"The Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast that a woman
took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the
dough" Matt. 13:33
By now The Shack is no longer in theaters and
hopefully, the furor surrounding it has subsided. For the record, I saw it and
thoroughly enjoyed it. Paul Young is a good fiction writer who did an amazing
job describing his personal healing journey. Done, not as a doctrinal or
theological treatise, but in response to his wife's request, he penned
something special for their children. She had in mind an essay, he wrote a
book.
Never intended for publication, The Shack is an
example of how to do everything wrong to publish and market a book and accidentally
wind up with a bestseller. Since its release and now that of the movie, lines
of demarcation have been drawn over issues it raises. One in particular is the
depiction of God as a black woman! Perish the thought (and she doesn't speak
the King's English either). Paul Young, however, wasn't the first person to
describe God in a feminine form. Jesus beat him to the punch.
I owe some of these insights to Robert Farrar Capon and his book
Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage and Vindication in the Parables of
Jesus. It's his examination of the Parable of the Leaven that captured my
attention and got the wheels of my thought processes spinning.
"Let is simply be noted in passing that the
surrogate for God in this parable is a woman. Set that down with Jesus calling
Himself a mother hen."
Capon elaborates. The woman isn't a typical housewife
crafting a few loaves of artisanal bread for a dinner party. This lady is a
commercial baker doing what has in the past been considered men's work.
The measure of flour (sáta) used is equivalent to ninety
pounds. Add in approximately forty-two cups of water and you'll have just over
one hundred pounds of bread dough. I've seen bakers mix this amount of
ingredients using heavy duty mixers. Doing this by hand would be a daunting
task, which is her methodology.
Capon's main point wasn't that God was portrayed as a female
baker, but in light of the uproar of Paul Young's depiction of God as a woman,
it's not as out in left field as his critics contend. It's ironic that the
initial encounter with the protagonist of The Shack and God involves
bread making.
"So God created man in his own image, in the image
of God He created Him, male and female He created them" Gen. 1:27.
God is spirit, neither male nor female, but He's free to
reveal Himself anyway He chooses. For those with father issues like Paul Young,
God took a more maternal approach to help him work through his painful,
traumatic past. It was successful and that's what's important.
In addition, the name of God El Shaddai means the All
Breasty One which is the picture of a nursing mother. Proverbs describes Wisdom
as a woman with God at Creation. Jesus is the Creator and is also called our
Wisdom. The word used for Holy Spirit in the Genesis account of creation is in
the female form. Apparently, God doesn't mind being associated with either sex
since He made them both.
How about you? Does the idea of God portrayed in a feminine
role grate on your nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard? Do you find it
uncomfortable or strange that Jesus used women as symbols for God in the Parables of the Leaven
and the Lost Coin or likened Himself to a mother hen? Based on your past, could
you relate to God easier at times from a motherly perspective as opposed to a
fatherly one? God desires healing and intimacy with all creation and He'll go
to extraordinary lengths to make it happen.
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