Yes She Can
In the beginning … God said, “Let us make ha’adam, humankind, in our image and likeness.” So God did. God created humankind in their own image, in the image of God, male and female, God created them. – Genesis 1:26-27 (adapted)
God created humankind ‘male and female’ in Their image. But somewhere along the way in the vascular system of human imagination, an artery got clogged and narrowed. The divine image in Christian art was primarily male. The pronouns only male. The priesthood only male. Politics, the locus of divine power enacted on earth, exclusively male.
It is as if we forgot half of who we are: made in the image and likeness of God, male and female and expanding beyond a simple M-F binary into a multi-dimensional universe of gender. The Divine Feminine was lost, as were so many other images of God. White Jesus, muscular Jesus, or the old man enthroned on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel took up more and more space in our consciousness. God was a man, and by default, men were gods.
There have been cracks in the patriarchy along the way. One of those came 175 years ago when Congregationalists ordained the first woman Protestant minister, Antoinette Brown. I stand on her shoulders and many others who cracked the stained-glass ceiling so that I can do what I do with less obstructional sexism—and so the girls in my church can see someone who looks like them in religious leadership (which, by the way, has positive mental health benefits).
But for the 248 years that the U.S. has been a nation, we have routinely left out of executive political leadership half of the humans made in the image of God. More than half, when we disrupt the dichotomous construction of sex. Will that change now?
Let me be clear: God endorses no one human being. Throughout the Bible, our God had a very reluctant relationship with monarchs and executive leaders. God is God.
Who does God endorse? The wholeness of humanity, fairly represented, justly cared for. No kings or queens. Just a sacred kin-dom, if we can make it. If we can keep it.
Prayer
God, in the words of Rev. Senator Raphael Warnock: a vote is a kind of prayer for the kind of world we want to live in.
Rev. Molly Baskette is the lead pastor of First Church Berkeley UCC and the author of books about church renewal, parenting, spiritual growth and more. Sign up for her author newsletter or get information about her newest book at mollybaskette.com.