I’m grateful for the wonderful people at All Saints Church in Pasadena, and to the Emmaus LGBTQ+ student group at Luther Seminary, for both asking me to preach on these lectionary texts! You can find a video of the sermon I preached at All Saints here, but below you’ll find the version I shared at Luther, my alma mater.
In this morning’s Gospel reading we hear Jesus say, “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified.” There is a HUGE part of me that wants to end our reading right there. I don’t know about you, but I would really like to be the kind of person who could hear things like that and not be terrified. And usually, in so many of the other texts we read throughout the church year, that message—the exhortation to “fear not”—really is what God is trying to get across. Think about how many times we hear the phrase “fear not” in the stories of Christmas, for instance! The angel Gabriel says it to Mary at the annunciation, another angel says it to Joseph when he’s considering marrying Mary, and a whole group of angels say it to the shepherds abiding in the fields. Fear not! Fear not, for the God if Israel is at work here.
But in today’s reading Jesus doesn’t end by saying “fear not.” He says, “Don’t be afraid when you hear about bad things happening, because it’s really not the end of the world. Before THAT happens, things are going to get a lot worse.”
What kind of pessimistic, unsympathetic, tone-deaf kind of comfort is that, Jesus??
What Jesus is saying here is not comforting, at least not to me, but it is realistic. And some of what he illustrates here hits home, deeply, when I think about the kinds of things happening to my transgender siblings.
For instance, Jesus says, “Before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors…” The 2015 US Transgender Survey, the largest survey ever of trans people in this country, tells us that transgender people are arrested and incarcerated and an inordinately high rate compared to cisgender people. Only .9% of the whole US population have been held in jail or prison in the past year, but 2% of transgender people will have been arrested and incarcerated in the same period of time, and that statistic goes up to 4% if you happen to be a Black trans person, and up to 9% if you happen to be a Black trans woman. This doesn’t happen because trans people are somehow hellbent on committing crime—it happens because laws are written that don’t allow us to use public restrooms, and because we’re kicked out of our homes and there are laws against sleeping in public places, and because some of us are undocumented and fleeing for our lives, and because trans women of color walking down the street are assumed to be sex workers, and because those of us who are sex workers aren’t legally protected.
Jesus continues, “You will be betrayed even by parents, sisters and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death.” Tomorrow is Transgender Day of Remembrance—the day every year when we remember the transgender people who have died over the past twelve months. This year in the United States, at least 24 transgender people have been murdered, all but three of whom were Black trans women. This year in the United States, 41% of transgender adults and 50% of transgender youth attempted suicide. We know that the most common cause of death among transgender women is intimate partner violence, often fueled by larger themes of sexism, homophobia, and white supremacy. We know that the largest factor in the decision to attempt suicide is the experience of family rejection, which is most often fueled by religious intolerance and exposure to conversion therapy.
It’s all connected. From the churches who teach that the white, Western gender binary is God-ordained, to the parents that believe that their child’s soul is at risk if they transition, to the nonbinary teenager who has internalized the message that they are broken and unlovable at their core. Too many trans folks raised within Christian communities have been brought into closed door meetings with a pastor who has told them that if they continue to dress in a way that honors who they are, or that if they refuse to repent for being the way God made them, they’ll be asked to leave.
You will be arrested, you will be brought before religious and government officials, and you will be imprisoned. You will be hated by your own family members, and they may kill you.
Why?
In today’s text, Jesus says, “Because of my name.”
We know that names, especially in the ancient world, are more than just what people call you. Many times, names are connected to a specific kind of power. For instance, if a Roman soldier came to your door and said “Open up, in the name of Caesar!” that meant that those soldiers were acting on Caeser’s orders and with Caesar’s authority. Jesus’ disciples did something similar after Jesus had risen from the dead and gone into heaven. Acts chapter 3 tells the story of Peter and John meeting a man who couldn’t walk, and Peter says “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk,” and the man does it! Peter is acting with Jesus’ authority. To act in the name of someone else was to associate yourself with that person and their power.
But there’s another common way that names are used, both in scripture and today. Sometimes, to act in someone’s name meant to imitate them—to do things as they would have. For instance, if you had a family member who was really passionate about a cause or a particular charity, and if that person were to die, you might donate to their favorite charity in their name. You would be carrying on their work in the world. Someone’s name becomes a sort of label for a specific way of being.
That’s the way Jesus talked about his name in Mark chapter 9, when he called the children to come to him through the crowd, holds them close and says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” In other words, to welcome children in Jesus’ name means to welcome them with unconditional love, care, and regard for their humanity.
To do something in Jesus’ name means to do it as Jesus would do it.
So in today’s reading, when Jesus says that all these terrible things will happen to people “because of my name,” I believe he’s saying that his disciples will be hated because they acted like he did. They will hand out free food to the hungry when conventional wisdom says that those who don’t work shouldn’t eat. They will provide medical care to the sick when the sick can’t pay. They will provide sanctuary to the refugee when the government wants to send them back into danger. People who act in Jesus’ name place care of neighbor over regard for profit and civil law, and that gets people in trouble.
But there are also some internal things we do to act like Jesus.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the story of Jesus’ own baptism in the Gospel of Matthew. Remember how that dove came down, and the voice of God says “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased?” That moment is when Jesus’ identity is officially made known. Prior to that moment, in Matthew’s account, we don’t have any record of Jesus really grasping the concept that his most central identity is as the son of God. And right from there, Jesus is led into the desert to be tempted by three other possible identities. Matthew chapter 4 tells us that Satan shows up and asks Jesus if he wants to place his identity in the things he can do, or in his own popularity, or in his own power over others, but Jesus rejects every one of those things, because he already knows who he is. He knows he’s God’s beloved son, and to pretend to be anything else would be a lie. And when he refused to lie—refused to be anything other than who he was and who he was called to be, government and religious leaders killed him.
That story sounds familiar to me. That commitment to the truth of one’s own most central being—created and loved by God, over and against all the more convenient or enforced identities of the world—sounds familiar. When I look as the transgender people in my community, I see people who are acting in Jesus’ name by embracing the identity that God gave them, and it’s only by living into their most honest selves that they can access the gifts they then use to help others.
In today’s reading Jesus says that when his disciples are brought before leaders to explain themselves, they should use it as an opportunity to testify. To witness to what they have seen and experienced, and how that has changed what they believe and what they do. I feel like we’ve lost the art of testimony in a lot of mainline churches, and it might be time to bring it back, so here’s a little bit of mine.
I am transgender. I am a Christian. I have experienced the love of a God who created not just night and day, but also the in-between-time after the sun has slipped below the horizon line but before the stars come out, when the world is glowing in pinks and purples. I have read scripture and met a God who keep changing the rules about who’s in and who’s out, always moving toward a more scandalous inclusion. When I was 24, and I came to the end of the path of expectations I’d been walking and found that I could not lie anymore, I asked that God to make a way out of no way, and God did. God reminded me that my most important identity was not as someone who fit this particular culture’s gendered expectations. I realized I was called to live in Jesus’ name, and that means you end up experiencing some death and resurrection. The life I have now is one that I couldn’t even imagine before. Being seen and loved by God not in spite of who you are, but because of who you are, is just the smallest taste of abundant life, but it’s enough for me.
Today’s Gospel reading is a difficult one. It’s doesn’t have a happy ending, exactly. Jesus says that through our endurance in these times of trial we will gain our souls. I’m always a little wary of people reading that as if Jesus is saying that it doesn’t matter what happens to us in this life, because we’re all going to be happy little cherubs in heaven. I don’t think that’s what he’s saying—in fact, he seems especially concerned about our bodies, even keeping close count of the number of hairs on our heads.
But, as a lover of the Hebrew Bible, I think this is a perfect opportunity to find the good news in our reading from Isaiah, instead. And let me take this moment to offer an official plea to all future pastors to not ignore the Old Testament lectionary texts! Don’t let your parishioners buy into Marcionism and walk out of the building thinking that they can throw everything prior to Matthew in the trash!
Anyway.
In Isaiah, God shows us that destruction, imprisonment, murder, and abuse do not have the last word. It’s easy to get caught up in all the imagery about the wolf lying down with the lamb, but let’s direct our attention for a minute to the work that’s still happening in God’s new kingdom. God says, “At last they will live in the houses they build, and eat the fruit of the vineyard they plant. For the days of my people will be like the days of a tree, and my chosen ones will enjoy the fruit of their labors.” Even in God’s new heaven and new earth, people are still building, still planting, still caring for each other, not because they have to, but because to love each other well is in and of itself a joy.
We are called into action in anticipation of God’s kingdom come. So what are we called to do now, in Jesus’ name? What are you called to do to protect your transgender sisters, brothers, and siblings? Will you accompany a trans person to immigration court to provide support and care? Will you write letters in support of the incarcerated trans people you meet during prison ministry, advocating for their safety? Will you correct the nurse who uses the wrong pronouns for a patient when you’re on call doing CPE? Will you take the leap of faith and begin the conversation about becoming LGBTQ+ affirming in your parish, even though you know you’re going to get flack for it? There’s so much you can do, but as our Jewish siblings say, Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s suffering. You are not obliged to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.
Even though Jesus does say quite a bit more in today’s reading, maybe it really does have to begin with the encouragement we started with: Fear not. Do not be terrified, because to be terrified is to be frozen and unable to respond to God and to each other.
So break the ice by asking questions about your fear. Break the ice by listening to stories, especially to the stories of our gender-expansive siblings. The fact that we are still here, still sitting in churches and still in these chapel pews, is a testament to the power of a love that will not be boxed in or quieted down. If you need some hope for the future of the church, that’s where you’ll find it—among the LGBTQI2A people who know what it’s like to hold on to faith when the whole world tells you to let go. Give us the opportunity to testify, and you’ll find that God’s new heaven and new earth are already breaking in.
Amen.