God is Not a Man
God is much more than any one name, gender, title, or definition. And still, what we call God, how we name God matters if we seek to be an inclusive people following the Way of Love.
Dearly Beloved,
“God is not a man,” she said confidently as we sipped our overpriced coffee drinks in a local cafe near campus.
She was three years older than me, a senior in college, and I was enamored by her knowing. As a first-year college religion major having grown up Southern Baptist in West Texas, no one ever told me God was not a man or male or my Lord and Father. In fact, up until this point in my life, I’d only ever heard God referred to with masculine pronouns and in the male form.
My eyes widened. My head jerked up.
I took a big sigh, and said, “Oh, thank goodness. Tell me more.”
Amanda, my senior religion major mentor, invited me into a more expansive understanding of God, and I will always give thanks for her honesty and forthrightness on that cold, fall morning some twenty-four years ago.
To be clear, she did not go on to say “God is a woman” or to claim anything definitive about God’s identity at all. Rather, she simply (and profoundly) invited me to think beyond the narrow understanding of God as male that was handed to me as a child.
Instead of fearing her invitation, I drank it like water, thirsty for a God and a good news that was bigger than what I’d been taught.
Then, as a pastoral intern during my tenure at Vanderbilt Divinity School, I heard one of my pastors pray to the “God With Many Names,” taking cues from the hymn by Brian Wren with the same title. To this day, when I hear this song and read its words, my shoulders relax, and I breathe more deeply.
Because God does have many names, after all. We can read of God’s many names from our holy scriptures, which help illuminate our understanding of that which ultimately evades our understanding. And, spoiler alert, all of the names for God are not male.
A few of my favorites:
Deuteronomy 32:18b where God, named Eloah, gives birth to Israel with groans and labor just as a woman gives birth to a child.
In the midrashim (stories), the Shekinah, Divine Presence, is depicted in female form.
In Proverbs 8, when Wisdom calls out and raises her voice for justice, love, and peace.
In Luke 13:34, Jesus says he wants to be like a mother hen, gathering her brood under her wings.
Reading these names and images for God begs the question, “How did most of us end up thinking (and believing) God is male?”
The simplest answer is that a world in which masculinity holds power and precedence over all else produces a male God and erases any mention or worship of a God who is not male. Put another way, when only one gender gets to tell the stories, publish the songs, write the liturgies, preach the sermons, canonize the scriptures, write the creeds, and so on, then only one name, identity, and understanding of God gets told.
God is a woman, and God is much more than any one name, gender, title, or definition. And still, what we call God, how we name God matters if we seek to be an inclusive, open-minded and open-hearted people following the Way of Love.
Our kids deserve to know that God is God. Our kids deserve to know that women have their own stories to tell and that they belong to a faith community who cares about centering and celebrating them. Our kids deserve to know that God is our Mother laboring to birth a new world, that God is Wisdom standing her sacred ground in the streets, calling for justice and shalom. Our kids deserve to know the women who formed and funded Jesus and his ministry. Our kids deserve a woman-led faith, centered in a woman-loving God.
And so do we.
A week from Tuesday, Blessed Are the Women will be released (Feb. 27. 2024), and I will celebrate with close friends circled around a fire, honoring the women who came before us, the women who stand beside us, and the women who will come after us–and the God who births a new, loving world alongside and within each of us.
Blessed Are the Women and her official release into the world is by no stretch a first of its kind, though it is a first for me. Rather, Blessed Are the Women and the stories of women from the Gospels and everywhere join the women who’ve been circling up and telling their stories since the beginning of time. We get to join the dance of women’s leadership and labor, justice and love that’s been swaying and swirling, stomping and spinning forever.
A Blessed Are the Women Reading List is included in the Appendix of the book, and when I circle up with my friends next week to celebrate Blessed Are the Women’s release into the world, I will have with me some of the other books, stories, and poetry, without which I, nor my book, would be here.
To name a few:
Sisters in the Wilderness by Delores S. Williams
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Cries of the Spirit: More than 300 Poems in Celebration of Women’s Spirituality edited by Marilyn Sewell
Dancing With God by Karen Baker-Fletcher
Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd
What a gift. What a grace. To be in the company of such truth-telling beauty and love.
There’s still time to order Blessed Are the Women.
There’s still time to know God’s many, many names, as well as the names of the women, asking them, “Is there a new story to be told?”
When they answer, “Yes,” listen. Write it down. Pray it. Dance it. Live it.
May the new story live in our blood and bones so that all of us can join in making the good news good for everyone.
See you next week, beloveds.
Claire
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Blessed Are the Women releases in ONE WEEK! There’s still time to preorder your copy before February 27, which helps tell booksellers YOU WANT THIS BOOK and sends the message that women and our stories matter!
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BOOK LAUNCH! 2.28.2024 | Parnassus Books | Nashville, TN | 6:30 p.m.
OTHER UPCOMING EVENTS
02.18.2024 | Teaching at Westminster Presbyterian Church | 9:30 a.m.
02.21.2024 | Leading Tapestries Lunch & Learn | 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
If you’re interested in finding a time for me to teach, lead, and/or preach at your church, with your community, or at your organization, please email me at claire@clairemckeeverburgett.com. I’m available both in-person and virtually.
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JOIN ME for INSTAGRAM LIVES| MARCH 1 + 3!
Sacred conversation about Blessed Are the Women and more!
JOIN ME FOR MY TEXAS BOOK TOUR IN MARCH!
PSA: If you’re on GoodReads, please take a couple of minutes to give Blessed Are the Women a five-star review (once you’ve read it, of course…or, if you’re feeling generous and inspired, just go ahead and share the good news of a good review). And anywhere else you’ve ordered the book and are able to offer a review/good words about it, please do so (Barnes and Noble, Amazon, etc.). Just like preorders tell booksellers you want this book, reviews tell both booksellers AND the general public AND the pesky algorithm that you loved it and they will, too. Thank you! Love you! Happy reading and reviewing!
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I can't say G*d and not think of an old white man. It is too deeply ingrained in my psche and too painful to use when I pray. I use The Divine, or Love, and that is enough to open my heard to the mystery.
❤️❤️❤️