God’s Pronouns

God’s Pronouns

“Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” –Exodus 3:14

I have a frenemy whom I love for many reasons. He’s respectful, very intelligent and courteous. Yet, there’s a method to his madness which infuriates me, at times. When we broach the subject of money management, civil rights and family things can get tense. When organized religion or spirituality in general enters the conversation, it’s hurricane meets inferno. This is due to the fact we’re both stubborn to a fault when it comes to particular beliefs. He’s embraced Buddhism. Myself—Christianity, for the most part.

Anyway, because of his chosen line of work coupled with his extremely poor vision, I frequently get the opportunity to drive him up north on I-17 to a construction site for business. During the trip (just short of two hours, one way) we naturally talk and talk and inevitably touch upon spiritual doctrine.

At one point, while speaking about God, I used the pronoun “He” in reference to the almighty Father and sovereign of the universe.

Mind Blown

Ron (not his real name) interrupted me to ask: “Why do you say ‘He?’ Why the masculine term?”

In that instance my brain temporarily imploded.

It didn’t implode over the audacity of perceiving God as anything other than male or masculine, though. My brain imploded because finally, finally, a controversial concept that has been caged up in that little corner of What Ifs could take flight, thereby gaining some level of solidity.

After reigning in a brain which was giving any supernova a run for its money, I managed to communicate to Ron that referring to God as “He” was a learned mechanism, an indoctrinated reflex. I also mentioned how the Bible uses He/Him whenever referring to God. And God has never appeared to raise any objection so who am I to challenge the status quo.

Heavy on the heels of that response, I put to words the implosion I was just beginning to contain: “But, personally, I don’t feel entirely comfortable accepting that God is a He, or even a She. I don’t think ‘He’ can be put into any kind of gender box.” Then, I went on to (very inarticulately I have to admit—being coherent while still trying to put your brain back together is no easy task) explain I why I thought this way.

The Debate That Wasn’t

I brought up an account in the book of Matthew, starting with the 23^rd verse in chapter 22. Therein, a group of Sadducees—members of the Sanhedrin who, for reasons I don’t understand, didn’t believe in the resurrection—try to trip Jesus up over the teaching by presenting an absurd situation where a woman keeps marrying one brother after another in one family, seven in total, all of whom die without having any children by the woman. After all that, the woman dies. The religious leaders then ask Jesus which one of the men will the woman be wife to after the resurrection.

If Jesus had said, “Well, she will belong to this or that man because of…(blah, blah, blah),” I’m sure the Sadducees would have pounced on him, no doubt citing Article 5,616, Section, AA3, Subsection 535, paragraph 90, part B of the Mosaic law code (which they’d made additions to and continuously amended according to their whim over the years) to legally refute Jesus’ answer.

How closed-minded and pig-headed those guys were!

If they’d been willing to entertain the possibility that Jesus had come down from heaven and had been the channel through which the Mosaic law was communicated to the nation of Israel in the first place, they would have known better than to try using that very law code to entrap him. For, how can you entrap the author with their own authenticity? Fight The Word himself with puny semantics?

I sometimes wish Jesus had taken the route of debating the complexities of law with those religious leaders. Witnessing a bank robber in a vault filling their bags with money and watching as that 12-inch-thick, titanium-tempered door closes and locks two seconds before they can make an escape is a thing I could gladly hold my breath for.

Apologies. I digress.

The objective of the Sadducees’ failed debate was to expose what they perceived to be a flaw in the resurrection tenet.

But Jesus wasn’t touching that.

He instead entirely yanked the rug from underneath the fictitious story by replying:

“You are mistaken, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God; for in the resurrection neither do men marry nor are women given in marriage, but they are as angels in heaven.” (verses 29,30)

I Could Be Wrong, Now, But I Don’t Think So

With those words in mind, I explained to Ron, I’ve come to an unpopular understanding, or, hypothesis in the very least. Because, the way I see it, those verses render moot the idea of angels pairing up in the same manner a man and a woman might. As in, sexuality is purely a rite intertwined with flesh. It follows that if there is no marriage, no romantic intimacy in the spiritual realm, then gender distinctions would serve no purpose. As in, there is no basis for the categorizing of angels as male or female.

If one were to presume angels inhabit the same realm as Almighty God and, logically, are closest to him in likeness, then how does it translate that Almighty God would retain any gender?

Ron, having grown accustomed to my propensity to take indoctrinated concepts and shake them up and turn them inside out, quickly recovered from the unexpected viewpoint I proposed. He qualified the objection he’d raised by granting that, in general, most people who’ve accepted Christianity are stuck to the idea of God being a man.

True.

Exploring Other Perspectives

Still, the alternative perspective—that God is not necessarily male in gender—is not really new. I was quick to point out that writers and other creatives especially have been and continue to explore the plausibility of  God who takes on whatever gender, if any at all, which fits the circumstances or accomplishes a purpose. Exhibit A is a movie I watched a little while ago called The Shack. I was so impressed with the film I insisted that my children watch it.

They were not as impressed with it as me. But what do they know, huh?

Anyway, in the movie Octavia Spencer plays a character named Papa. She is essentially God in the film. God who, in this story, takes on the form of a Black woman, always happy, regal and supremely wise. But also, cooking meals and dancing to Brenton Wood’s Gimme Some Kind of Sign.

Me with all my forward-thinking and lust for new perspectives. Secretly, I loved and hoped for this ideal—of God treading this earth after having adopted a woman’s form. But watching such a thing unfold before my eyes, even in fiction—admittedly I was taken aback at first. It is hard to swim against the tide of what has been browbeaten into the head. In the end, though, I was fully on board with God as a Black woman.

Exhibit B: Ariana Grande’s God is a Woman.

I routinely listen to the radio whenever I’m driving anywhere. I switch between all kinds, Pop, Country, Hip-Hop. You name it. And I am ashamed to say that Ariana’s song still makes me cringe. I’m not sure, but I think there were even times when I changed the station when it was being played.

Why, tho? Just…Why?

Again. It is hard to swim against the tide of what has been browbeaten into the head. Preaching about God being manifested in every one of us, man, woman, boy, girls is one thing. Truly, owning the concept is another thing altogether.

I imagine becoming comfortable with this concept would be much easier for those not born and raised in the Christian tradition. My Buddhist frenemy, for instance, doesn’t view God as a spirit person, like a being with any form—humanoid or otherwise. For him there are only universal forces that flow through every living thing, energy which keeps everything moving towards the future. Kinda like Eywa, the deity in the Avatar movies who only seeks to keep everything in balance.

And, no. It doesn’t escape me that Eywa is presented as female. Let’s call this Exhibit C. God as…a living, sentient and femin-esque planet? Yeah. This intriguing concept is one my brain enjoys trying to wrap itself around.

Exhibit D: “I am.”

The Almighty introduces himself to readers of the holy scriptures in the book of Exodus and instantly plunges us into a bottomless pit of mystery. Frankly, the sheer enigmatic constitution of  “I am” is hard to bear. What does one do with… “I am?” How do you wrap this up and fit it neatly in a box?

You can’t.

The impulse to complete the sentence is tremendous, tho. Even as a child, I can recall reading those words and *internally screaming* WHAT?! You are… WHAT?

The name, Jehovah, doesn’t clear things up much. Some have tried to capture or reinterpret its meaning as: he causes to become.

And there it is. Humans, particularly the masculine counterpart, assigning a gender to God.

I must take exception to this.

I must because in the Bible God says simply, “I am.” Meaning it would be more accurate, if one must interpret the name, to interpret it as one who causes to become, causing to become, or, to distill it down to the purest core, eternally becoming.

To put it plainly, God cannot and should not be categorized. Consequently, humans should stop trying to genderized God. Such a magnanimous spirit is never one specific thing or being while at the same time being everything and everyone at once. It’s why worshipping idols—particularly animals and beast-like chimeras which are fundamentally subjugated to humans—intended to represent God is offensive and to be avoided at all costs.

Despite the forgoing argument, God, infinite in wisdom as an almighty being rationally should be, has put up with the use of “He/Him” for generations after generations of humankind who chose to acknowledge “I am.”

And, Yet, Still

Also, I’ve grown way too accustomed to the orthodox ideal. It’s strange–picturing God in woman’s form or non-gendered or even multi-gendered. I’m content to imagine a masculine figure able to act as Alpha, Omega, Father and, yes, powerful friend.

So, I will not be starting a revolution. No grass roots movement featuring an ancient and fear-inspiring goddess deserving of everyone’s adoration. Nothing but this short treatise. A little something to quietly pester your brain the next time you think or speak of God and default to“He” and/or “Him.”

You’re welcome.

___________________

Pronouns

Somebody once said you have to choose
them carefully. care..ful…ly
so take a little time. think long
think hard. ‘cause once the choice is made

you must own it. no one wants used ones

II

Everywhere everyone is claiming one-syllable
words like she, her, he, him, they and
them as though choosing sides in
a war where winner takes all
where only those without

will fall

when Time, at last, claims what they
are damned well pleased to claim
so, upon being asked to pick,
“me and you” were what i chose—as in
i’m gonna do me while letting you do you
and you do you while letting me do me
sure, there are days—and there will be
many—when you may look and see
me doing me quite badly. or, days when
i’ll watch you do you quite horribly
but “badly” and “horribly” are stepping stones
we take towards individuality
towards the real, the one and only

somebody.

III

Somebody.

somebody is the destiny everybody dreams of
somebody is the ultimate claim to stake
somebody is the opposite of
unknown
anonymous
anybody
nobody
and the
ever-popular

whats(his/her)name? …