Sermon - July 6, 2025 (Isaiah 66) Our Mothering God

Next year will mark the 250^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence by the nation’s founding fathers John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman the late 18^th century American revolutionary leaders who united the 13 colonies, oversaw the War of Independence from Great Britain and established the United States of America.

The Declaration's second sentence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness", is considered one of the most significant and famed lines in American (and world) history.

So in honor of our country’s Independence Day weekend celebration, I thought we ought to open with some trivia about this Land of the Free to get us going this morning.

The Founding Mothers

1.   What was the name of John Adams’ spouse?

2.   What was the name of Benjamin Franklin’s common-law wife?

3.   Tell me what you know about Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with women.

I’ll bet your textbooks never said much about these women, if anything at all. The reality is that Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Livingston, and Sherman were all married to women. And as a happily married man myself, I cannot reasonably fathom many men, let alone the founding fathers of our nation, who could rise to such heights without the aid of women in one way, shape, or form.

And so let us to take a moment to honor the memories of these founding wives and mothers since “all humanity are created equal.” First there’s the notably loyal Abigail Adams, often cited as her husband John’s closest advisor; and Deborah “Debby” Read, Benjamin Franklin’s common-law spouse, who took Benjamin in when he needed housing as a young man and who helped raise Franklin’s illegitimate child. And then there’s Thomas Jefferson’s first wife Martha Wayles, who stood by him as governor but died 19 years before his presidency, and Sarah “Sally” Hemings, Martha’s half-sister, an enslaved black woman whom Thomas had a long-standing relationship and six children with. Jefferson’s life is a whole sermon series in and of itself.

Land of the Free?

Some have argued that in the 1700s, the word men was sometimes used to denote both genders and according to the Library of Congress, most people in those days could have interpreted "all men" to mean humanity; but the truth is that if they wanted to be crystal clear of their intent, they could have used the word “humanity” instead of “men.” Listen, as a white, straight, middle-class male the truth is that I’m pretty sure if I was born female, a person of color, Native American, or any other sexual orientation, I’d probably not feel the same sense of freedom as an American today.

Instead, what we can see still playing out, from a countless number of so-called Christian churches to a great number of American places of work, is that in this country, beginning in 1776 when our nation declared independence from Britain on stolen land from the Natives, that “all men created equal” still feels very much as if the founding fathers did not mean “all humanity.”

The painful reality is that America remains one of the few “first world” countries to have never elected a woman to lead them unless we are willing to admit that most of our greatest leaders have mostly their steadfast “First Lady’s” to credit for their successes. This innate distrust of women in leadership is also evident in our religious institutions. From Jews to Muslims and of course, the Christians, sadly enough, males have dominated leadership roles there as well.

When God Was a Woman

Why is this? Speaking purely from a Biblical standpoint here, most of the blame falls to the fact that in the scriptures God is almost primarily referred to as male (He/Him/His.)

Now, if you have been paying attention these last seven or so years, you know that historical context is a big factor for yours truly, and that on more than one occasion, I have taught and reminded you that as far as most scholars know, the Bible was written by men, and the Church has been run by men, and well, I’m not gonna spell it out more than that. So…. So I invite you to explore and to imagine with me that perhaps---God isn’t a Man. (shielding self gesture.) I want us to explore and imagine that perhaps---God is bigger than the gender assignments we give. But before we can truly break God free from the small boxes we place Her within---that’s right, you heard me correctly--- I believe we need to explore the femineity of our Creator God, beginning with this special sermon series on some feminist readings of the Bible over the next month. Your preachers are aided for this by using feminist scholarship and female authorship such as Julie Faith Parker’s book “Eve Isn’t Evil” and Merlin Stone’s book “When God Was a Woman”---the latter of which I have used for today’s message.

Male-Centric Scriptures

Please understand, women are not absent in the scriptures. There are plentiful examples of women doing wonderful and amazing things all throughout the Bible. However, I can’t escape the fact that the Biblical witness time and again feels negatively slanted toward the non-male, and non-heterosexual parts of our humanity. It’s like with every story I can see the Biblical editors humming the ol’ jingle of, “everything you can do I can do better” as the male-centric narrative continues its march onward underneath it all. In other words, beginning, middle, and end, it’s the masculine witness throughout the Bible that somehow shows forth as the winner—or at the very least, as not the biggest loser.

The sad reality is that if a preacher wants to see and understand the Bible as anything differently than this, we need the help of scholars who’ve taken feminist perspectives much more seriously. The options today are the most they’ve ever been in my career, thanks be to God—but I had to be extremely intentional about my choices, because the majority of them are still very much male-centric.

So without further ado, here’s some food for thought about today’s Old Testament text from the prophet Isaiah, with almost all my commentary assistance from Julie Faith Parker and Merlin Stone.

Isaiah’s Mothering God

Isaiah's prophecies frequently target the rulers of Judah, critiquing their decisions and actions, and calling them to repentance. The core audience of Isaiah's prophecies is the inhabitants of the Southern Kingdom of Judah and the city of Jerusalem, where he lived and ministered. Isaiah's messages also look ahead to the Babylonian exile and the eventual return of the Israelites, offering hope and a vision of a renewed covenant. Isaiah also uses symbolic language and imagery, such as the "vineyard" representing Israel and the "servant" representing a future Messiah, extending his message to broader concepts and future possibilities. 

When the prophet speaks here in chapter 66, he is God’s mouthpiece, essentially handing the pen and paper over to God to speak what God wants to speak. And God, according to Isaiah, urges the people to rejoice for Jerusalem and “be glad for her, love her, mourn for her, nurse and be consoled at her breast, and drink deeply from her bosom.” Isaiah, living in an ancient world, using metaphoric language any mother knows all too well from the early human development days of their kin. The dominant parental heritage for Christians is that God is our Father. Let us not forget that God is also a mothering God.

What is going on here?

According to Stone, this reference to a Mothering God would not have fallen on deaf ears in the ancient world. Archeaological evidence abounds in stories of The Great Goddess—that is, the female gendered God—who flourished in the Near and Middle East for thousands of years before the arrival of the patriarchal Abraham, first prophet of the male deity Yahweh and founding father of the Jews.

For far longer than we can imagine, our ancestors thought about God as a wise Goddess, a Comforting Mother, the Birther of the Universe. Goddess figurines have been found all over the world, and get this, were often depicted as serpents and doves.

Hmm, serpents and doves---do those creatures ever appear in the Bible?  

Conclusion

Our Mothering God imagery from Isaiah might be the same imagery from the waters at Creation---which, for the writer of Genesis depicted a large feminine Spirit hovering over her nest like a bird – perhaps the same feminine Spirit the New Testament writers borrowed to depict descending on Jesus at his baptism? As for the serpent—well, I’ll leave that for another day.

In conclusion of part one, let us stretch ourselves in our depictions of God, just as Isaiah did in speaking to a scattered and anxious people who needed reminding that God never leaves us in the same way a good mother cannot bear the thought of abandoning her babes.

He/him/his, she/her/hers, they/their/them, God is not made in our image. As Julie Faith Parker writes,

“God is constrained by nothing, including our constructs that label people as male, female, nonbinary, transgender, or another sexual identity…to confine God to male pronouns limits God.”

What would happen in our lives, in our churches, and in our country today if we stopped limiting God?

From Eve, to Mary Magdalene, to Abigail Adams and mothers, wives, same-sex partners, and all those who’ve endured the sting of exclusion, abuse, or made to feel less worthy than their masculine counterparts, it is beyond due that we become the land of the free for in Christ Jesus we’ve never been freer. May you experience this freedom—this Oneness in Christ’s Love for all those God our heavenly Mother entrusts to your care, knowing in Her Everlasting Love, we are comforted and nourished now and forevermore. Amen.