Words matter

For the second time in a month, last Sunday I stood in church with my two daughters while we sang about being sons of God. It could be that this happens more often in Spanish, a language that doesn’t easily permit us to fudge it when it comes to gender. Still, it got me thinking.

Now, I know we all make excuses for the masculine-oriented way our language for the spiritual life has come about. We talk about what was culturally appropriate in the days scripture was written, so that actually it is so much better that I’ve been made a son than if I were a daughter because that is more honouring. You’ve heard that one? Or we talk about translation and the limitations of language, and the fact that we just have to pick a gender and stick with it, so there’s nothing wrong with using the male pronoun, or talking about ‘mankind.’ It’s not personal, it’s just practical.

And yet, here I am, standing with my two daughters and asking them to get excited about the fact that they are sons. Do you see my deep concern here?

I want them to know that God is for them, that he is inviting them ever more deeply into this wonderful life of relational connection, where they will learn how to be fully themselves in the context of trinitarian love; where within their community they will learn what it is to make their unique contribution to the world, as they learn to walk with and be empowered by the Spirit of God. Am I, then, to present this wonderful life in God as being predominantly masculine in nature, oriented towards those who are male, who are sons? Is this the invitation God himself offers them?

Hear me when I say this: I will never, for all eternity, be a son of God. I will always and forever be a daughter of God, forever female. I will love and glorify him in myriad ways and my femaleness is not incidental to that; I will take my place as a co-heir with Jesus, ruling and reigning with him as part of his Church. And I will be female. 

And Father, Son and Spirit are heartily pleased with this. It is good. Not only that but it is the only possible thing that could be good.

I grew up in church. I’m not here to write about male leadership or male eldership, or how the Church functions in all her geographical or denominational guises. We are stumbling towards the light, and we still have some very dark corners. But I do think that along with functions in the Church, we would do well to seriously consider the way we put language to our faith. It’s not because I want all this to ‘sound fair’ or to ‘be inclusive.’ It is because we are failing to communicate anything close to a true picture of the gospel of Jesus when we tell half the population that they are sons of God.

Mothers, daughters, wives, women, friends: this good news of the kingdom is for you. It is about you being caught up into the fullness of God, who is reflected in both male and female and is so much more than either one alone. There is nothing less brilliant about your light because it is female in nature. This is not something we need to fight for, or protest about, or go overboard in seeking to redress the imbalance. It simply is truth: the heart of God conceived female as part of the expression of the divine. And within that love and wholeness, you will be living out of your strong and beautiful femaleness forever. 

Now, who can write a song about that?