Fordham University

THE TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY OF ELIZABETH JOHNSON:

A PRACTICAL APPLICATION

A ReportPresented in Partial FulfillmentOf the Requirements for the course

Contemporary Theologies of God

Dr. Elizabeth Johnson

By

Rhonda R. SarrazinApril 2014

The Question

What is the right way to speak about God and what

implications does it have for the flourishing of women with

in the church and the world?

Thesis

Elizabeth Johnson creates a hermeneutic to span the gap

between classical theology and Christian Feminism to address

this question. By bridging this gap, women may claim the

richness of the their theological tradition and affirm their

equal status within the church and creation.1 Using

scripture, classical theology and women’s experience of God,

Johnson restores the mystery of God to the feminist

theological discourse. Feminine metaphors are used as

symbols for naming God. These symbolic ways of naming God

are a form of resistence used by women to break through

1 Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroads, 1993), 12.

1

patriarchal structures.2 Feminine speech restores a

relational dynamic to the Doctrine of the Trinity, has

practical implications for liturgy, preaching and prayer,

and allows women to flourish in the world and the church.3

Methodology

Elizabeth Johnson’s methodology will be used in this

paper to interrogate the right way to speak about God using

scripture, classical theology, and women’s experience to

retrieve feminine language and metaphor about God. Second,

this language and metaphor is used to illustrate how speech

restores a relational dynamic to the Doctrine of the

Trinity. Third, the relational dynamic of the Doctrine of

the Trinity has practical application for ministry. The last

section will contain a critique of her theology and a

response. Finally, a sermon based on this relational

Doctrine of the Trinity is included as an appendix.

Tradition

2 Ibid., 62.3 Ibid., 196.

2

For Johnson, God is an ineffable, incomprehensible

mystery.4 This means that God is both radically immanent

and radically transcendent.5 One is not greater than the

other. In addition, God cannot be defined by human

categories and surpasses all human understanding. Because

God is an ineffable mystery, language about God cannot be

taken literally.6 How we think about God is shaped by how

we name God. Johnson draws on traditional Catholic theology

that honors God as mystery by speaking about God as an

analogy or metaphor. Catholic theology affirms that God

created humanity in God’s image; therefore, all creatures

share in some way, in the excellence of the Creator, which

in turn directs us back to God.7

The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 stated that there is

no similarity between God and creatures, but the similarity

is always ever greater. This means God transcends both the

assertion and the negation; therefore God is “always ever

4 Elizabeth A. Johnson. Quest For the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God, (New York: Continuum), 17.

5 Ibid., 16.6 Ibid., 16.7 Ibid., 18.

3

greater.”8 Analogy in this context allows us to say

something about God, negate it and then further negate the

negation.9 God is Father, but God is not Father. God is

Father, always ever greater. God surpasses all that we can

imagine or experience as father. In this way analogy allows

us to say something about God, but affirms that God cannot

be contained in the analogy. Rather, the analogy points to a

particular aspect of God, but God is always greater than

that aspect.10

In the Summa Theolgica (Gentiles I, 31:4), Aquinas

states, “we see the necessity of giving God many names.”11

For Aquinas there was no one name that completely defined

the essence of God. So many names are needed in the

discourse about God.

Scripture

8 Ibid., 189 Ibid., 18.10 Ibid., 19.11 Ibid., 21.

4

The biblical cannon affirms and lifts up the many names

of God. The first time God is named in the biblical canon is

YHWH or “I am Who I Am.”12 Translated by Hebrew scholars

this means, “I will be there; as who I am will be there with

you.”13 The entire biblical cannon contains images of a God

who is with us. This includes a plethora of images that

depict God in personal relationship, from political life,

from human crafts and professions, and from the experience

of women.14 All of these names are used as symbols to point

to the divine being.

The Imago Dei and the Imago Christi in the Old

Testament (Genesis 1) and the New Testament affirm that men

and women are made in the image and likeness of God and

Christ. Because of the dualism found in Greek thought matter

is typically associated with the feminine principle and

spirit with the masculine: therefore, matter is of less

value and even sinful because it is associated with women.

Within the context of both Genesis stories, the original

12 Ibid., 21.13 Ibid., 21.14 Ibid., 21.

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relationship of men and women is one of mutuality. Viewed in

the current context, relationship between men and women must

be restored to mutuality that is God’s original intent.

Women, as well as men, are then able to exercise stewardship

over the earth, to rule as representatives of God, and to

care for the earth, thereby restoring the earth to its

original balance. In this way a woman’s reality is restored

as part of the ineffable mystery of God. Further, in Acts

(9:5), both men and women are identified with Jesus as

disciples, without distinction.15

In addition, Sophia is personified as spirit (shekinah)

and the power of the mother symbol in the Hebrew canon. By

retrieving this language from the canon, alternate symbols

are restored in the theological discourse about God and

provide an alternative to patriarchal language about God.16

In the Hebrew Scriptures God is visualized as a mother in a

variety of ways. In these images God goes into labor (Ps 22:

15 Johnson, She Who Is, 73. 16 Ibid., 103.

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1, 9-10), births (Dt 32:18), delivers (Numbers 11: 12-13),

nurses (Is 49:15) and carries us.17

Further, God who alone is wise communicates her wisdom.

Wisdom was at the beginning with God and God poured her out

upon all of creation (Sir 1:9). Wisdom is a dynamic renewing

all of creation and working for the salvation of all

humanity in every generation (Wis 7:14). She draws persons

toward God shaping them into a wisdom community and awakens

in them compassion. In this way, she creates friends and

prophets who work to eradicate injustice through love.18

Friends of God allow their love and friendship experienced

in community to flow outward toward the world. Prophets

inspired to comfort and nurture all those who suffer

pointing to the hope in the resurrection.19

Phyllis Trible states that the word in Hebrew for womb

is rehem, meaning womb or uterus. Rehem and the Hebrew word

for compassion are cognates and are related to the psychic

state of being merciful. Joseph yearns for his brother

17 Ibid., 103.18 Johnson, Friends of God’s and Prophets, 4119 Ibid, 42

7

Benjamin as a mother yearns for the child of her womb (Gn

43:30).20 By extension, God yearns for us as mother yearns

for the child of her womb.

Experience

Johnson affirms Karl Rahner’s belief that our whole

being is oriented toward God who is a Holy mystery and is

the “Whither” of our transcendence.21 God is

incomprehensible and no matter how much of God we are able

to experience, know and grasp, there will always be more to

know and discover about God. This is positive because

knowing and experiencing God is a great adventure that never

ends even in death.22 It is like being in love with someone

and desiring to always know and experience more about that

person. Along with this image of intimacy, Rahner also

affirmed that God was a mystery. The doctrine of the

incarnation through God’s self-disclosure in the life death

and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is a witness to the

nearness of God in human history. For Rahner, this personal

20 Johnson, She Who Is,101.21 Johnson, The Quest For the Living God, 37.22 Ibid., 37.

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history of the experience of the self is the personal

history of both men and women, and is subsequently the

experience of God.23

Feminist theology reflects on the experience of women

in the context of an androcentric tradition that has often

neglected the lived experience of women. Feminist liberation

theology uses conversion within the experience of negative

contrast to liberate women from suffering under the system

of patriarchy. When women are liberated from these

structures men also are emancipated from them as well. The

act of naming is a form of resistence that allows women to

break through patriarchal structures and to claim and affirm

their own worth.24 Hagar, a slave woman, who is a victim of

the structures of patriarchy, is the first woman who names

God, El-roi in the biblical canon.25

Naming is experienced as a growing frustration and

resistence to being defined and devalued under the system of

patriarchy. By saying no to these definitions, women can

23 Johnson. She Who Is, 65.24 Ibid., 62.25 Elizabeth A. Johnson. Friends Of God And The Prophets (New York:

Continuum, 1999), 142.

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claim those characteristics that are particularly feminine

as having value within the context of history. For example,

matter, historically, has been assigned to the feminine and

devalued as evil or less than male. In addition,

relationship—a historically feminine attribute—has been

given less value than reason, a historically male attribute.

By claiming relationship as a positive historical and

biblical reality, women and men can experience a fuller

relationship with God. Negative contrast requires women to

judge this as positive instead of negative. This, in turn,

creates space for women to name their own experiences of God

in a bodily and mutual way, and affirms their identity as

part of the Imago Dei.

Humanity’s experience of God is of a gracious mystery

that is ever greater, ever nearer and requires a shift from

a cosmic understanding of God to a God who is concerned with

the subject, the human being.26 According to Johnson, the

Trinity is the most immanent way in which humanity

26 Johnson, Quest For the Living God, 31.

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experiences God and it is the most neglected doctrine within

the church.27

The Trinity

According to Johnson, “The experience of salvation

coming from God through Jesus in the power of the Spirit

sets up such a powerful encounter with the Holy that it

requires new language, and this language is Trinitarian.”28

Johnson uses an inductive approach when speaking about the

Triune God based on the contemporary experience of the

Triune God from below. Symbolically, she uses the feminine

metaphor of Holy Wisdom as an expression of God depicted in

the biblical canon.

Augustine refers to God as feminine when he states,

“Why the very Wisdom of God took our weakness upon her and

came to gather the children of Jerusalem under her wings as

a hen gathers her chicks.”29 Johnson correlates this with

Jesus’ desire to “gather children together as a hen gathers

27 Johnson, She Who Is, 3.28 Johnson, Quest For the Living God, 202.29 Johnson, Ask the Beasts, 141.

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her brood under her wings (Mt. 23:27).30 By relating these

two passages, Augustine identifies God and Jesus with the

weak and vulnerable. Irenaeus, on the other hand, refers to

the Son as Word and to the Spirit as Wisdom. In both Hebrew

and Greek, the words for wisdom are feminine, hokmah in

Hebrew and sophia in Greek. Used in the Old Testament, she is

a female figure of power and might.31

In addition, Proverbs 8 acknowledges her presence

rejoicing playfully with God, in Sirach. She is depicted as

moving fire, wind, water, and air (Sir.24: 1-6). Solomon

calls her the mother of all good things (Sir. 7:12). In the

Wisdom literature Sophia is identified with God’s spirit

even though there is no one to one correspondence with the

Trinity. Still she is depicted in the Nicene Creed as “Giver

of Life” affirming that God is with us every step of the

way.32

God as source is Sophia, the exuberant, relational,

aliveness that permeates our existence, our history of

30 Ibid., 141.31 Ibid., 141.32 Ibid.,143.

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suffering. The way Christians have experienced God is

through the one God becoming flesh and the Spirit’s

enlivening community of the faithful is a relationship of

the triune God. 33It is the inexhaustible source of

redemption in the face of death and destruction and the

ground of all hope for the created universe.34

Using Holy Wisdom as a source, Johnson posits three

relational aspects of the Trinity: Spirit Sophia, Jesus

Sophia, and Mother Sophia. In this way, she restores the

feminine principle to the Trinity and in doing so restores

the feminine principle to the Doctrine of the Trinity.

Spirit-Sophia is the vivifying presence that brings

life to all of creation.35 Fertility is a characteristic of

her vivifying presence that is playful, sexual, fascinating,

exciting and lures human beings to the deepest experiences

of love. In addition, she is the

mover of what is static. Also she inspires and moves human

creativity in the struggle for justice. She brings the gift

33 Ibid., 14.34 Johnson, She Who Is, 243.35 Ibid., 134.

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of healing and liberation to the damaged earth, the

suffering, of the sick and lost.36 Spirit-Sophia has renewed

(Wis 7:27) all of creation throughout salvation history. She

hovers over creation from the beginning (Gen 1:2) as a

mother bird over her eggs producing order out of primordial

chaos. In the life of Jesus of Nazareth, she anointed him

to preach the good news to the poor, to release prisoners,

to enable the blind to see, and to liberate the oppressed.

37 Those who are privileged are not loveless, but are

compelled to partner with the poor to bring God’s salvific

justice to the world.38 Spirit-Sophia is love.

Jesus-Sophia is Wisdom’s child or Sophia incarnate.

According to Augustine,” “She (Wisdom) was sent in one way

that she might be with human beings; and she has been sent

in another way that she herself might be a human being.”39

Clearly, Augustine unites the male and female principles of

wisdom in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. According to

Johnson, through the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus 36 Ibid., 135.37 Ibid., 141.38 Elizabeth A. Johnson. Dangerous Memories: A Mosaic of Mary in Scripture

(New York: Continuum, 2004), 114.39 Johnson. She Who Is,156.

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appears as the prophet and child of Sophia by proclaiming

God’s inclusive love especially to the poor and suffering.40

By experiencing the reign of God in the healing ministry of

Jesus Christ, people found life.41

God desires the wholeness for humanity as depicted in

Jesus’ healings and exorcisms. These healings and exorcisms

led to spiritual and bodily healing. Even though the

ministry of Jesus was historically rejected, God’s raising

of Jesus affirms and discloses the character of the living

God. For Johnson, the death of Jesus was not ordained by

God, but was contrary to the intention of God. Through his

resurrection, Sophia affirmed peace and justice in a wounded

and suffering world.42 The victory of a suffering world is

not won by the sword of a warrior, but by the power of a

compassionate lover who suffers with us and for us.43 The

cross is a mystery that brings life out of pain and results

in a new creation similar to a woman who experiences pain in

40 Ibid.,157.41 Robin Ryan. God and the Mystery of Human Suffering: A Theological Conversation

Across the Ages. (New York: Paulist Press, 2011), 296.42 Ibid., 281.43 Ibid., 281.

15

pregnancy, delivery, and birth that resonates with a woman’s

experience.44

The story of Jesus-Sophia is the story of both women

and men. Women were a part of the ministry of Jesus of

Nazareth. In addition, Jesus was the opposite of the

patriarchal male ideal and spoke against the Roman Empire.

His death on the cross is a powerful symbol of the kenosis

of patriarchy.45 Jesus-Sophia’s story is not the

subordination of women under patriarchy, but is inclusive of

everyone. This is why he was crucified. His inclusivity was

in direct opposition to the male dominated patriarchy of the

Roman Empire.

In Jesus-Sophia, the living God chooses personal union

with something that is not God, primarily the human body and

spirit. In this way, she is connected to the joys and

sorrows of human experience and becomes connected to

humanity in an embodied way. “The Anamnesis of Jesus, the

Wisdom of God, connects God once and for all to concrete

embodiment, to the world, to suffering and delight, to

44 Johnson, She Who Is.45 Ibid., 161.

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compassion and liberation, in a way that can never be

broken.”46

Johnson also lifts up the maternal relationship as a

pointer to God that has been denigrated. If a good paternal

relationship can act as a pointer to God, so too can the

maternal relationship. When God acts as a good father or

mother, God is a God who is with us and for us. While God is

immanent in this way, God also remains transcendent. Just as

one’s mother or father remains a mystery so too does God

remain a mystery. In the scriptural canon, God is depicted

as a good mother by carrying her child, and training it, and

protecting it with the anger of a mother bear and the

protective wing of the mother hen.47 Good mothering, as good

fathering, points to our relationship with the divine.

Johnson is careful not to idealize the role of motherhood or

reduce feminine functioning of motherhood under the system

of patriarchy. Motherhood is not an exclusive dimension of a

woman. Her reproductive functioning or her capacity to

nurture does not define her nature. Rather, it is one

46 Ibid., 169.47 Ibid., 171.

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dimension of her complex being in the world. Women also

have a choice to participate in the public building of

society in addition to the bearing, nurturing, and training

of children.48

Mother Sophia is, “Holy Mother of the universe, the

unoriginate, living source of all that lives.”49 She is the

one who gives life to all that exists in creation and

affirms, “It is good that you exist.” In this way she

mothers all in the universe by sustaining it and encouraging

it to grow. This is what a good mother does. She rejoices in

the flourishing of the world, has compassion on our

weaknesses, and pours her love out on what is damaged and

destroyed.

Because God desires the growth and fulfillment of all

creation, the oikoumene, she has a special predilection for

those who are suffering. Like a good mother, she wants all

to have enough to eat, to be treated fairly with dignity and

respect. When people hurt one another through injustice she

rises up in defense of them like a mother bear protecting

48 Ibid., 176.49 Ibid., 179.

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her cubs (Hos 13:8).50 She expects that everyone and all

things within her household be treated with love and

respect. In addition, she manages the household of the

universe making sure that resources are fairly distributed.

This insures the good of all God’s household.51

Critique of the Theology

Critiques of Johnson’s theology include its reliance on

metaphor, its rejection of any determinate knowledge of God

resulting in the skepticism of modern philosophy, and the

pantheistic nature of the theological work.52 An additional

criticism is that feminine language about God affirms a

symmetrical relationship between men and women when in fact

the relationship between them is asymmetrical.53

Rejecting determinate knowledge of God causes Johnson

to reduce all religious language to metaphor or symbolic

language. By doing so, the over reliance on metaphor fails

50 Johnson, Quest For the Living God, 103.51 Ibid., 105.52 “Theological Roundtable: The Johnson case and the Practice of

Theology: An Interim Report,” analysis by Cristina Trainia, Francis Schussler Fiorenza, Robert Masson, Richard Gaillardetz. Horizons: Journal of the College Theology Society 38/2 (Fall 2011), 293.

53 David Schindler. “Creation and Nuptiality: A Reflection on Feminism in Light of Schemann’s Liturgical Theology,” Communio, 28 (Summer 2001): 293.

19

to acknowledge the truth of Roman Catholic teaching in

contrast to other religious traditions, both Christian and

non-Christian. Her intent is not to retrieve language from

the biblical and church tradition, but to use revisionist

theological language that overturns Jesus’ own command to

baptize in the Trinitarian name meaning, Father Son, and

Holy Spirit.54 In this way, Johnson presumes equality about

the language of Trinity and reduces the language to

political and social constructs. One set of terms about God

is as good as another.55 In addition, she advocates

pantheism as expressed in her understanding of the

immutability and the impassability of the God-world

relationship through her critique of modern theism embedded

in the philosophy of the Enlightenment.

In her critique of modern theism, God is deduced

through a reasoning process that contrasts the infinite with

the finite.56 According to modern theism, God is unchanging

or immutable and incorporeal. God as incorporate cannot

54 Robin Darling Young. “She Who Is-Who Is She?” The Thomist, 1994, 330-331.

55 Ibid., 324.56 Johnson, Quest For the Living God, 15.

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change. Because creatures are corporeal, only they can

suffer and change, God cannot change or suffer. This creates

a pantheistic understanding of God reflected in the God

world relation. God suffers because God is a part of the

world.

Finally, Johnson proposes that the relationship between

men and women is symmetrical, mutual, and equal when, in

fact, it is asymmetrical according to the covenant

relationship between God and humanity in the biblical canon.

According to this model, all human beings are catergorized

in wife/mother or husband/father structure. This nuptial

model is extended to Christ and the Church. In addition,

passivity and receptivity are reduced to the biological

function of being a woman, and initiative is reduced to the

biological functioning of a man. A woman’s natural state is

to be receptive to the man; therefore, she is subordinate to

him and not equal to him. Mary as the second Eve fulfilled

the covenant relationship by being passive and receptive.

Unlike Eve, she was obediently receptive to God’s word

unlike Eve who took the initiative acting against her

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nature, and sinned.57 In this way, she fulfilled the

womanhood of all creation. By contrast priests, as ministers

of God’s word, are male because initiative and creativity is

associated with the masculine biological functioning;

therefore, only men can initiate and be priests.58

Response to the Critique

The triune symbol of God is grounded in the human

experience of suffering coming through Jesus Christ through

the power of the Spirit. Using scriptural Wisdom texts,

Johnson correctly depicts the Trinity. “God as Wisdom and

Jesus as her beloved child and the Spirit of their love is

mutual.”59 The salvation of YHWH was experienced through the

life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. This

grace continued to be offered and experienced by the early

church. It continues to be offered in the church today.

57 David L. Schindler. “Creation and Nuptiality: A Reflection on Feminism in Light of Schemann’s Liturgical Theology.” Communio, (Summer, 2001), 8.

58 Ibid, 7.59 Elizabeth A. Johnson. “To Let the Symbol Sing Again,” Theology

Today, 54 (Oct. 1991) 298-311.

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Johnson’s use of metaphor is consistent with the modern

interpretation of Thomistic theology. This interpretation

underscores the limitations of human knowledge about God.60

Aquinas himself states this position in his Commentary on

Peter Lombard’s Book of Sentences:

Human progress in their knowledge of God when they first deny that God is the material then they acknowledge that the attributes wise and good are completely different when Predicated of God: and finally when they deny that God exists in the manner that creatures are.61 Johnson is in agreement with Aquinas meaning the

statements about the nature and attributes of God can direct

humanity toward God while affirming that human beings are

limited in their knowledge of God. Metaphors and analogies

help to establish a relationship with God and to name God,

but they do not define God. This is not modern skepticism,

rather, it is a position that is acknowledged in the

Thomistic theological tradition underscoring the limitations

of human knowledge of God.62 In addition, her knowledge

about God does not address an analytical problem of reason 60 “Theological Roundtable: The Johnson case and the Practice of

Theology: An Interim Report,” 295.61 Ibid., 295.62 Ibid., 295.

23

rooted in the Enlightenment. Instead, her knowledge about

God is rooted in mystery that preserves both the

transcendence and the immanence of God.63 By understanding

and affirming the illusions and contradictions of human

reason, humanity comes to know that God is infinite and

transcendent, when it transcends positive affirmations about

God. 64

In addition, all language about God is not reduced to

political and social constructs, but embedded in both the

Old and New Testaments and specifically the Wisdom

literature. Rather, these biblical images of God affirm a

woman’s experience of relationship. These biblical images

include, but are not limited to, God as a woman giving

birth, nursing her young and dedicated to her child. Other

relational images include friend, lover, companion, midwife,

and laundress. Further, they include depictions of God as a

roaring lion, hovering mother bird, and even an angry

bear.65 While Johnson includes biblical images that are

63 Ibid., 297.64 Ibid., 297.65 Johnson, Quest For The Living God, 21.

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political and social, she does not reduce all metaphor to

political and social images. Jesus did address God as

father. He also used feminine metaphors in preaching and in

parables such as the parable of “The Woman and the Lost

Coin” (Lk 15:8-10). God is also likened to a woman who

kneads dough (Mt 13:33).

Those who critique Johnson’s work as pantheism are

confusing or conflating it with panentheism. Pantheism is

the belief that the universe is identical with divinity.

Johnson’s work, however, is related to panentheism.

Panentheism is consistent with Aquinas’ understanding of the

divine indwelling in all things. Spiritual indwelling is

different from bodily indwelling. When a body dwells within

another body it is contained, but spiritual things cannot be

contained. Rather, the divine reality spills over and

incorporates both the inside and outside reality.66 This

means that Spirit is indwelling in the world, but the divine

presence is always ever greater and is never contained.67 In

66 Elizabeth A. Johnson. Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love. (Londonand New York: Bloosbury, 2014) 147.

67 Ibid., 147.

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this way, God is both immanent and transcendent. Panentheism

affirms the mystery of God as preached by Paul, “In him we

move and have our being.” (Acts 17: 28). Pantheism, a

heresy, conflates God with the world affirming the immanence

of God but excluding the transcendence of God.

The final criticism of Johnson’s work states that she

affirms a symmetrical relationship between men and women

that is asymmetrical. The relationship between men and women

is symmetrical, as affirmed in the scriptural canon and the

tradition. In Genesis God created both men and women in

God’s likeness and the original relationship was one of

mutuality. In addition, Eve did not sin because she took the

initiative; rather, Adam and Eve both sinned because they

were not in mutual relationship with one another. Adam was

responsible as well because he did not engage in mutual

conversation with Eve. Further, while men and women function

differently biologically, these differences are not extended

to psychological functioning. To associate passivity to

female biological functioning and initiative to male

biological functioning is dangerous. This has the

26

possibility of associating the pregnancy of Mary with divine

rape.

Mary depicted as a passive, obedient handmaid is

obnoxious and completely outrageous. In obedience, Mary does

listen to the word of God. However, she does raise an

objection. When God tells Mary what is intended, she talks

back by saying, “How So?”68 God, in turn, speaks to her

objection and does not dismiss it. This is an objection, not

passive obedience, and it implies an inherent mutuality with

the divine. If our relationship to the divine is mutual,

then our relationship with each other that mirrors the

divine is mutual. By listening to the word of God,

discerning her prophetic call, and acting with autonomous

choice, Mary partners with God for the work of human

redemption.69 It was the choice of her heart.

Practical Applications

The Doctrine of the Trinity is a most practical

doctrine with implications for preaching, prayer, and 68 Johnson, Dangerous Memories, 86.69 Ibid., 96.

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worship, for pastoral care, for the accomplishment of

justice, and for the care of God’s creation. The Doctrine of

the Trinity has important implications for preaching,

prayer, and worship. According to Johnson, “The symbol of

God represents what the community takes to be its highest

good, its most profound truth and its most appealing

beauty.”70 It is the ultimate point of understanding

personal experience, social life, and the world as a whole.

In turn, the symbol of God powerfully molds the corporate

identity of the community, highlights its values and directs

its praxis.”71

In its history of interpretation, the symbol of the

Trinity has been rooted in a monarchal structure that

presents an image of the Trinity embedded in a patriarchal

monarchal structure that values exclusivity. By restoring

the feminine images to worship, this challenges the communal

use of the image. The feminine image portrays a God that

loves and forgives, which in turn is extended to the

70 Elizabeth A. Johnson. “Trinity: To Let the Symbol Sing Again.” Theology Today 54/3

(1997): 300.71 Ibid., 300.

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worshiping community that cares for the world and for the

household of God.72 How a community worships determines how

it behaves. Traditionally, churches have preached from a

place where one is sinful and wretched so it is no wonder

that people behave as if they are sinful and wretched. In

contrast, preaching from a place where one is first loved,

cared, and adored by God, invites a community to behave in a

way that is loving and caring.

In the post-modern world, people long to live in a

place that is loving, caring, and mutual. In turn, they can

extend this same love and care to the larger community.

Restoring feminine images in prayer and worship helps to

shape a worshiping community that values the feminine along

side of the masculine principle. In this way, the feminine

and masculine principles are restored and in conversation

with one another. By creatively retrieving this feminine

language about the Trinity we are letting the symbol

function liturgically through worship, prayer, and

72 Kevin Scott, “Practicing the Trinity in the Local Church: The Symbol as an Icon,” Review and Expository: A Consortium Baptist Theological Journal 99/3 (Summer 2002).

29

preaching. In this way, the feminine values of care,

mutuality, and care for the household of God are restored

and affirmed as valuable.

Feminine images of the Trinity also function with in

the context of pastoral care. For example, the narrative of

Jesus suffering on the cross is linked to our narrative.

This sharing of our narratives during times of suffering as

related to the suffering of Jesus on the cross puts God in

solidarity with all who are suffering. Telling the narrative

allows the person to bring up questions of injustice, to

affirm the experiences of grace and meaning in the midst of

suffering without pretending to intellectually understand

why the event happened.73 Telling the narrative to another

helps the individual heal by allowing the other person to

act as witness to the suffering.

The feminine symbol of the Trinity functions powerfully

in praxis related to justice. Expressed in this symbol is

the desire of the Creator, the God of life, who wants the

73 Robin Ryan, God and the Mystery of Human Suffering (New York: Paulist Press, 2011), 285.

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flourishing of all creatures.74 When people are suffering,

oppressed, and violated, this not what the God of Life

intends. Rather, the living God chooses to side with and

befriend the oppressed, not because they are better but

because of their dire situation. As a mother cares and

lavishes more attention on a sick child, God also lavishes

more love and attention on the suffering and poor. This does

not mean that God loves them more, but it means that God’s

preferential love is needed if their dire situation is to

change.

Because God has a preferential option for the poor,

Christian communities partner with the poor and oppressed to

create a more just and loving society. The suffering,

grief, and oppression of the poor is also the suffering,

grief, and oppression of the followers of Christ.75 In this

way, Christian communities participate in the salvific

ministry of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus

Christ.

74 Johnson, Quest For the Living God, 73.75 Jannine Jobling, Elizabeth A. Johnson. Online Library, Wiley.com.

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Because our lives are sustained by the Creator of all,

the one who breathes life into all human beings and all

creation are interrelated and have more in common than what

separates them.76 This is our common starting point, to be

in kinship—not in rule over—creation. Using Psalm 104,

Johnson depicts a world that is the work of God’s hands and

not of human mastery. All of creation is a reflection of the

divine and therein lays its value.

The Spirit of God as the holy mystery of God is the

Spirit that indwells, creates and empowers all of creation

to grow. The earth is a sacrament of divine presence and its

ongoing destruction through ecocide, biocide, and geocide is

a deeply sinful desecration.77 Part of the Christian

vocation is to stand in solidarity with the biblical

prophecy and the spirit of Jesus to become a prophetic voice

challenging, promoting care, and protection of the earth

even when they go against powerful economic and political

interests.

76 Johnson, Ask The Beasts, 268.77 Johnson, Quest For the Living God, 197.

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Appendix A: The Holy Trinity, Who is She?

This sermon was prepared for the Congregation of St. James

Episcopal Church in Manhattan to be given on Trinity Sunday

At the age of five, I started attending catechism

classes in order to prepare for my first communion at the

age of 7. Barbara Miller and Terry Hendrickson who were five

years older walked with me to church and teased me

unmercifully. When we arrived, I was nearly always in tears.

Sr. Dianne was our teacher and she was young and beautiful.

We all loved her. The bigger girls would drop me off at her

class and she would scold them saying, “The Blessed Mother

would be so disappointed in you,” and then the kicker, “so

am I.” That’s when I knew they would never tease me again

because none of us wanted Sr. Dianne to be disappointed in

us.

Then she would sit me on her lap, with the other

children around her and the very first thing she taught us

was to make the sign of the cross. Then she taught us

Doctrine of the Trinity. I think I always loved this

doctrine because someone, whom I loved, taught it to me. We

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were taught that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were the

three persons of the Trinity in one God. In fact, I knew the

Father and the Son were men, but I was pretty sure as a

little girl that the Holy Spirit was a woman—and maybe she

looked a little bit like Sr. Dianne.

Most of us grew up or learned as an adult that the

three persons of the Trinity were Father, Son, and Holy

Spirit. But God is a mystery and no one name can define God.

Some of my favorite names of the Trinity come from male

theologians. For example, from Karl Barth: Revealer,

Revelation, and the Revealedness; from Langdon Gilkey:

Divine Being, Divine Logos, and Divine Word; and from

Anthony Kelly: Giver, Gift, and Giving. All of these are

images from male theologians, but since I was taught the

Doctrine of the Trinity from Sr. Dianne—a woman—I wondered,

“What do women have to say about the Trinity?” So in memory

of her, I would like to look at the Trinity through the lens

of Elizabeth Johnson. We love therefore we are. God Loves

therefore God is. The Trinity is a relationship of mutuality

and love.

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Elizabeth Johnson suggests the female imagery of Sophia

as she is depicted in both the Old and New Testaments as the

source of all, a relationship expressed by mutuality and

love. She names Trinity as Spirit Sophia, Jesus Sophia, and

Mother Sophia.

Spirit Sophia’s activity represents a robust God who is

active and engages in the world for our redemption.

According to Proverbs, Sophia Spirit is present at creation,

playing and delighting in the world (8:31). In addition, she

is the ultimate hostess who prepares a feast and invites all

to her table (8:15).78 Her Spirit is mobile and random,

blowing throughout the world with compassionate love and

continually luring our hearts into loving relationship, but

always giving us the freedom to choose.79 She invites,

prods, pushes us and even shoves the world and us into

becoming.

My daughter and her red Siberian husky puppy, Spirit,

are a clear illustration of the activity of Spirit Sophia.

I was watching Rebekah chase Spirit around the yard 78 Johnson, Spirit of the Living God, 104.79 Johnson, Ask the Beasts, 6.

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endlessly trying to catch her little puppy, Spirit. In every

attempt, Spirit lured her this way and that as they danced

around the yard together. Spirit always managed to leap out

of my daughter’s grasp. This went on for some time until my

daughter surrendered, exhausted, collapsed on the grass. She

became quiet as she caught her breath, and then her puppy

Spirit, approached her quietly, plopped down next to her and

put her head onto her lap. This is the way Sophia Spirit

works, she lures us this way and that, we chase her, and

finally when we are exhausted, she finds that untouched

place in each of us, dwells there encouraging us to new

life. As Proverbs says, “Whoever finds me, finds life”

(8:35). Wherever life is, there dwells Spirit Sophia. God is

Spirit Sophia, God is Hokmah, God is Skekinah, God is Ruach

and God is always ever greater.

We experience Jesus-Sophia in the life, death, and

resurrection of Jesus Christ. Augustine stated that Jesus-

Sophia is Wisdom’s child and she was sent in one way so that

she might be with human beings; and she herself being sent

in another way that she might be a human being. In this way

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Augustine balances the feminine and the masculine principles

in the person of Jesus Christ. Through the ministry of

Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus appears as the prophetic child of

Sophia by proclaiming God’s inclusive love to the poor and

suffering. Whenever we partner with the poor to create a

more just world, we are participating in the salvific

mission of Jesus-Sophia

St. James has a long history of partnering with the

poor and participating in the salvific mission of Jesus-

Sophia. One way we do this is by partnering with the

families of those who are incarcerated to provide support

and comfort to their families and to make sure that they do

not remain separated from their loved ones. We help them

continue the bonds of affection with their families so that

when they are released, they have a supportive family

helping them to make a positive transition. By helping to

maintain family structures, we say no to the injustice that

keeps them apart. In this way, we partner with them to bring

about a more just society embedded in compassion for our

sisters and brothers and their families. This is the promise

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we made in our Baptismal Covenant, to strive for justice and

peace among all people. God is Jesus Sophia, God is like the

woman with the lost coin, God is like a woman kneading

dough, and God is always ever greater.

Mother-Sophia is like a good mother. She wants all to

have enough to eat, to be treated fairly with dignity and

respect. When people treat one and other in a violent

manner, she rises up in defense of them like a mother bear

protecting her cubs (Hos 13:8). There is not a mother or

father in this congregation that has not felt that fierce

love for a child when he or she feels as if they are being

attacked or treated unfairly. In addition Mother-Sophia

makes sure that the good of all God’s household is fairly

distributed.

At St. James we experience the presence of Mother-

Sophia in small groups. This is a place where we are

nurtured in our faith and are sustained in our communal life

together rejoicing in our joys and sustained and comforted

in our sorrow. It is a place where we are affirmed, “It is

good that you exist and we are happy that you are with us.”

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Because we are affirmed and sustained in our communal

life together, we can extend that same nurturing and

affirmation to those in the larger community. Members of St.

James extend this nurture and care to our guests in the

dinner program. All of our guests are provided with food

that is healthy, delicious, and nourishing and are treated

as cherished members of God’s household. We affirm, “It is

good that you exist and we are happy that you are with us.”

God is Mother, God is Father, God is an angry bear, God is a

hovering bird, God is Holy Wisdom and God is always ever

greater.

Sophia-God is She Who is the mysterious robust

relational aliveness calling all living things to life. She

breathes the breath of life into all creation, is present in

the midst of suffering and injustice calling us to

redemption, luring us into freedom, and in the end receiving

us into eternal life. This is the God who is with us and for

us, who longs to be with us and loves us. The Doctrine of

the Trinity is a robust and life-giving doctrine that is

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central to the teaching of the church. It is our faith, the

faith of the living church and we are proud to profess it.

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