Under the Fig Tree

In recent years, inclusive liturgical expressions like the “Sparkle Creed” have stirred both curiosity and controversy in Christian communities. While I affirm the importance of expanding our theological imagination to reflect the full diversity of God’s creation, I also believe we must remain grounded in the revelation we have received through Scripture and the witness of Christ. A recent text conversation brought this tension to the surface and reminded me that how we speak of God matters—not just linguistically, but theologically.

Scripture presents God using a wide array of images: a mother hen, a midwife, a consuming fire, a shepherd, and yes, a Father. Yet Jesus instructs us to pray, “Our Father,” and consistently refers to God with masculine pronouns. While God is beyond gender—neither male nor female in a biological sense—Jesus’ invocation of “Father” reveals something essential about God’s relationship to us. It is not about divine anatomy, but divine intimacy.

In this sense, God is non-binary—not in the contemporary identity-politics sense, but in the ontological sense of being beyond human categories. God has no body, no chromosomes, no reproductive function. But God does choose. In Christ, God chose particular relational language to reveal God’s self to us. That choice matters. It is not limiting God to call God “Father,” because it is the language Jesus gave us when he taught us how to pray.

So why do we continue to use masculine pronouns for God? Not because God is male, but because Jesus did. And yet, this does not mean feminine images of God are improper—Scripture offers them as well. The tension lies not in the binary, but in the revelation. When God chooses to reveal God’s self through the language of Father, we respond in humility, not because we understand fully, but because we trust the one who taught us to pray.

And here is where the reflection turns. If God—eternal, ineffable, uncontainable—can choose how to be known and identified, and we honor that choice, why is it so hard for us to honor the identities of our fellow human beings? If God’s self-identification matters, then so must the identities of those made in God’s image. To deny someone’s name, pronouns, or personhood is not simply a social error—it is a theological wound. If we believe each person reflects a part of God’s image, then their self-understanding deserves not only respect, but reverence.