So I've been thinking about women...and Jesus

I've been thinking about women a lot. This may have to do with the fact that I've been working on a project around violence against women, or the fact that recently read an article about women in the World Student Christian Federation. There might be lots of reasons.

However, this morning, over friendly breakfast banter with one of the regional secretaries we got on the topic of the Virgin birth. Now, being an Anglican, we ascribe to the Virgin Birth, but it is not really primary in our faith - unlike in the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Anyway..

So, I put on my Facebook status something about the question of Jesus' having ovaries (this was where our eventual conversation lead this morning because of the lack of physical male input into Jesus' conception - where did the y chromosome come from? Especially since the Holy Spirit can be considered feminine, and Mary was a woman. In fact you could say that Jesus had two mothers - but that is for another conversation)

It was strange. One of my friends really questioned me on this idea of Jesus not being a "man" because of a lack of y chromosome (to be fair in my actual facebook status I put x chromosome because I always mix up which ones it is that girls have and which ones boys have). I am glad that she questioned me on my joking about Jesus. I do need to take Jesus and my faith very seriously. I think I learned a lot about how I view Jesus, the historical person and Jesus the Christ.

However, I agree that the belief that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and was born of the Virgin Mary, has nothing to do with Jesus' physical attributes - that is a question of faith. So on some level, I understand that this is a rather trivial matter. However, the thing that I am really struck by is how God CANNOT under any circumstances be female. God can be gender neutral - in fact most people I know today would not dispute this fact at all. God is neither male nor female. The fact that most of our language used to describe God is male is a remnant of our patriarchy and it is a part of our cultural heritage. I agree with this to an extent - I enjoy saying the "Our Father" and I find it meaningful - I've never quite found the "Our Creator" version as powerful. However, there is something to recognizing both aspects of the male and female in God. It's not just that God has no gender. It's that God is bigger and encompasses both genders.

The fact that I am a woman, with all the womanness that that entails is not a mystery for God. God created me this way. I am just as much created in the image of God as any man. My body and my mind and my feminine desires are part of God's plan for me. There is no second class anything about me simply because I am not a man. No, being a woman is a gift from God - just as being a man is a gift from God. (I recognize I'm leaving out all those that either do not identify as men or women - or that were born intersexed but for now we're working in dualities).

But - I just think that reaction that I got from a simple question about Jesus' ability to have ovaries shows just how entrenched our patriarchy is. We do not even realize that we are trapped by own words and our own preconceptions into putting God and Jesus into the little boxes of man and woman.