The Son/Sophia Gender Binary and SB 150

Andrew Stone Porter

St. William Church

9 July 2023

Matthew 11:25-30

[Inclusive Translation of gospel passage used in our church]:

 “On one occasion Jesus prayed, ‘Abba, Creator of heaven and earth, to you I offer praise, for what you have hidden from the learned and the clever, you have revealed to the youngest children. It is true, Abba, because you have graciously willed it so. You have given everything over to me. No one knows me but you, Abba, and no one knows you, Abba, except me—and those whose eyes I wish to open.

            Come to me, all you who labor and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. You will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

I want to begin by reading today’s gospel as it appears in the New Revised Standard Version. As I have shared before, I deeply appreciate that the Inclusive Translation enables us to hear scripture outside of a patriarchal register. As a social ethicist, though, I am often drawn toward a critical reading of what the text actually says, rather than an inclusive alternative interpretation of it. To each their own. Anyway!

“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (25-27). So, here we have some problems. First, we may interpret the text to mean that God is only accessible through Jesus Christ. Christians have in fact done this for centuries as justification for colonizing and coercively converting indigenous peoples. Second, the text is pretty clearly patriarchal. No one knows the Son except the Father. No one knows the Father but the Son.

But, as so often happens, when we push on the gender binary of the text a bit, it starts to leak!

For now Jesus says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Biblical scholar Dennis Duling comments on this passage, noting that “personified Wisdom” speaks similarly in Sirach, chs. 24 and 51. Indeed ch. 51 of Sirach says, “Draw near to me, you who are uneducated, and lodge in the house of instruction. Acquire wisdom for yourselves without money. Put your neck under her yoke, and let your souls receive instruction.”

The case that Jesus is identifying himself with personified Wisdom is strengthened when we compare today’s passage with one that appears earlier in the same chapter in Matthew’s gospel, where Jesus says, “John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds” (18-20). Here Duling notes, “Jesus seems to be identified with wisdom, although the latter was mythologized as female [in Jewish wisdom literature like Proverbs, Wisdom, and Sirach]. Thus her deeds are actually his.”

Catholic feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson has studied the identification of Jesus with Wisdom in her book She Who Is. Johnson acknowledges that “although egalitarian impulses are discernable in the Bible, the texts as such were written mostly by men and for men in a patriarchal cultural context and reflect this fact. The story of salvation is told from a male point of view, while the creative reflection and participation of women is neglected or marginalized” (76). So she is under no illusions that the Bible is somehow an inherently feminist set of texts. Yet Johnson also argues that with critical biblical scholarship we can surmise that Jesus didn’t use father language as much as it appears in the gospels. God is called “Father” only 4 times in the earliest gospel, Mark, written closest to the time Jesus lived; “Father” appears 15 times in Luke and 49 times in Matthew; and it appears 109 times in John, the last gospel to be written. Thus Johnson suggests that the use of Father language is a late first-century development “which grew hardened and fixed in alliance with patriarchal rule, thus imprisoning rather than releasing the good news it was originally intended to convey” (82). The ascent of the Father metaphor reflects growing sexism within Christian churches and the removal of women from leadership roles they occupied in the first decades of the Jesus movement. When Jesus spoke of “Abba” he was not referring to a ruling, dominating Father, but of a loving parent in personal familial relationship with oppressed persons. Moreover, “Abba” is just one of many terms for God Jesus uses—other metaphors include “a bakerwoman kneading dough” and a wind that blows where it will (80).

In the Hebrew Wisdom tradition, Johnson writes, “Sophia [Wisdom] is a female personification of God’s own being in creative and saving involvement in the world” (91). Scholars are nearly unanimous that there were extrabiblical female deities in cultures surrounding ancient Israel and that these deities show their influence in the Hebrew scriptures, especially the Egyptian goddess Isis. In the Wisdom tradition, then, “Sophia” is a divine feminine figure who was perhaps created to meet the temptation of this cult for Jews, allowing them to worship the divine feminine while preserving monotheistic faith (92-93).

In the Christian canon, Jesus becomes the personification of this Wisdom figure especially in gospels of John and Matthew. Paul refers to “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:22-24). Johnson also points to the Hagia Sophia cathedral to Christ in Constantinople; and to Augustine, who writes of Wisdom that “she” came in the person of Christ as a human being. Johnson concludes: “Since Jesus the Christ is depicted as divine Sophia, then it is not unthinkable—it is not even unbiblical—to confess Jesus the Christ as the incarnation of God imaged in a female symbol” (99).

She Who Is was published thirty-one years ago and Johnson retired in 2018 as former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and one of the most important theologians of the last half-century. Her argument of course remains relevant, as Christian scriptures are still weaponized to exclude women from positions of power in the Church. Today, Catholic moral theology also faces new questions of which Johnson was not aware when She Who Is was written. The text presumes a male/female binary (Sophia-Female vs. Father-Male). What resources does the gospel offer to trans, nonbinary and genderqueer folks? Theologians like Elizabeth Edman have recently looked to Paul’s invocation in Galatians 3:28 that “there is neither male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus”; others have pointed out that God in Genesis 1 is apparently gender-fluid, named with the plural “Elohim” and creating humankind “in our image,” “male and female.” In our gospel today Jesus identifies himself both as Son and as [presumed female] Wisdom.

These conversations are crucial in light of Kentucky’s Senate Bill 150 which among other things prohibits gender-affirming care for trans youth, allows teachers to intentionally misgender their students, and requires that students use the bathroom of the gender they were assigned at birth. In our ecclesial context, we now have the “Doctrinal Note on the Moral Limits to Technological Manipulation of the Human Body” which was released in March of 2023 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The note refers to “the created order” of male and female and warns of the dangers of “technological interventions” that are “injurious to the true flourishing of the human person.” The doctrinal note does not consult either contemporary science on gender identity nor the voices, experiences and concerns of trans people. Instead, it quotes previous church documents and opines that technological interventions are only permissible to “repair defects” and not “to alter the fundamental order of the body” by “mutilating” its members through surgery or therapeutic or genetic manipulation. Regarding interventions to address “gender dysphoria” the note states: “These technological interventions are not morally justified either as attempts to repair a defect in the body or as attempts to sacrifice a part of the body for the sake of the whole.” The document concludes, vaguely and crucially, that “Catholic health care services are called to provide a model of promoting the authentic good of the human person.”

Time does not permit me to unpack or engage these theological concerns today; American Catholic theologians have already begun to respond better than I could. I invite us to consider these questions further together as a community in the months ahead. In the mean time, I want to conclude with the public statement we crafted in response to the passage of SB 150. You will note that the statement does not even address questions of theological anthropology or Catholic doctrine. To support this statement it is not necessary to be an expert on trans issues; it is not necessary to have the science or the politics or even the vocabulary figured out, although we are always invited to keep learning. Our statement is more modest. It rests upon the Catholic principle of the dignity of the human person and asks for a common sense and caring response, attentive to the fact that trans’ kids lives are being threatened. We may call God father, or mother, or parent, or friend. These differences matter. But let us also remember Jesus’s first priority, which was to look toward people who are weary, carrying heavy burdens, weighed down by the yoke of oppression—and offer rest, welcome, and safety.

As leaders of St. William Catholic Church, we believe in the inherent dignity and Divine presence in all human beings, without exception. It is from this call that we are compelled to use our voices.

We have grave concerns about the recent passage of Senate Bill 150 and the harm that it will do to our transgender, nonbinary, and queer siblings. We know more than half of trans and nonbinary youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year; that LGBTQ+ youth are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide compared to their peers; that 73% of LGBTQ+ youth report experiencing discrimination based on their gender identity or sexual orientation, and that those who did were more than twice as likely to attempt suicide in the past year. For these reasons, all major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychiatric Association, oppose legislation like SB 150. While proponents of SB 150 have selectively misinterpreted scientific data to argue that their bill protects children, "[t]he truth is that data from more than a dozen studies of more than 30,000 transgender and gender-diverse young people consistently show that access to gender-affirming care is associated with better mental health outcomes—and that lack of access to such care is associated with higher rates of suicidality, depression and self-harming behavior."

This is a bill of death and we are people who believe in life.

Jesus stood with the outcast and the oppressed and called all beloved. As followers of Christ, we stand with our beloved siblings whose lives are at stake because of this law and we ask all Catholics, Christians, and folks of conscience to stand with us.

Amen.