For women, the spiritual consequences of exclusive male language and imagery for God should be obvious. Whereas men are able to identify with the divine being and enjoy the full experience of truly having been “created in the image and likeness of God,” women cannot. Women’s interior lives offer a spirituality that is always characterized in relation to, but not through identification with the divine being. No matter how hard one tries, the interior experience of God is always relational/separated/distant. For women, God is always the absolute “Other.” Now it may be argued (with a nod to Martin Buber) that God should always be experienced as “Other,” but men experience this “Otherness” only by degree. God is more powerful than men, but men still share in that power. God is more perfect than men, but men still reflect the divine image. There is no passage perhaps more disturbing to the Christian feminist theologian than St. Augustine’s thoughts on the ability or inability of man and woman, respectively, to reflect the divine:
How then did the apostle [Paul] tell us that the man is the image of God and therefore he is forbidden to cover his head; but that the woman is not so, and therefore is commanded to cover hers? Unless, forsooth, according to that which I have said already… that the woman together with her own husband is the image of God, so that the whole substance may be one image; but when she is referred separately to her quality of help-meet, which regards the woman herself alone, then she is not the image of God; but as regards the man alone, he is the image of God as fully and completely as when the woman is joined with him in one. -- On the Trinity
Augustine hit the proverbial covering on the head. A male God is reflective of males, a mirror in which there is no room for the female.
The veneration of Mary in Catholicism does little to help because the Biblical stories in which Mary appears are “read” and interpreted in such a way as to elevate carefully selected “feminine” characteristics. Mary, as human woman is portrayed in direct contrast to fallen Eve. Whereas Eve was disobedient, Mary is dutiful, obedient, passive vessel. Whereas Eve was tempting seductress, Mary is perpetually, untainted Virgin. Whereas Eve bears the mark of rebellious ingrate, Mary’s soul “magnifies the Lord.” Whereas Eve bears the son who commits fratricide, Mary bears the son of God. A feminist reading of the Gospel stories in which Mary appears would however render a different interpretation for modeling behavior. These would include audacity, assertiveness, authority and courage.
In the story of the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will conceive and bear a son, traditional Mariology has focused attention on Mary’s acceptance of the will of God as expressed in her Magnificat, at the end of the story. Ignored are the first words Mary speaks to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know man?” Mary stands before the freaking angel Gabriel and challenges him with audacity.
In the story of the wedding at Cana, Jesus is a reluctant miracle worker. In fact, he outright refuses to act after his mother has informed him that the hosts have run out of wine. Mary does not argue, nor does she prod or plead. She turns away from her son and speaks to the servants, “Do what he tells you to do.” And contained within that simple instruction to the servants, is a command for her son to get off his butt and act.
When Jesus is lost in the Temple and is finally found, Mary and not Joseph is the voice of discipline, “Did you not know we would be looking for you?” Jesus responds like an arrogant teenager, “Did you not know I would be about my Father’s business?” I can imagine Mary pulling him home by the ear and grounding him for a week.
And of course, at the Cross when all the male disciples have fled in fear and cowardice, there she is.
Mary, as a woman of flesh might have served as a female identifier if the Church had not made her so unique. Mary as Virgin and Mother possesses an ontology that is physically impossible for women to emulate and yet, I have never attended a Mother’s Day Mass and sermon in which Mary has not been lifted up as the model for women. I have been told by some that the Church “loves” women because it has such a history of adoration for Mary. I respond by paraphrasing Gloria Steinem, “A pedestal is as confining a space as a cage.”
Mary, as Mother of God is another thing. I suspect, in fact I know, that in popular piety faithful women simply ignored the Church, which cautioned not to worship Mary as divine. Despite the Church’s doctrinal statements, Mary functioned as goddess in power and in majesty in women’s prayer and ritual lives. That Mary in her humanity was unattainable did not dissuade women in their identification with Mary as female power. This piety however lacked an ecclesiastical tradition, authority and validation. I suspect that the elevation of female power in Mary was the only thing that made a patriarchal, exclusively male god palatable and possible.
Movements in women’s spirituality including neo-pagan goddess worshipping traditions have revived female images for the divine being. These divine images take many forms. Some resurrect the ancient Paleolithic and Neolithic Mother Goddess, some are constructive of completely new associations and some simply replace the male language for the God of the Bible with female metaphors and images. There is scriptural foundation for the latter. A plethora of female images for God already exist in the Bible, though they have been suppressed. God is described as Mother Bear, Mother Eagle. The God who dwells among humankind, the Shekinah is female. The Wisdom of God, Sophia is female.
From everlasting I was firmly set,
From the beginning before the earth came into being.
The deep was not, when I was born,
There were no springs to gush with water.
Before the mountains were settled,
Before the hills, I cameto birth.
Proverbs 8: 23-25
She deploys her strength from one end of the earth to the other,
Ordering all things for good…
If in this life wealth is a desirable possession,
What is more wealthy than Wisdom whose work is everywhere?
Or, if it be the intellect that is at work,
Where is there a greater intellect than Wisdom, designer of all?
Or, if it be virtue you love, why virtues are the fruits of Her labors
Since it is She who teaches temperance and prudence,
Justice and fortitude;
Nothing in life is more helpful to people than these…
She knows how to turn maxims and riddles,
She has knowledge of signs and wonders,
Of the unfolding of the ages and of times…
Immortality is found in being kin to Wisdom.
Wisdom 8
But the process of rendering female imagery and language for God must proceed with caution. I have strong reservations about some of the modern movements for the “divine feminine,” because despite good intentions it is all too often the case that female imagery for God is attached to “feminine” qualities. The female is cast in the role of nurturer, sensitive and compassionate sufferer, mother, kind healer, etc. This does not serve us (or Her) well. The result is the reinforcement and further propagation of the traditional (and patriarchal) Western sex-gender system which attributes to the female “feminine” characteristics and to the male, “masculine” ones. What must occur is NOT the attachment of “feminine” qualities to God, but rather the attachment of divine act and power to the female. The Biblical tradition of Divine Wisdom can serve as guide.
The female is Creatrix, Eternal, Just, Intelligent.
She Orders Chaos, Instructs in Virtue, Deploys Her Strength.
Wisdom calls aloud in the streets,
She raises her voice in the public squares,
She calls out at the street corners,
She delivers her message at the city gates…
On the hilltops, on the road, at the crossways,
She takes her stand;
Beside the gates of the city, at the approaches to the gates
She cries aloud:
O people, I am calling to you:
My cry goes out to all humanity.
Proverbs 1:20-21, 8:2-4
Rock on.
No comments:
Post a Comment