Masculinity, Gender & The Image of God

“Masculinity, Gender & The Image of God”
 Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church –Sunday, April 29, 2018
Text: Genesis 1:27-28 // Series: Song of Songs: Advice from Solomon on Love

I’m not sure if you follow local or regional news but this past week on Monday, there were two rallies being held that made the news.  One was in Victoria on the Grounds of the legislature.  And one was down at the foot of the Cambie Street bridge, outside of the BC Federation of Techers offices [PHOTO].  There were two opposing groups rallying at each site.  One group was there to protest against what has become known as SOGI123, which is a circular resource for educators on sexual orientation and gender identity.  The other group was there to protest those who were protesting.  But what always interests me at any protest are the signs that people hold up.  At the Legislature, 2 people actually got arrested because they ran across to the other group and STOLE their signs.  I think they got charged with public mischief.  But the anit-SOGI213 crowd held up signs that read “Parents Have Rights” and “Don’t mess with our Children” which I suspect could be agreed to by both sides.  But there was another hand drawn sign that said “God created Man and Woman”. 

I was reading an editorial in our local newspaper this Friday reflecting on the debate and that author says “the reason SOGI opponents pretest is not clear. They seem to believe that because society has in the past promoted and accepted two genders, that’s all there should be, now and forever more. If there is more to their argument, handmade signs that spout such slogans as “God created man and woman”… don’t really make it understood.”

Wow. To me, that’s a fascinating commentary in that those who oppose those who oppose an educational move to provide support and resourcing on the topic of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity are saying to people of faith “we don’t understand the core of your argument.  What in the world does your belief that God created man and woman got to do with anything in a conversation on gender identity and gender expression?!”  Friends, we as Christians are not doing a good job at communicating to a culture what we think it means to be created in the image of God.  What it means to be male. To be female. To be created as sexual beings with gendered identities and gendered expressions.

Part of this is that we live in a confusing time where everything in this conversation is up for debate in a way that not everyone is comfortable with.  Our kids, our culture and our schools are having conversations most of us never had.  What is gender?  What if the sex I was assigned at birth doesn’t match with how I feel?  I never gave those questions ANY thought when I went to school. My parents or teachers never brought any of those topics up for discussion.

But the question of identity and how we express that is a very real and very vibrant conversation in our culture today.  And I think we have to do better than sloganeering.  We have to do some work to genuinely understand that the Bible has some things to say on this topic and then we also have to work to determine how we help those around us understand some of our lived convictions.  So over the course of the next few weeks here at Jericho, we’ll be diving into this conversation.  Today we’re going to look at the question of gender, identity, the image of God and masculinity.  Then next week while I’m up with our group at Camp Bob, Pastor Mike will be teaching on the question of same gender relationships and homosexuality. Then we’ll finish off our series with a look a gender, and the notion of biblical womanhood.  So you’ll want to stick around or make sure you catch up online or with the podcast.  And I want to say as we dive into this topic, that it is a complex and challenging topic.  So I don’t want you to think that in 35-40 minutes on a Sunday AM, you’re going to get all of the answers to all of the questions that swirl around each of these topics.  That’s likely not realistic. If you want to dive deeper, we will be also be putting together a reading and listening list so if you’ve read a book or listened to a podcast that has been helpful for you and others might benefit from, then please send me an e-mail – my contact info is in the Info Sheet.  But what we do want to do in our times together on Sunday mornings is start a conversation and orient ourselves by God’s written Word, the Bible, which we believe is an authoritative guide for faith and life and which does have lots to say on the themes in front of us.  

Deep breath everyone.  Are you ready? Let’s dive in.   (Some of you are telling me with your faces that you NOT ready but it’s going to be OK. Let’s do this!)

The first thing I want us to think about is the question “what makes a real man?” what is the definition you have in your head of masculinity?  Each of us was handed a script that defines the answer to that question and we live out that script.  Some of us got handed a script that says “male” and then our culture, family of origin, our education and experience all helped shaped and define what it means and means to be a “real man”.  I grew up in a small town in Northern BC. It was a farming community and so older country songs largely defined what it mean to be a man.  “Hunting / fishing loving every day”.  Real men drove trucks. Real men worked could fix things and they worked with their hands. Then when I moved to suburban Toronto as a teenager, there was a different definition of what it meant to be a real man.  Real men wore suits. They worked long hours to be good providers for their families. Real men were Toronto Maple Leafs fans.  But then you add in travel to other places in the world and you realize that every culture as a script of what it means to be a man.  In Tanzania, for example, real men hold hands with other men as they walk down the street.  In the Auca tribe in Ecuador, real men write poetry and are dedicated to the decorative art of bead work. 

So we have to recognize that part of our confusion today around the question of masculinity and what it means to be male is that there are a lot of competing and contradictory ways that that script gets written.  Teasing apart how much of that is cultural and how much goes beyond culture is tricky!  So when a person at a really holds up a sign that says “God created man and woman” it is not mysterious to me that our culture looks at that and says “so what?  Or “I don’t understand what that means and what you are trying to tell me” 

We are in a series here at Jericho Ridge in the Old testament book Song of Songs which is a collection of ancient Hebrew semi-erotic love poetry.  And as you read the book, one of the things that begins to emerge is language and word pictures that harken back to the garden of Eden and the first chapters of the book of Genesis.  The poetic language, the genuineness of the love expressed between the woman and the man in the Song all sounds looks and feels like a link back to Genesis 1,2 and 3.  And so I want us to go there.  Turn with me in your Bibles or on your device to Genesis 1. This is one of the accounts of God’s work of creation and as the unfolding drama of creativity comes to a climax in Genesis 1:26, the Father, Son and Spirit say to each other [2 slides] “Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”

27 So God created human beings[d] in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”    

So what do we learn here from Genesis account about masculinity, gender and the image of God?  

1. Gender was God’s idea

I think that this is what the sign holder was trying to communicate at that protest. 

• Our maleness and femaleness are not simply cultural constructs

Many of the ways in which our gender gets expressed varies widely from culture to culture and era to era but the core concept of humanity as being gendered beings is not something we came up with.  Gender was God’s idea.  Maleness and femaleness in an anatomical, biological, genetic and genital kind of way – was a part of the creation of human beings.  (Bet you didn’t think you’d hear the word genitals at church did you!) This is why…  

• When gender is mentioned in the Bible, it is tied to the creation story (see Jesus in Matthew 19:4)

One thing we have to remember here is that this is a pre-fall description.  Once sin enters the world, all kinds of things became less than perfect expressions of God’s original intentions. But to argue from exceptions isn’t foundationally helpful.  It’s tragic that we will never on this side of eternity, experience the full beauty and perfection of what God intended for our gendered expression. 

Have you ever tried to photocopy a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy?  It’s not like the original, is it?  It’s fuzzy and blurry.  That’s what we are dealing with when we step into a conversation on gender.  But that original creation – maleness & femaleness – was Gods idea.  The second thing we learn in Gen 1

2. How we live out our gender is to reflect the image of God

God gives the man and woman instructions: first they are to be blessed.  Secondly, they are to be co-steward and co-regents of the created world for the good of humankind and the glory of God.  Thirdly, they are to be fruitful and multiply.  They are to enjoy sexuality and procreation.  And in all of these things, we do this differently as men than as women.  There are unique ways in which men express or live out the image of God just like there are women do this.  So 

• No one gender does this completely or perfectly

In the creation narrative God proclaims after everything God creates: it is Good.  It is good.  But then after the creation of Adam, the first human. 

“Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone…” (Genesis 2:18)  

With only one gender, God says. Hummm… Something is not right here.  Something is incomplete. Maleness by itself did not and does not fully express the image of God.  A lot could be said about this but suffice to say that

• “One reason for this ‘not-goodness’ is that human beings were made for community with other human beings…. Maleness will not do without femaleness.” (Timothy & Kathy Keller)

One aspect of being made in the image of God is that we need the other gender.  Now, don’t hear what I’m not saying.  Last week we talked about singleness.  And to reiterate, it is simply NOT true that you are not a whole person as a single adult.  What is true is that even as a single, you need cross-gender discipleship.  As a man, I have come to understand things about the character and nature of God, God’s purpose plans and heart for the world from the women in my life that I would have never otherwise discovered!  Ladies, men express some of the unique aspects of God’s character that are helpful and that world needs.  So relationships across the genders actually help us not become over-gender typed (where we begin to think all men are macho and can bench press and like mixed martial arts) and not become under-gender typed (men who are deeply emotional or don’t want to offend others).  We need each other!  This is built into God’s plan 

Now, let’s turn our attention from Genesis to the Song of Songs.  What do we learn about gender from this unique book?  If you’ve read through the Song of Solomon, one of the things that struck me was just how much real estate is given to the physical descriptions of the lovers of each other.  They go on and on and on!  Look for example, at chapter 2, where the young woman describes the young man as an apple tree (she wants to sit in his shade); a gazelle, a young stag, a cluster of henna flowers.  Then in chapter 5, he is radiant and ruddy, his hair is jet black, his mouth is like jewels, his arms are like bands of gold.  And on and on these two go!  If we look just at these parts of the Song, we could conclude that their attraction to each other is strictly based on physical appearance.  But this is not the case.  We get some awesome clues that

3. Gender is not solely about physiology

Yes, it is true that

• In the Song, the young man spends a lot of time praising the young woman’s looks & visa versa (4:1-7; 5:10-16; 6:4-10)

Think for a minute about what it might look like if you drew a picture of this.  This is more all of my biblical literalists friends out there:

SLIDE: How Solomon Saw Abishag

So funny, right?  The metaphors are from things they valued in ancient culture so even the description of what they love about each other seems odd to us. 

• BUT he approaches her as a companion, a friend an associate (“beloved” is not solely sexual)

Remember, he is a king or prince  and she is from a family who has to work for a living.  The power differential here is massive and so the chance for him to simply use and abuse her for her body and then discard he is there. But the young man understands that love and gender and sexuality is NOT simply about physiology.

• “A normal person finds the erotic ultimately meaningful only if there is trust and commitment, delight in the other’s person as well as in the body. The writer of the Song understand this. Our hero is her lover, but he is more: he is her friend.” (Kinlaw)

One of the most intriguing things is that the image of the banquet table that they enjoy together as lovers and friends is picked up and repeated in the New Testament in the book of Revelation.  And the image of the beauty and mystery of a loving, honest relationship between a man and a woman is the primary image that God uses to describe God’s relationship with the church.  God is like the husband, the groom. And the Church, the people of God, including the guys - are like the bride.  It’s a beautiful picture not based on physiology but on love.    

If gender is God’s idea, how we express it is to reflect God’s image in our maleness or femaleness, and it’s not just about physiology, fourthly, we see that  

4. Gender is not solely about roles

A lot of the time, when we get into conversations about gender, we are talking about “blue jobs” or “pink jobs” meaning how we divide up labour in a home based on if you are a man or a woman.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.  But gender is not solely about roles.  Gender goes deeper than that.  It is not simply that men and from mars and women are from Venus or that the other gender is different.   I am indebted in my thinking here to Kathy Keller who writes in the book The Meaning of Marriage, that the Bible gives almost no air time to questions that we argue about.  Should men help with the laundry? Should women take care of the kids while men do the finances? Should wives work outside the home? The Bible is quiet on the specifics of gender roles when it comes to specific tasks.  This hasn’t stopped some people from making the Bible into a tool of subjugation and abuse. But rigid cultural gender roles have no Biblical warrant. The Bible simply lays out that     

• We are “like-opposites” (Genesis 1:27)

In other words there are places where we are alike and places we are not alike.  This will play itself out differently in each relationship and each culture.  For example, in the Song of Songs, the

• Young man is an gentle initiator (5:2) but never in a way that violates personhood (mutuality)
• Young man is a loving provider (1:11) but never in a way that assumes superiority (he wants to give her jewels that match her beauty, not as a trophy of his conquest

When we reduce a conversation on gender to roles, role relationships (all men are ubn-emotive or all women are illogical) we are falling to stereotypes. 

• Caution: Role-driven stereotypes can be are expressions of “unbalanced and unredeemed masculinity and femininity.” (Keller)

Stereotypes are simply a healthy, helpful aspect of gender taken to an unhealthy extreme.  So there is something helpful to learn from those who are pushing back against some of the hyper traditional categories here in North America.  Women can be pastors and teach at seminaries. Men can change diapers and be house husbands.  And they can still me a real man or a real woman.  You don’t have to sacrifice your masculinity or your femininity to live into your God given calling.  

So, as we move toward reflection and response, I want to highlight two things:

Have Real Conversations, not Easy Slogans

Sloganeering is so easy and cheap.  A quick re-tweet of something or a subtle jab or comment.  We love reductionism and sometimes it is helpful.  But often, what people hear is the slogan or the sign and they fail to grasp anything beyond that.  We need to do better than easy slogans.  We need to have real conversations.  And yes, this is hard work. 

It will mean holding space for those people whom you disagree with.  It will mean not going on the offensive when someone comes at you and labels you and boxes you into a corner because they think “oh, you’re a Christian – we’ll you are one of the bigots!”.  This doesn’t mean you don’t respond, but it does mean that

• Make sure you are clear on what kind of conversation you are having (theological, biological, cultural, experiential, justice)

This is one of the key areas where we need to think about what do we agree with our interlocutors on.  I have personally read every page on the SOGI 123 website.  I’ve met with the district principal who oversees safe schools.  I met with and asked the then minister of education “you were in the room.  What was the driving intention and purpose behind the introduction of SOGI 123?”  I’ve met with the head of the Parents for Inclusion group.  And I find that often, we are simply having different conversations.  The church is wanting to have a theological conversation but people interpreting this as a colonial desire to impose religious beliefs on those who don’t want them in a pluralistic society.  So Jericho, let’s be among those who are quick to listen and slow to speak.  And also slow to go to protests and to reduce one side or the other to the slogans on their signage.  You don’t like it when people do that to you, don’t do it to others.     

When facing complexity, practice humility

If I were to ask for a show of hands “who here has experienced brokenness in the area of sexuality?” who has been tempted and fallen? Who has been victimized? Who has watch pornography or objectified another person? Who has experienced shame and guilt in the sexual area of life?  I would suspect that every hand would go up.  So let’s not kid ourselves, this is a complex matter.  When someone is questioning their gender, and when we are faced with complexity, let’s be a church that practices humility.  Yes, we have convictions 

• All of us have elements of our identity and sexuality that have been sin-tainted

And if sin hasn’t tainted this area of our lives, all of us are sinners.  So let’s be very, very careful about helping others take logs or specks out of their eyes when we have planks and tree trunks in our own.  Practice grace & truth. 

• When faced with our own brokenness, the proper response is repentance    

If you are a person who identities as Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Bi-sexual, or Questing (LGTBQ), you may have experienced incredible woundedness at the hands of the church or a friend who did so in the name of religion.  For that, I am so deeply sorry.  Will you forgive us?  You may have bitterness and hatred in your heart that you need to release the Lord.  Don’t let it ruin the possibility of walking with God and with us as a community. 

Let me say, church this is HARD work. This conversation on gender is not an ‘out there” conversation.  We have an individual who is part of our community who is currently at a place where they do not identify as a male nor as a female.  They are non-binary.  They prefer to be called they and not he or she.  And as a part of this community, I need you to treat them with respect and dignity.  Love them. And so I want you to keep that in mind as you interact with people.  You do not know the journey of gender that people around you are on.  So let’s walk with respect and humility as a community who is helping each other learn to love and to live well.  Again, this doesn’t mean we don’t have convictions.  But it does mean that we are a community that values authenticity and that is going to bring with it complexity at times.   Stick with it.  Learn lots. Pray lots. Love lots.  Repent lots when you get it wrong or say something stupid.    

I’m going to invite Ron and the team to come up and lead us in two songs that express our desire for humility and repentance.  Our prayer team is available at the sides and back.  If you need to spend time in your seat repenting of your attitude toward people who are different  ` than you, take some time.  Maybe you are a parent and you are fearful about your kids in school, come and let’s pray together for God’s grace.  If you are a teacher and you need wisdom on how to lead well in your classroom, come we want to pray for you.  All of us are in need of the mercy that Christ offers us at the cross.  Let’s pray together. 

Let me pray a benediction for you: O God, as you have inspired men from the beginning of time to live lives of faith and hope, so now, create in our men a new zeal for wisdom, repentance, passionate service, and unconditional love. Grant that our men will be reflections of Jesus Christ, hungering for the Word and thirsting after your righteousness! In your blessed name we humbly pray. Amen.

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