From the mouths of babes

A few weeks ago, my daughter began changing the words to Jesus Loves the Little Children. Her little voice began carrying throughout our house and at bedtime, “Mary loves the little children.”  At first, this really struck me as odd and I felt squirmy inside when she sang it.  One night at bedtime she was insistent on singing her version, but faltered when she got to the verse about Mary dying or raising.  I talked with her about how Mary can love and pray for all of us, but not die and raise for our forgiveness because she was not God.  She cried when she realized that Mary had died and was in heaven.

I was raised in a Protestant tradition that belittled and condemned those who worshipped Mary.  She was “simply” the mother of Jesus, which was a position that was not intended for any special treatment.  She was relegated to a position of subjugation, as all other women of the Bible were. Deborah was chosen as a judge but that was an exception to the rules of leadership at the time.  Philip’s four daughters prophesied but it was again an exception to the rule.  The dominant gender for God and his most important followers were male. 

When I was in college, I interned with the youth at a church and went with them as a counselor for a week to the camp I had attended myself.  One of the girls in my group wanted to be baptized, and requested that I be the one to baptize her.  Though it was affirmed by the youth minister and another deacon from a different church (both male), it spawned an awful fight in the unseen world that night.  I was told that by baptizing this young woman, I had put her soul in grave danger.  This was one of my first realizations that maybe I did not fit into this tradition in which I had been raised.  There was so much fear of women in a “leadership” role.  Baptizing someone did not seem like a leadership role to me!  It was a conduit role, one where I am not doing the real work of salvation but witnessing to this amazing commitment the young girl made.  The real work was done by the Holy Spirit interacting with this precious girl as she made her choice to follow Jesus.  Yet, I was the one who had connected with her that summer. Why did it seem so threatening that I would be the one to let her down and up out of the water?

Later in graduate school, I would draw a responsive picture of God nurturing a young woman, her head in the lap of a grandmotherly type lady who was softly touching her hair.  Clearly, this God was not male.  “His” identity was changing as I began to understand that God was not one gendered identity, but the fullness and best expression of both male and female.  “Humankind was created as God’s reflection; in the divine image God created them; male and female, He created them.” Genesis 1:27

My daughter has a strong gender identity.  She likes being a girl, she identifies with girls, and when she reads her Bible she primarily picks out the stories about women.  At four, she is trying to figure out her place in God’s narrative, and it is vital for her to know that she is accepted.  Not just second place, and certainly not peripheral.  This is the beauty of the gospel to me; we are all accepted, we are all beloved, and there is no second place.  We all come in first because God’s mother/father love brings us all into that special circle of intimacy with him. 

So each night I put her to bed we sing these verses:

Mary loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in her sight, Mary loves the little children of the world.

Jesus died for all the children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight, Jesus died for all the children of the world.

Jesus rose for all the children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight, Jesus rose for all the children of the world.

Mary prays for all the children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in her sight, Mary prays for all the children of the world.

And while it might not be the most theologically sound in your eyes, my daughter’s radiant face as we sing this together shows me that she is getting it somewhere deep inside that both men and women are highly favored to this God of ours.