Sunday, September 6, 2015
Luke 22: 14-20
First Congregational United
Church of Christ – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
But there’s another reason to refer to God as a being
without gender or as both male and female. And that reason is rooted right here
in Genesis, at the very beginning of our Holy Text. In the beginning, we were given the gift of two stories
that introduce God to us. And in both stories, God’s gender is….complicated.
First, the passage we heard this morning, “So God created
humanity in God’s own image. Male and female, God created them.” Now, in
Hebrew, the pronouns used for God are exclusively male – “he created them.” But
isn’t it fascinating that God created humanity in God’s own image – male and female? The image of God, whatever
God looks like, is big enough to be both male and female. And, I would argue,
people who are beyond the male-female binary, too.
Here at First Congregational, we affirm the full humanity of
people who are male, female, neither, both, transgender, transsexual, intersex,
genderqueer, cisgender, and more. One part of being welcoming is making sure we
are aware of some basic terminology when it comes to gender identity…and that
we’re always open to learning more because our understanding of gender identity
is always evolving.[1]
Transgender
is an umbrella term that refers to humans whose gender identity doesn’t match
up with the biological sex the doctor assigned to them at their birth. Gender identity is an internal sense of
one’s own gender. Biological sex is
typically determined at birth by a quick visual assessment. Another part of
gender identity is gender expression
– the way we choose to present ourselves in the world and the way we are “read”
by other people. For me, all three of those are female – my gender identity,
expression, and biological sex are all female. And so, I am cisgender.
People who do not have consistency across all three of those may identity as transgender. One thing that I’ve really learned in the past few years is that there are a whole lotta folks out there who may or may not identity as transgender, but definitely identify as somewhere outside the male-female binary. They have a sense of being neither male nor female. Sometimes they prefer the term genderqueer – and they may or may not also identity as trans.
I bring up genderqueer-ness specifically because of what
happens in Genesis 2. The way you’ll likely remember the story is this: God
makes Adam and then God feels bad for Adam and wants to give him friends. So eventually,
God makes Eve. Man comes first, then woman.
Except. Except it’s not quite that simple. Back in 1973, Biblical
scholar Phyllis Trible wrote an article on Genesis 2 and 3[2].
In it, she delves into the Hebrew and notes that the word used consistently for
Adam is (wait for it) “adam.” It’s a word that could be translated man, but could
just as easily be translated as humankind, humanity, not specifically male –
kind of how people used to use “mankind” as a term that meant “everyone.” It’s
only after the woman is created that the author begins to use different terms
to describe the two humans – “ish” – man – and “ishash” – woman. Trible’s
argument is that that first human was without gender or was both genders –
genderqueer, outside the binary of male and female. And that the creation of
the second human was the point at which male and female came on the scene.
I’ve always thought this was a really cool reading of the
text. And the implications are huge. Because not only does this text affirm
those who exist outside the binary, but it says something about God. If the
first human was genderqueer and created in God’s image, then maybe God is
genderqueer, too. How’s that for affirming?
For the past few weeks, we’ve been working through what
the Bible says about people who are gay, lesbian, and bisexual. It would be
cool to do the same for people who are trans, but there’s really not much to go
on. Our sacred texts don’t explicitly talk about people who are trans. The
gender-bending in Genesis 1 and 2 are about as close as we come.
And so…I turned to my friends and colleagues who identify
as transgender as I prepared this week’s sermon. I asked them, “What passages
in the Bible speak to you and affirm your worth?” Several people mentioned the
story of Jacob wrestling with God in the desert and being given a new name
after that encounter. Our friend Stephanie Mott shared with me that she loves
the passage we heard from Jeremiah – about God knowing us fully for all
eternity. And many folks talked about the passage from Galatians – that promise
that God sees us all outside the boxes humanity imposes upon us. We are more
than just male or female, enslaved or free, American or Syrian, Christian or
Muslim…we are all one in God’s eyes.
In talking with my friends and colleagues, I was turned on
to the work of Father Shannon T. L. Kearns, a priest and theologian who is
transgender, and has written a beautiful series called the “Trans Passion
Narrative.”[3]
Father Shannon goes through the entire passion narrative, scene by scene, and
interprets it from his location as someone who is trans.
One of the beautiful things about being open and affirming
to people of every gender identity is that the Church is enhanced, enriched,
and enlivened by voices that were previously silenced. My soul was moved and my
ears heard in a new ways when I read Father Shannon’s Trans Passion Narrative.
The passage I wanted to highlight for you today is his reading of the Last
Supper.[4]
Father Shannon says that he wasn’t originally planning on
writing about it. The language of the broken body and blood being poured out
for others didn’t appeal to him. After all, he says, “So much of the way I have
told my own story has been the complete opposite. I needed to reiterate over
and over that I transitioned for myself….In some ways transitioning was a
selfish act; I needed to be seen as who I really am. I needed to be in a body
that was the right body. It wasn’t for other people…So how could I possibly say
that this was my body broken for other people? That I shed my blood for other
people?”
But then, Shannon got an email from his little sister who
was almost 11 at the time he wrote this. I’ll let him tell you the story:
My mom sent me an email
saying that my little sister’s class was writing an “operetta” on heroes and
she chose me as her hero. Now, my mom hasn’t told my sister about my
transition, but my sister has seen me since I started transition, we talk on
the phone. In a lot of ways I know that she gets it even without being told…And
I am still her sibling and she claims me as her hero. And I realized that in
some ways I transitioned for her.
As her older sibling, I
want my sister to be happy in the world. To be at peace in her own skin. I want
her to wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and love who she sees….How
could I possibly inspire her to be herself if I wasn’t being myself? If every
time I looked in the mirror I hated the person I saw staring back at me? If I
continued to walk with my shoulders rounded in order to hide my chest? If, once
I started transition, I avoided coming home to see my family because I didn’t
want them to know about me? How could I possibly be an example to her if I
hated myself and was ashamed of my life?
This is my body, broken
for you, so that you understand that sometimes you have to do hard things that
no one else understands in order to be true to yourself. Sometimes people will
hate your body or judge your body; whether because of how it looks, what color
your skin is, or who you love with it. But that doesn’t matter. What really
matters is that you can look in the mirror and love who you are. This is my body,
broken for you so that we can both learn to hold our heads up high. So we can
learn to look in the mirror and love what we see.
This is my blood, shed
for you, so that you know that even if you have to bleed you know you will be
okay in the end. So that you know that we are family and that the same blood
runs through both our veins even if you are grafted into the family by adoption
or marriage or whatever. We are family. This is my blood shed for you so that
you understand that doing the things you know are right, even when people don’t
agree, isn’t enough to make the people who matter stop loving you.
Jesus knew that even
after he died that he would be remembered and carried on in the lives of the
people who loved him. And he knew that by living the life he was called to,
even if it meant death, was a better example for the people he loved than
playing it safe and living unscathed.
That is the legacy I want
my siblings to have. To know that a life lived truly, authentically, bodily is
a life well lived. That to follow your heart, to follow your gut, even if it
leads you to scary places is worth it. I want them to know that no matter who
they are they will be held in my embrace and loved. So I broke my body for
them, so that I could show them that even with scars you can be okay. To be
wholly yourself, living wholly in your body is a holy endeavor.
This is my body. This is
my blood. For you.
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