinners and even eats with them."

So Jesus told them this parable: "What man among you who has a hundred sheep and loses one of them does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the one that is missing until he finds it? And when he has found the sheep, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders. When he comes home he calls together his friends and neighbors and says, 'Rejoice with me. I have found my sheep which was lost.' I tell you that in the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinful person whose heart is changed than over ninety-nine virtuous persons who have no need of repentance.

"Or what woman who has ten silver coins and loses one does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it she calls together her friends and neighbors and says, 'Rejoice with me. I have found the silver coin that I lost.' In the same way, I tell you, there is joy among the angels of God over one sinful person whose heart is changed." (4)

In these Lucan parables, Jesus actually compares God to a woman. He said that God's active searching love for human beings is like a man looking for one lost sheep and like a woman looking for one lost coin. It was a revolutionary idea in first century Judaism to say that God was like a woman doing anything!

By using a female example as well as a male example here, Jesus demonstrates the importance of presenting the Gospel message in more than one way so that it speaks to women as well as men. For the Good News of God's universal, unconditional love to be embraced by all kinds of people, the message must be driven home in a variety of ways in the hope that at least one of these ways will be powerful, meaningful, and relevant to every person and group.

One image or term for God is not going to attract all people to a loving, intimate relationship with God. For some, "Father" or "Daddy" will be a powerful, meaningful image. For others, the term "Father" will drive them away, possibly because they were misunderstood, or neglected, or even abused by their own fathers. We must be open to using a variety of terms and images to express Abba.

Returning to this pair of Lucan parables that Jesus told, that is, the man searching for the lost sheep and the woman searching for the lost coin, the point of both of these parables is that God is just as persistent in seeking us out. Just like the man who goes out and searches until he finds the one lost sheep, just like the woman who tears her house upside-down until she finds one lost coin, so God hunts and searches until we are found. God's love does not give up.

If God's love is so inclusive, so all-embracing, and if God's very being or nature is so inclusive, then ought not we be inclusive? Ought not our conception of God and of ourselves be thoroughly inclusive?

Inclusivity is not just a matter of what words we use. Words of course are important because they express how we view God and how we view humanity. But just as important is having an inclusive attitude, an inclusive mind set, an inclusive heart set, an inclusive life stance. When we do ministry in this way, we reflect the heart of what MCC is all about, which is proclaiming and living God's unconditional love for all people.

RESOURCES ON INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE AND INCLUSIVE THEOLOGY:

Clanton, Jann Aldredge, In Whose Image: God and Gender, Crossroad Publishing Co., 1990.

Duck, Ruth, Gender and the Name of God: The Trinitarian Baptismal Formula, Pilgrim Press, 1991.

Emswiler, Sharon Neufer and Thomas Neufer Emswiler, Women and Worship: A Guide to Nonsexist Hymns, Prayers, and Liturgies, Harper & Row, 1984.

Hardesty, Nancy, Inclusive Language in the Church, John Knox Press, 1987.

McCloskey, Pat, Naming Your God: The Search for Mature Images, Ave Maria Press, 1991.

Mollenkott, Virginia Ramey, The Divine Feminine: The Biblical Imagery of God as Female, Crossroad Publishing Co., 1984.

Ramshaw, Gail, God Beyond Gender: Feminist Christian God-Language, Fortress Press, 1995.

Raschke, Carl and Susan Doughty Raschke, The Engendering God: Male and Female Faces of God, Westminster John Knox Press, 1995.

Schaffron, Janet and Pat Kozak, More Than Words: Prayer and Ritual for Inclusive Communities, Meyer Stone Books, 1988.

Schneiders, Sandra, Women and the Word: The Gender of God in the New Testament and the Spirituality of Women, Paulist Press, 1986.

van Wijk-Bos, Johanna, Reimaging God: The Case for Scriptural Diversity, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1995.

Withers, Barbara (editor), Language and the Church, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., 1984.

Wren, Brian, What Language Shall I Borrow?, The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1989.