Readings for Today’s Reflection:
Hebrew Reading: Genesis 1:26-28a
Christian Reading: Matthew 19:12-15
Contemporary Reading: Excerpt from “Sissy: A Coming of
Gender Story” by Jacob Tobia
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Sermon delivered on Sunday, September 8, 2019 at Church on The Main located in Middletown, DE
Paul wrote to the Church of Galatia, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)
He didn’t write male or female, but rather male and female…such a subtle distinction, yet a freeing acknowledgement of the diversity found within God’s Creation.
In fact, a 3rd Century Jewish text reads:
“An androgynous, who presents both male and female physical traits, is in some ways like men and in some ways like women. In some ways, they are like both men and women, and in other ways, like neither men nor women.” (Bikkurim 4:1)[i]
Rabbi David Meyer, from the article What the Torah Teaches Us About Gender Fluidity & Transgender Justice notes,
Our Jewish legal tradition identifies no fewer than six distinct “genders”, certainly assuming as normative the male and female, but including designations as well which we now refer to as “intersex” identities.[ii]
Many Queer Folx have asked me about the too oft quoted “clobber passages” in scripture to which I prefer to redirect people to too oft ignored liberating passages. Such as our First Creation Story quoted by Paul to the Galatians:
“Let us make humankind in our image…So God created the earth-being in God’s image, in the image of God, God created them; male and female God created them.”
In the beginning we have the plurality of God “in our image”.
In the beginning we have the plurality of earth being “after God’s likeness.”
In the beginning we are seen by God as very good.
God created all of us; and the all of us is far more diverse than the social construction of a gender binary myth; and according to Jewish tradition, at least six gender identities!
Paul helps us re-frame our first creation story because Jesus, himself, sees the expansive many gendered creation of God as very good, too.
Jesus said to his disciples,
not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given… there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs, who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.
Not everyone can accept this teaching…let anyone accept this who can. Those are very intriguing bookends Jesus places around this passage. What was Jesus trying to say to LGBTQ+ folx and our allies today? How was Jesus trying to embolden us for social justice work?
Virginia Mollenkott, author of the book Omnigender: A Trans-Religious Approach says the following about this Jesus’ teaching: Jesus’ words about eunuch in Matthew 19:12 reveal an accepting, respectful attitude that ought to be the norm for the modern church.[iii]
And author Michelle Dee entitled “Jesus and Male and Female” wrote: In Jesus’s day, there was no [gender affirmation surgery], though there were transgender people, naturally…Jesus acknowledges sexual diversity and did not judge it.[iv]
* * *
20 years ago as a senior at Columbia Theological Seminary—a PC(USA) school—I engaged in the required rite of passage by preaching my Senior Sermon.
I pulled the “Let the Little Kiddos Come Unto Me” narrative of Jesus rebuking the disciples from the Gospel of Mark 10:13-16. It is recorded a little different…I was drawn to the closing verse of this version: Jesus took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.” (v.16)
It was a message to my seminary community that the Church is to welcome, as Jesus did, all the little children—all ethnicities, all abilities, all incomes, and all sexual orientations and gender identities—into the Church…welcome and bless them.
As the first out person from within the LGBTQ+ community to apply to Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA—to apply and be let in with a scholarship, to boot—it was an three year experience of change and transformation for both the Seminary and myself.
Anyone who knows me knows I am not a wall flower.
The day I preached in senior chapel we had a whole bunch of unexpected guests from the largest PC(USA) church whose very conservative senior pastor sat on the Seminary Board of Directors and once preached a very homophobic sermon. His church folx reported to him on my message; and there became a bit of a firestorm on campus because the Seminary President was also the Moderator for the PC(USA) that year.
Soon PC(USA) news streams such as The Laymen and The Presbyterian Outlook along with gay news streams, such as The Southern Voice were publishing articles about this lil ole NOT-Presbyterian Dyke caught up in the middle of a Denominational Conflict over the inclusion/exclusion of LGBTQ+ folx; and to top it all off the day after I preached about what happens to LGBTQ+ kiddos who are rejected by family and church and community, the world learned about Matthew Shepherd hanging from a fence post in Laramie.
All I asked of the Seminary Community was to pay attention to ministry of Jesus—to take all the children, including the Queer Kiddos, into our arms and hold them, support them, love them, and bless them.
Twenty years later…
Twenty years later, I am still asking for us to take all the Queer Kiddos into our arms, to hold, support, love, and bless them.
In the state of Delaware, we may have some of the most LGBTQ+ affirming laws on the books, but those laws do not equally apply to our schools.
If I were Trans-Identified – assigned female at birth – knowing myself to be male and in 8th grade I can use affirming public space at the Mall, but not at my school. I could and would be bullied by students and even some teachers. I might be afraid to come out to my parents/guardians because those oft too oft (and might I add) misquoted clobber passages are like walls between me and my parents, my community, my school, and even my God.
In our state, based upon the Delaware Youth Risk Behavior Survey, we have about 3% identifying gender expansive, or roughly 3,200 kiddos and we have about 14%, or roughly 15,000 kiddos identifying lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, etc.
One in four of all LGBTQ youth in our state report being bullied on campus.
One in four self-harm. One in three plan to end their life.
One out of seven attempt to end their life and need medical attention.
And too often we see an obituary in the newspaper on a teenager who suddenly died; and I wonder if that kiddo was part of the LGBTQ+ community and no one knew…or knew, but didn’t offer love & bless them?
Our Department of Education does not have anti-discrimination policies and procedures in place to protect Gender Expansive Youth; and yet evidence-based research on this area has noted that where comprehensive anti-discrimination policies exist in school districts, there has shown as much as a 14% drop in suicide attempts by LGBTQ+ youth.
The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought [little children] to Jesus, but Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.’
Who are today’s disciples creating roadblocks to all God’s Beautiful Children—to all the Children that God looks at and says, yes, they are created in our Image and they are very good?
Are the disciples the School District Board Members?
Are the disciples the Delaware Department of Education?
Are the disciples the parents, teachers, & preachers who are being pressured to buy into a binary system at the expense of our children’s health and happiness?
Who is speaking sternly against our Queer Kiddos; and how come far too many of us are silent hand ringers hoping someone else advocates for change?
I say, if you are an ally, then become the pathway for Queer Kiddos to receive blessings; and for parents of Queer Kiddos to receive support.
* * * *
Jacob Tobia’s book Sissy: A Coming of Gender Story is memoir about their experience growing up; and a story worth our reading as contemporary sacred queer text. Too often, we Cisgender Allies think we are allies without realizing we act too much like Jesus’ Disciples sternly warning and hand-ringing, but when we get out of our way we may transform like Jacob’s dad…
We have the chance to change into love…a love that is less about words and more about our actions.
Jacob wrote about his father/to his father:
You show love through actions, not through words. And the way you’ve changed, the way you’ve figured out how to love me even when I come home from church in a red dress, lipstick, and chunky-heeled boots is no small feat. Your transformation of love is nothing short of miraculous.[v]
When we, who call ourselves
disciples actually follow Jesus, we begin to see all of creation as very good,
we begin to support all people in living their truth; and the kingdom of heaven
comes to our earth. Amen.
[i] What the Torah Teaches Us About Gender Fluidity and Transgender Justice by BY RABBI DAVID J. MEYER , 9/20/2018
[ii] ibid
[iii] Mollenkott, Omnigender, 120
[iv] As quoted in Transgendered: Theology Ministry and Communities of Faith by Justin Tanis, 74
[v] Tobia, Sissy, 301