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Did Jesus teach that God is male?   No.   Jesus said, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:24).  Do spirit beings have gender?  No.  They are not physical beings.  They don’t have genitalia, and they don’t have hormones.  Angels are also spirit beings and Jesus said that, after death and resurrection, we will be like angels, and we won’t be married or marrying (Matthew 22:30).  God is not male.  Neither is God female.

The problem really lies with the English language.  Jesus describes God as a loving parent who wants to be loved by us, God’s human children.  So, what word should we use when we pray to God?  Ideally, we need a word that both expresses our love for God and is gender neutral, but there is no word in modern English that does this.  “Parent” is a gender-neutral word, of course.  It can be used for either a male parent or a female parent.  But “parent” is not an intimate word.  It does not carry overtones of love and affection.  The only words that carry those overtones, that sense of intimacy, are either male or female, “Father”, “Mother”, “Mom” or “Dad”.  This is the root of the problem and, as I said, it’s a problem with the English language and we should not allow it to be become a problem with our understanding of the creator spirit, the divine presence, that entity that we often call God, however we experience her, him, it, they, or them (choose whichever pronoun is best for you).  In this post I am going to use male pronouns when necessary (when I must choose either male or female pronouns) because Jesus told his followers to use male pronouns.  More about that later.

From the beginning, our loving heavenly Father did not identify himself as male.  When God introduced himself to Moses, Moses asked what his name was, God replied “I am.” (Exodus 3:14).  And there you have it!  The name God chose to call himself, “I am”, is neither male nor female.  To get slightly technical, “I am” is a verb not a noun.  Wonderful!

When Jesus entered our world, he entered a culture in which people had been distancing themselves from “I am” for a long time.  They had lost interest in the commandment to love “I am”.  They had been distancing themselves by instituting a priesthood to stand between them and “I am”, and by declaring that “I am” was so holy and so distant that they were not even allowed to speak, or write, the name “I am”.  (Strangely enough, our Christian Bibles replace “I am” with “Lord” on most occasions, and “Lord” is a male term.  Why have scholars done this?  I don’t know… but I have my suspicions.)

Jesus turned up and told the people to stop distancing themselves from “I am” and to call “I am” “Father” (for example in Matthew 6:9).  Does this imply that “I am” has male gender?  I don’t think so.  Why did Jesus tell us to call “I am” “Father”?  We don’t know, but I reckon Jesus may have done this to emphasize the intimate, loving, parent-child relationship that “I am” wants to have with us, his beloved children.

I think the issue of how “I am” should be addressed is not really an issue at all, like many other issues that divide us, because I think that “I am” probably isn’t bothered how we address “I am”.  The attitude of our heart is important, not the words we use.  So, if we pray and call the loving “I am” “Father” or “Mother” with humble obedient hearts, I am confident that “I am” will listen.  (But we should not use either of those words as a means of showing our sisters and brothers that we are behaving correctly and they are not.  This will encourage division and Jesus, who is also “I am”, does not want us to be divided.)

If you have read other articles on this site, you’ve probably noticed that I usually refer to “I am” as “our loving Father”.  Why?  Because I follow the teachings of Jesus who is also “I am” and he tells me to address “I am” as “Father”.  That’s fine by me and that’s what I do when I pray.  However, I do not object to anyone addressing “I am” as “Mother” when they do so from a heart that is humble, trusting and obedient.  I understand why they may want to do so.  I trust and hope that when I address God as “Father” anyone who hears me will understand that I am not attributing gender to our loving, heavenly “I am”.  I am acknowledging only that “I am” is my loving parent and that I love and trust “I am” with all my heart.

 

May our loving, heavenly “I am” bless us all and keep us safe.

Jesus is “I am”.

Peter O

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“Loving God, the Good Parent”

“What did Jesus teach about loving God?”

“Taking my feet off the ground.  Learning to trust our Heavenly Father.”

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