Is God nonbinary? God Beyond Gender ~ Isaiah 42:10-17

 

A few months ago, the name James Talarico started showing up all over the news. Talarico is a Texas politician, a former teacher, and a Presbyterian minister. And among the things he said that got a lot of attention was this provocative statement: “God is nonbinary.” I have to admit, that sentence makes me want to take a deep breath before I say anything else.

People immediately began arguing about what he meant, whether it was biblical, whether it was theological nonsense, whether it was progressive Christianity gone off the rails. Eventually, Talarico clarified that he was trying to make the point that God is beyond gender, and acknowledged that perhaps some of his phrasing had missed the mark. But here's the interesting thing: what if the basic theological instinct behind that provocative sentence is actually pretty biblical?

Not necessarily the phrase “God is nonbinary.” You don't have to use that language. But the idea that God is beyond our categories of male and female is not some new idea invented by progressive Christians. It's right there in Scripture.

So let me begin with something very simple and very clear: God is not a sexed being. God is neither male nor female. God is the ground of all being and the source of all life. God is God. And yet—and this is where things get interesting—the Bible talks about God using both masculine and feminine images, as well as all kinds of other images. Scripture gives us a much bigger, richer, more mysterious picture of God than many of us were handed growing up. And here’s the danger: if the only picture we have of God is male-centered, our language and theology risk becoming unbiblical even idolatrous.

In Deuteronomy 4, Moses reminds Israel that when God spoke to them at Mount Horeb, they heard God's voice but did not see God's form. Moses specifically warns them not to make an image of God in the likeness of a man or a woman (Deuteronomy 4:12, 15–16). Jesus says it plainly: “God is spirit” (John 4:24).

So when Scripture calls God “Father,” we should not imagine that God is literally an old man somewhere in the universe. When Scripture calls God “King,” God isn't literally sitting on a throne wearing a crown. When Scripture says God is a rock or a lion, God isn't made of granite (Psalm 18:2) and doesn’t have a tail (Hosea 13:7). And when Scripture compares God to a nursing mother, God isn't literally a being with female anatomy.

 

These are all metaphors. And biblical metaphors aren't less true because they aren't literal. They are truthful ways Scripture helps us encounter a God who is both/and, as well as beyond, our words and images: God is Father and Mother, Shepherd and Rock, Lion and Lamb, Fire and Potter, Warrior and Wind.

And in Isaiah 42, Isaiah gives us perhaps one of the clearest examples of how radical biblical language about God can be. The chapter begins with the Lord described as a warrior going out to battle (Isaiah 42:13). God raises the battle cry and triumphs over God's enemies. But then, almost without taking a breath, God says: “For a long time I have kept silent... but now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant” (Isaiah 42:14).

 

A warrior. And then, in a blink of an eye, a woman in labor. Isaiah puts those images side by side. Both are images of God's determination and passionate involvement in the world. And this warrior God is not simply coming to defeat enemies but also labors like a woman giving birth to redemptive realities (Isaiah 42:16).

God's power is not merely the power to conquer. It’s the power to give birth, bring people home, open eyes, guide the lost, and make a way where there wasn't one. The warrior image and the birthing image point toward the same God: a God passionately committed to bringing us and all of creation toward life.

But let's be honest. Many of us aren't as comfortable with the Bible’s male/female combo. Most of us inherited a solely masculine picture of God. We heard God called “Father,” “Lord,” and “Warrior.” All of those are biblical. There is nothing wrong with calling God Father. Jesus calls God Father (Matthew 6:9; John 17:1). But there is a difference between saying that “Father” is a biblical image of God and saying that God is actually male. Scripture doesn't say that. In fact, Scripture keeps interrupting that assumption with feminine images. In Isaiah 49, God self-identifies as a nursing mother (Isaiah 49:15) and later says, “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you” (Isaiah 66:13). Scripture offers us visions of God as a mother eagle nurturing her nestlings (32:11), a caring mid-wife (Ps. 22:9), a mother bear protecting her cubs (Hosea 13:8) The feminine images of God that Scripture gives us are significant—not because we need to make God female, but because we need to make God more biblical. Female images are also Biblical.

 

By the way, Jesus understood that. Looking over Jerusalem, he says, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings” (Matthew 23:37). And in Luke 15, Jesus tells two stories back-to-back about God: a shepherd searches for one lost sheep, and, in the blink of an eye, a woman searches through her house for one lost coin (Luke 15:3–10). A man searching. A woman searching. Both reveal something about the heart of God.

 

The point isn't that God is sometimes male and sometimes female. The point is that God is neither male nor female—and yet both male and female experiences can become windows through which we glimpse something true about God.

And this matters not only theologically. It matters because what we repeatedly say about God shapes what we imagine God to be like. And who we imagine God to be like shapes how we understand ourselves. Worship is not merely about God. Worship teaches us. Prayer teaches us. The songs we sing, the prayers we pray, and the words we share with our children form our relationship with God and our relationship with one another.

There is research suggesting that our language for God matters deeply. A 2024 study found that masculine imagery of God created a greater sense of life purpose for men but a lower sense of life purpose for women. The researchers were careful not to say that masculine imagery automatically caused harm, but the study suggests that one-sided gendered-language for God is not psychologically neutral.

Imagine what happens when the only images of ultimate authority, holiness, wisdom, power, and divine action are masculine. Even if we never say it explicitly, a troubling message can seep in: the closer you are to maleness, the closer you are to God. When authority looks male. Leadership looks male. Wisdom looks male. Power looks male – women will look down and be looked down upon.

Our daughters need to hear that God can be imagined as a mother who comforts, a woman who searches, a nursing parent who cannot forget her child, and a mother hen who gathers vulnerable chicks beneath her wings. Those images don't make God less powerful. They expand what divine power means. They also teach us that the capacity to nurture, comfort, protect, create and give life is not somehow less godlike or less important.

And this isn't only liberating for women. It's liberating for men, too. If God is imagined almost exclusively through stereotypically masculine traits—strength, control, conquest, authority—men can absorb the message that vulnerability is weakness, gentleness is secondary, and tenderness is somehow less divine. But Scripture itself refuses that narrow definition.  When a man comforts a hurting child, sits beside someone who is grieving, expresses tenderness, or responds to suffering with deep empathy, he isn't moving away from God. He is reflecting God.

So this isn't about replacing “Father” with “Mother.” It isn't about banning masculine language or pretending Jesus wasn't male. Jesus was a first-century Jewish man. That's part of the beauty of the incarnation: the Word of God entered human history as a particular human being—male, Jewish, poor, vulnerable (John 1:14).  But Jesus' maleness does not mean that God is essentially male any more than Jesus' Jewishness means that God has ethnicity. God is Spirit (John 4:24), Jesus says. God is not a superhuman male. The incarnation means that the invisible God chooses to become visible in Jesus—not because God is a male, but because God loves us enough to become one of us in order to heal all of us.

 

So our task is not to choose our favorite image of God and throw away the others. Our task is to let Scripture stretch us. Sometimes the Bible's job isn't to make us comfortable. It’s job is to make our picture of God stranger. And I think that matters especially when we talk about gender. Human beings have always had a tendency to make God look suspiciously like ourselves. We create God in our image, and then—conveniently—God agrees with us about everything. God likes the people we like. God dislikes the people we dislike. God supports the social order we support. And the Bible keeps challenging us: You thought God looked like you? No. You were created in God's image. God was not created in yours. (Genesis 1:27)

And precisely because God transcends gender, women do not have to become less female to bear God’s image. Men do not have to become more stereotypically masculine to bear God’s image. The God we worship creates male and female together in God's image and blesses them both (Genesis 1:27–28).  And that's where all of this finally leads—not toward an argument about pronouns or a culture-war debate about whether we're allowed to call God “nonbinary,” but toward wonder. Toward humility. Toward more gender equality. Toward more Biblical worship. Because every time we speak about God, we are reaching for words that can never contain the One we're trying to describe. So call God Father. Yes. Call God Mother. Yes. And then remember: God is more than both.

So the question isn't simply, “What pronoun should we use for God?” The deeper question is: What kind of God are we imagining when we use that pronoun? Are we allowing Scripture to make God bigger? Don't be afraid of the mystery. Don't be afraid of the feminine images. Don't be afraid of the masculine ones. Because those unexpected images are there precisely to remind us: God is bigger than the God we have imagined.

And that's good news. God is not like us. God is not confined by us. God cannot be reduced to us. But we—male and female, all of us, each of us —are invited to reflect this mysterious God together. That's why we need one another. We need perspectives we don't always see. We need experiences we haven't lived. We need images that make us uncomfortable. We need Scriptures that challenge our assumptions. We need a God who is bigger than all of us.

And so, rather than trying to put God in a box, perhaps our invitation is simply this: Behold your Father. Behold your Mother. Behold the Lion. Behold the Lamb. Behold the Rock. Behold the Wind. Behold the God who cannot be reduced to any of these images—and yet meets us through all of them. Behold this God who is bigger than you imagined. Amen.

Before the Fall: God’s Original Design for Us ~ Genesis 1:26-28, 2:18-23, 3:15-16

 

Best-selling author Bruce Feiler tells a story about taking his family to Rome so his twin daughters could experience all the great art and culture. It wasn't going very well. Everyone's feet hurt. The girls were bored. Everybody was tired. And then, finally, they arrived at the Sistine Chapel. Feiler gathered up whatever enthusiasm he had left and said, “Look up! I'm going to blow your mind.” One of his daughters looked up at Michelangelo's famous painting of the creation of Adam and immediately said, “There's no woman. Where's the woman?”

 

And honestly, that's our question today. Where's the woman? It's a question people have been asking for a very long time. Where is she in our churches? Where is she in leadership? Where is she in the Bible? And even when we do find her, another question follows: What is she allowed to do? Is she really an equal partner? Or is she somehow considered less-than? Subordinate? Restricted? Dependent?

For thousands of years, people have turned to Scripture to answer those questions. And so, as we begin this series on biblical equality and Kingdom partnership, I want to suggest that we need to do something very simple: Let's start at the very beginning.

Let's go back to the Biblical story of Genesis which literally means “Beginning.” But before we begin at the beginning we need to begin our series by committing to reading Scripture carefully and prayerfully because when we do so, I believe we will discover the Bible’s overarching witness: men and women are equal in every way.

That’s a bold statement. I’m not asking you to believe it because I said it. I’m required to show you by offering evidence. So we're going to read carefully. Because Scripture is foundational to who we are. And that's why I want you to bring your Bibles during this series. Underline things. Circle things. Write questions in the margins. Define words. Make connections. Meet with me for coffee, if you need to. Actually, meet me for coffee, please. I love having conversations about Scripture that are invested, curious, and kind. We should never forget that Jesus’ most often asked question was, “Have you not read?” And Jesus articulated his mission and corrected religious teachers by hearkening to Scripture. We should do no less. And when we read Scripture carefully and prayerfully, with Jesus in mind, it leads us redemptively toward freedom from sin and all oppression. Here’s the point. Our denomination, which is currently celebrating its 50^th Anniversary for ordaining women, is not teaching egalitarianism between men and women because of a certain politic. We teach it because we believe it’s the redemptive story of Scripture, the mission of Jesus, the work of the Holy Spirit.  

But there’s another reason to read carefully. We need to study carefully because sometimes the Bible in our heads is not the Bible in our hands. The Bible we think we remember is not the Bible that was written. For example, many people often forget that there are two creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 with different chronologies and emphasis. The second is often the one we know best.

Genesis 2 gives us a solitary adam—the human—who is alone. God says, “It is not good that the human should be alone.” Then God creates the woman from adam’s side. And this way of remembering the story has often been used to establish a hierarchy: Adam was created first. Eve was created second. Therefore, some argue, Adam must have been created to lead, while Eve was created to follow. But is that actually what Genesis says? No. And here's the problem. That argument doesn't start at the very beginning. It ignores Genesis 1. So let's start at the very beginning.

Genesis 1 and 2 read together describe the male-female relationship as partnership, not hierarchy. Key point! Adam is not first and foremost a name. It’s a partnership! Take a look!

Genesis 1 says: “Then God said, ‘Let us make adam [humankind] in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky...’” (1:26)

And then: “So God created adam in God’s own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.” (1:27)

And then God blessed them and says to both of them: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over it.” (1:28)

Notice. Both men and women are adam—humankind. Both together are God's image. Both receive the same blessing, the same vocation, and are entrusted with the same care for creation. There is no gendered job description or hierarchy where God says: “Men: lead.” “Women: follow.” “Men: make decisions.” “Women: support.” Nothing like that appears. The first creation account gives us something much simpler: Men and women are equal partners in God's image and equal partners in God's mission. 

 

Then we come to Genesis 2. And suddenly we have this irony – a solitary adam [human]. But the irony is short lived because God says: “It is not good that the human should be alone.” (2:18) So quick recap: we end chapter one’s adam-partnership with “very good” and then quickly move to a “not good.” Then God parades a whole host of animals before the adam. Why all the animals? Because the story is showing us that none of these prove to be a “suitable helper.” (2:20) And this is where another misunderstanding often enters the story. The Hebrew phrase is ezer kenegdo. And I’ll tell you that the NIV’s translation of “suitable helper” is easily misunderstood. Ezer [helper] does not mean “assistant,” “servant,” or “subordinate.” It is used most often in the Old Testament to describe God as Israel's helper. God is not the inferior partner. God is the powerful partner who comes to the rescue. And kenegdo means something like “corresponding to,” “matching,” or “facing.” So Genesis 2 is not: man + female subordinate assistant. Genesis 2 is reaffirming the truth of Genesis 1: human + corresponding partner = the image of God (1:26-28).  The woman is like the man in every way: face to face, bone of bone, flesh of flesh. Equal image-bearers. Equal partners. Being the ezer kenegdo does not demonstrate Eve’s inferiority. It demonstrates her necessity. She’s created second so that we can feel the problem of the lone adam before we see God’s solution. And God never gives Adam authority over Eve. God does not say in creating her, “Adam, you are now her leader.” God does not establish a chain of command. The first time Genesis explicitly says that the man will rule over the woman comes after something has gone terribly wrong. It comes in Genesis 3.

Genesis 3 tells us what went wrong. It’s not a blueprint for human relationships. It is a diagnosis of what happened when sin entered the world. Suddenly everything fractures. Humans hide from God. Humans hide in shame from themselves. Humans blame each other. Trust becomes suspicion. Partnership becomes competition. The whole earth reels from sin’s destructive force. And then God warns the woman: “your husband . . . will rule over you.” (3:16)

Stop there. This is the first appearance of male rule over a female in the biblical story. And it appears in a passage describing the consequences of sin not prescribing God’s intent for proper male/female relationships. That should make us pause.

Because some Christians make a very strange interpretive move. They locate the gendered subordination introduced in Genesis 3 and then say: “That's God's design.” But they don't do that with other elements of Genesis 3. God says childbirth will become painful. They don't say: “Pain in childbirth is God's intent. No epidural for you.” God says the ground will produce thorns. They don't say: “Thank God for weeds. They're biblical. No tractors allowed.” God says human beings will struggle and die. We don't say: “Death is God's original intention for us.” So why would we take the domination of one sex over another—introduced in the aftermath of the fall—and make that the Christian ideal? Why would we make a consequence of sin into a command from God?

Christian traditions that explicitly teach complementarianism  - that husbands possess primary authority and that governing or teaching roles in the church are reserved for men  - describe this arrangement as a beautiful expression of God's created order.  But here’s the problem:  

 

Genesis 3 is not where we locate God's will. It’s where we locate God’s problem. The very thing Genesis 3 describes as “he will rule over you” is precisely part of the problem that Jesus came to redeem. Because that's what salvation does. Jesus doesn't come merely to forgive individual sins. He comes to overthrow all that diminishes God’s design. He comes to restore all of creation.

He comes announcing a kingdom in which the last become first, the powerful become servants, the excluded are welcomed, and those whom society has pushed down are lifted up. And look at what happens to women around Jesus. Women become disciples. Women become theological students. Women are freed. Women first proclaim the resurrection. Women pray and prophesy. Women lead churches in the earliest Christian communities. Paul can write: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) The New Testament trajectory is not toward restoring hierarchy. It’s toward restoring the partnership of Genesis 1 & 2. And if Genesis 3 describes the distortion, then redemption means refusing to baptize the distortion. It means asking:

Where has sin taught men to dominate women when God created us to partner?

Where have we baptized inequality as God’s design?

And perhaps most importantly: Where are we still living out Genesis 3 when we should be living out Genesis 1 & 2?

That is the challenge of biblical equality. And that's why I don't think “feminism” should scare Christians. If Christian feminism means the Biblical conviction that women are fully human, fully God's image, fully gifted by the Spirit, and fully created to participate in God's mission alongside men— then Christians should have no reason to fear that. In fact, we should celebrate that impulse wherever it appears.

Because this is what I believe Genesis is ultimately telling us: God did not create men and women to compete. God created us to collaborate. God did not create men to rule women. God created women and men together to bear God's image. God did not create one sex to have power over the other. God created us to share the work of cultivating creation and participating in God's kingdom. We were made better together.

And that's why I want to return to the image and question that started this sermon. “Where is the woman?” Remember that Sistine Chapel painting? The Feiler sisters finally found her. Eve was in the arms of God.  

 

 

May all women find themselves in a similar place – for healing, for empowerment, and for love. May all men see in women a proper companion, an equal counterpart, offered by God.

But let’s also go back to Genesis story and remember where we don't find Eve. We don’t find her standing behind Adam or beneath Adam. We don't find her waiting for permission. We find her beside him. Bone of his bone. Flesh of his flesh. Equal image-bearer. Equal partner.

 

And that leads me to one more picture that hangs in my office, the Harrowing of Hell. 

 

One more image of God, one more image of embrace, one more image of partnership and redemption, one more image of what God and God’s church does. God doesn't abandon humanity when sin breaks the partnership. God begins the long work of restoration. And that work began with Christ who pulls Adam and Eve out of the grave together for partnership. So let's remember the very beginning. Let's read carefully. Let's recognize what sin has distorted. And let's join God in the work of restoring what was broken. Because the Christian vision isn't men over women. It isn't women over men. It isn't even men and women simply tolerating one another. It’s something much more beautiful: men and women, created together, bearing the image of God. Men and women, called together, following Jesus. Men and women, sent together, sharing the work of God's kingdom. Men and women—pulled together, out of brokenness, back into a proper relationship with God, one another, and themselves  - better together.

Let’s pray . . .