Sunday's Gospel Reading contains, arguably, the favorite Bible verse of most Christians: John 3:16. (As an aside, the Protestant Bible has over 31,000 verses while the Roman Catholic has over 35,000!)
I like this narrative because two men--Jesus and Nicodemus--are talking about something men do not have and an experience men never go through: wombs and birthing. When Nicodemus asks Jesus if being being born anew meant going back into his mother's womb, Jesus says no. It is being born from God's womb.
Many among us learned about the Yahwist tradition in the Torah (the Pentateuch) which describes God in anthropomorphic terms: God forming Adam from the dust of the ground; God breathing into Adam's nostrils; God planting a garden; God walking in that garden; and God making garments for Adam and Eve. Yet, God is male in these imaginings.
Most of us have been conditioned to block out female imagery for the divine in the Bible. Scholars tell us that there are at least 40 citations about Asherah in the Hebrew Bible. Sunday's lection challenges us to imagine God as a woman. Sunday's reading challenges us to imagine God giving birth. Sunday's reading invites us to imagine God nursing her children.
Why? Because this is one way John's Jesus imagined God. Because hundreds of Judean Pillar Figurines (JPFs) found in Ancient Israelite and Judahite homes and cultic sites tell us that this is how many in Palestine imagined God. Because archeology, anthropology, and related disciplines, across cultures, support this imagination. God has a womb. God has breasts. God is a mother.
Friends, Sunday's reading challenges us to imagine God beyond the boxes we have created to contain God.
*image of JPFs from Femmina Classica [In Search of Ashera: The Hebrew Lost Goddess].
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