"Because of My Name" - A Sermon on Luke 21:5-19 and Isaiah 65:17-25

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.

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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.

"The Bible is a Story About Inclusion" - A Sermon on John 10:7-16

I’m grateful to have been asked to preach at Elk River Lutheran Church in Elk River, Minnesota this past February. They were in the midst of a sermon series about how to read the Bible, and they asked if I would pick a major theme that occurs and reoccurs throughout scripture, and so of course I chose inclusion!

John 10:7-16

So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

Good morning, everyone!

I want to start off this morning by telling you a story about when I was a little kid. I don’t actually remember this happening, but this is the kind of story that your parents tell about you so many times that it sort of passes into family myth and legend. I must have been about three at the time, and apparently my mom came into the living room one day and saw me jumping up and down on the seat of this big blue armchair we used to have. She immediately gave me the full first-middle-and-last-name treatment, and said “Stop jumping up and down on that chair!” So I did, and my mom went back into her office. Ten minutes later, my mom hears this repeated squeaking noise coming from the living room, so she gets up and goes back in and finds me jumping up and down on the seat of our smaller green armchair. “What did I just tell you??” she says to me, half mad and half confused about why I wasn’t listening. And apparently I stopped jumping long enough to point across the room and say, “You said to stop jumping on THAT chair!” After that my mom always joked that my eye for loopholes meant I’d probably grow up to be a lawyer.

I didn’t end up going to law school, though—I went to seminary, which was a surprise to almost everyone, because I spent my teen and young adult years feeling hurt and frustrated by the version of Christianity that I had grown up with, which wasn’t LGBT affirming. Now, post-seminary and as an out bisexual and transgender person, I spend a lot of time talking with people about the Bible, and how we understand the rules and guidelines we find there. When I go to talk with churches and organizations that are new to LGBTQ+ issues, one of the first things they bring up are the verses that have historically been used against people of different sexualities and gender identities. We call those “the clobber passages,” because they’re often used to beat LGBTQ+ folks into silence, or submission. But as you’ve been learning in this recent sermon series with Pastor Nathan, the Bible isn’t just one big chunk of text that came about in the same time and the same place, and with one singular meaning for all of time! Because we Christians don’t follow every single rule and suggestion in the Bible, we’ve had to find ways to figure out which parts of the Bible might be the most important or the most relevant for us.

One of the ways we sort this out is by asking whether a subject in the Bible seems to be specific and only shows up once or twice, or whether it’s repeated throughout the larger scriptural canon. When we read the Bible, it can be helpful to look for repeated themes. For instance, when my mom came into the room once and told me not to jump “on that chair,” I could safely assume that that specific chair is off limits, but I might not be totally sure about other chairs. When mom comes in the SECOND time, though, and clarifies that she does indeed mean ALL chairs, then that creates a theme that gives us some clarity. 

So let’s get a sense of this kind of framework by looking at three different example rules, all from the 19th chapter of the book of Leviticus. Let’s start with Leviticus 19:23, which says that you’re not supposed to eat the fruit from a fruit tree for the first three years after you planted it. When we look through the rest of the Bible to find rules about trees, we never see this three-year thing mentioned again, so this is an example of a subject in the Bible that only occurs once.

Example number two comes from Leviticus 19:9, which says, “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest.” The next verse continues on and applies the same rules to the grapes in vineyards, and explains that these edges and gleanings are to be left for immigrants and the poor. When we look through the rest of the Bible, this rule comes up just a couple of times, most memorably in the book of Ruth when Ruth meets her husband Boaz because she’s a foreigner gleaning in his field, and also in Matthew chapter 12 when Jesus and his disciples take some grain to eat from a field’s edge on the Sabbath. So there’s definitely a theme in the Bible about leaving food in the fields for those who need it, but it’s sort of a mid-level theme. It’s distinctive, but you probably wouldn’t put it in a top-10 list of essential Bible teachings.

Example number three comes from Leviticus 19:4, which says “Do not turn to idols or make cast images for yourselves, for I am the Lord your God.” Now we know this is a big one, right? It’s one of the Ten Commandments, for petes sake! Worshipping idols and other gods is the thing that trips the Israelites up more than anything else throughout the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures, and it continues to be relevant throughout the New Testament and even into today, though our idols have changed over time. You could definitely put “not worshipping other Gods” on the Bible’s top-ten theme list.

Now I took all of these examples from Leviticus for two reasons. First, because quite a few of the verses used against LGBTQ+ people come from this book and the next one, Deuteronomy, and so I wanted us to take a look at some subjects that were related in terms of placement. Second, I wanted to focus on Leviticus because, with the exception of those verses about sexuality and gender, we Christians tend to discount these law books as not relevant to us. We look at those verses about fruit trees and field edges and say “Jesus did away with all that stuff, so we don’t have to deal with rules about things like mixed fibers or eating shellfish.” But as we’ve seen, there are subjects in these early books that do carry all the way through scripture and ARE relevant to us, and so we have to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

So here’s the thing, when it comes to those passages used against LGBTQ+ people—those passages exist. Those prohibitions about same-gender sexual behavior that we see in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, for example? They do exist, even if we understand that they were written in and for a completely different time and place with a vastly different understanding of sexuality. But the number of times that those negative comments about diverse sexualities show up pales in comparison to the number of times that God’s people are told to err on the side of inclusion. The half a dozen texts about diverse sexualities falls squarely into that middle category of “happens more than once, but definitely isn’t a major theme.” Inclusion of people who were previously excluded, on the other hand, is one of the strongest themes in the whole Bible.

Let’s take the example of Ruth, for instance, who we remembered before when we were thinking about gleaning. Deuteronomy 23:3 very clearly outlaws two tribes of people when it says, “No Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of their descendants shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.” But in the beginning of the book of Ruth, we’re told that Ruth herself is a Moabite, and despite that she’s taken in by her mother-in-law Naomi and made part of the Israelite community. In fact, Ruth is given the honor of being one of the four women mentioned in Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew! Without the inclusion of this woman who shouldn’t have been allowed in, we wouldn’t have had the same Jesus that we see in the Gospels.

And let’s think about eunuchs—the gender diverse people of the ancient world who lived outside the boundaries of sex and gender as it was understood at the time. Deuteronomy 23:1 says that no one whose external reproductive organs are changed should be allowed into the Israelite community. And yet, in one of our readings today you heard what God said through the prophet Isaiah—that decades after Deuteronomy was written God changed the rules and welcomed eunuchs, giving them a special place in God’s house. The story of the eunuchs goes on into Acts chapter 8, where we meet the Ethiopian eunuch, one of the first converts to Christianity, who is given full membership in the Christian community just as he is—without having to change anything about his gender or his sexuality.

Of course the gold medal for inviting in the most outsiders goes to Jesus himself, who constantly lifted up the people who, legitimately or not, were considered “against the rules.” For most Christians, Jesus’ words have more weight than any other part of the Bible, and you might even have a Bible that has his words printed in red just to make that point. When Jesus reaffirms a theme that you’ve seen repeated throughout the rest of the Bible, you can be sure it’s an important one.

And so in today’s Gospel reading from John, Jesus is, unsurprisingly, talking about inclusion again. Here he’s depicted as the Good Shepherd—the one who knows each sheep by name, and who just keeps adding to the flock! Our reading today starts at verse 7, but if you go back a few verses you find out that Jesus is actually addressing this little sermon about sheep to the religious leaders in the community—the people who were in charge of deciding who was in and who was out. In verse 16 he says, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

With those words Jesus reminds us that we’re not the ones who get to decide whether we want those other sheep in our flock. At the end of the day, he says, we will all be one flock with one shepherd. Jesus shows us the full range of this arc toward inclusion, with one end anchored at the beginning in Genesis and the other in God’s house of prayer for all people. And that’s why it’s so important that we’re here, on Reconciling in Christ Sunday, to affirm that movement toward inclusion for all people, including people of different gender identities and sexual orientations. Because even though we might not get a say about who’s in Jesus’ flock, we do, as communities, get to decide how other people are going to experience that flock in the here and now. Will LGBTQ+ youth growing up in Elk River, Minnesota see a church that focuses on a single verse, or will they experience the love of a community that lives out God’s wider welcome seen repeatedly throughout scripture? Will visitors see a group of people intent on drawing dividing lines, or will they see the Body of Christ working together to make sure everyone can experience abundant life?

Reminding ourselves of our commitment to love, and to how that love plays out in a full welcome to others, is what this day in the life of the church is all about. God grant that we may live that mission out every day of the rest of the year. 

Amen.