Schori’s comment about Jesus being our “mother” is clearly metaphorical and is not intended to say anything about Jesus’ biological gender. It’s a word-picture, and, if you read her entire speech, a very appropriate one in context.

“God is Father because he said he is father”—hopefully you don’t mean that God is truly a father. This title is metaphorical—as is “Son of God”. God, as spirit, cannot biologically have a son. But the metaphor works, and is profoundly biblical, so we use it. Again, the question is not ‘shall we ditch the idea of God as Father?’, but rather ‘can the idea of God as Father be complemented with the picture of God as Mother?’. It’s not an either/or (which would be impossible, since God is spirit), but rather both/and.

Either/or thinking can only apply to Jesus because of his embodiment—and Jesus was clearly male and therefore NOT female. God the Father, however, may also conceivably be God the Mother because both titles are poetic imagery, and therefore not necessarily contradictory (Jesus’ masculinity, on the other hand, is a very concrete thing, and mixing up genders would be contradictory in his case). Am I making sense?

Good luck with the episcopal joke, Peter… :-)