I am currently writing an assignment on woman as "Eikon" ( the image of God), through an explanation/ unpacking of a Mothering Sunday liturgy, where bringing a hermeneutic of suspicion to what one friend calls "het-pat" Sunday, I used Psalm 139 as a central theme. Four women aged from just 8 years old to 90 read a part of the psalm each, the youngest declaring boldly " I am fearfully and wonderfully made!
My aim was to introduce the possibility of God as the divine feminine, and through that image to deconstruct and reconstruct our thinking of the woman in God's image. Woman as Eikon. The women who read not only represented different age groups, but also very different lives, the 90 yr old is not a mother, she had chosen not to be, the choice made through much soul searching! Two mothers were represented, one with young children, and one whose children have grown and left home, the 8 yr old has life's possibilities stretched before her....
As I write this I am looking at a beautiful reproduction of an icon of St Hild of Whitby painted by Edith Reyntiens, it depicts not only Hild herself, but also the stages of her life's journey. Edith describes the Icon in these words:
" The Icon is not simply a descriptive narrative, it is rather a shorthand visual method for conveying information which is often complex theology as well as practical details."
That complex theology raises issues of gender and image, Reytien continues:" The wood, paint and plaster has no meaning per se, but it is a reflection of the meaning of the true image, that of the person." I might add that of the person the true Eikon of God.
Through liturgy I had devised, my hope was convey a similar meaning through its words- that as each prayer was said, and as Psalm 139 was boldly spoken by these different women, the congregation's eyes were opened to a new and wonderful picture of God. The 90 yr old woman's wisdom, the mother's caring for their children at different stages of life, and the 8 year old, full of possibility and hope- all Eikons, all reflecting, and all pointing to an aspect of God, who transcends us all and yet comes close.
It is interesting then that I began this blog post with the following scripture and questions:
If "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:28).
Does this then mean that Christians are one bland homogeneous lump of nothingness? How do we celebrate difference and diversity?
I think I may have answered myself- to be one in Christ means being equal, not identical.... but that leaves me with another question.... if this is the case, why do we struggle so much with issues of conformity and identity?
If I feel uncomfortable when others respond with shock or disapproval to the naming of God as Mother or Sister, as She or Her I also realise that it is a shock that we need to receive. It forces us to recognize that our exclusive use of male images for God for so long has demanded that we believe in a that God who is literally and exclusively male.
We must begin to entertain female images as equally expressive of the Mystery that is God, we must begin to see and to feel the many differences that makes to womens identity and self worth. We can never again see ourselves or the world or God in the same limited way we did for so long.
We can be helped in this quest through stories and icons of women saints, but equally we are also helped by one another as we learn to speak out our identity as true Eikons of God, fearfully and wonderfully made in her image.
