NOTE: This post was written for my Facebook feed, which is composed mostly of Christians, so the emphasis is biblical and meant as a bridge of understanding of the divine feminine for Bible believers.
This Mother’s Day, I want to reflect on the Mother Heart of God as beautifully reflected in the Jewish and Christian scriptures but often forgotten in patriarchal culture and religious traditions. In the beginning, when the earth was without form, in darkness, the Book of Genesis describes the Spirit of God hovering over the watery chaos with similar vocabulary for a hen that warms eggs in a nest. This motherly Spirit was the nurturing potential of God in creation. The Shekinah, the manifest presence of God in the Most Holy Place, I am told is a feminine word form, yet it describes a force so heavy and strong that Solomon’s priests could not stand. This Holy Spirit is described as gentle as the breath of life, breathed by God to make humanity in his own image, an image described as “male and female” as “created he them.” Although this Spirit is sometimes a gentle breeze and a still, small voice, it is sometimes as powerful as a whirlwind or consuming fire. Yet the burning fire appears to Moses with such gentleness as not to even harm a desert shrub. The gentle dove that returned with the olive branch as a sign of God’s grace to Noah has become the emblem of peace for the United Nations, showing how the powerful imagery has spread to human culture. The Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove at his baptism as the Father’s voice announced him as a beloved Son, giving a picture almost of a divine family of three. The gentleness of the Spirit is seen in Christ as he weeps over Jerusalem and longs to gather the people as a hen gathers chicks under her feathers. The Psalms sometimes describe God as keeping us under his protective wings. Although, ultimately, we know God is not a literal fire or dove, man or woman, sometimes our worship and imagery has neglected important aspects of his character. If these aspects are hard-wired into our nature—as well as celebrated in Scriptures, sometimes they make their way out in whatever ways possible. Veneration of Mary as the divine Mother is one way, perhaps, that the human heart as found to celebrate the Mother heart of God with so many paintings and icons displaying the holy mother and child. Even Protestants seem to honor the image in manger scenes and greeting cards each Christmas. Some seekers with a heart for the aspects of God reflected in women have taken the path of finding Sophia—Greek for Wisdom—the iconic face of the feminine divine found in the Book of Proverbs. Thomas Merton writes, “The Diffuse Shining of God is Hagia Sophia. Sophia is Gift, is Spirit, Donum Dei. She is God-given and God Himself as Gift. Sophia in all things is the Divine Life reflected in them.” Joyce Rapp, convinced by that quotation, also writes in her article “Desperately Seeking Sophia”, “In Jewish scripture, Sophia is a feminine voice, in contrast to a God of dominion and force. Jesus, too, has a Sophia heart, not the heart of someone seeking power. Sophia is concealed but ready to reveal just as Jesus is ‘the hidden wisdom of God’ (1 Cor. 2:7), ‘the revelation of the mystery kept secret for endless ages’ (Rom. 16:25). So this Mother’s Day 2019, I want to honor the Mother Heart of God. When I have suggested a message like this to pastors, I have sometimes received a smile or even a laugh, as though the concept is humorous or odd. But I wonder whether this concept of God is strange or whether our culture is unbalanced, even primitive. Ignoring the divine feminine in a way marginalizes or makes less significant women, motherhood, children, and even marriage and family. To put it bluntly, ignoring the Mother Heart of God is similar to archaic superstitions such as branding left-handed or red-headed people as evil or saying God is only worshiped on a mountain in Jerusalem.
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