I will tell of the decree of the Living, Mighty God
Who said to me, “You are my child. Today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the earth itself your inheritance.”
Psalm 2
We gather today for a solemn, and sacred occasion the traditional Transgender Day of Remembrance. It is bewildering in a sense, for it makes no sense for people who have found and lived their authentic selves to be murdered for that. Dr. Howard Thurman calls for each of us to this search and discovery.
There is something in every one of you that waits, listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself and if you cannot hear it, you will never find whatever it is for which you are searching and if you hear it and then do not follow it, it was better that you had never been born…
You are the only you that has ever lived; your idiom is the only idiom of its kind in all of existence and if you cannot hear the sound of the genuine in you, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls…
That is the huge challenge for each of us every day, to release the strings of others defining who we are, telling us what to do or not to do, stealing our souls to fit into compromised binaries that reject the creativity of our nonbinary creator.
The author of Psalm 2 says that those who affirm what God has done in their lives, if they ask, will have the earth as their inheritance. Does this sound like God is upset, denying blessings, or regretting what has been created?
I have found it difficult to understand what it is about our transgender kinfolk that upsets others. Nothing about it makes sense to me. We should welcome this expansion of gender expressions.
We must mourn today the deaths of our kinfolk through violence snd support this community with our resources. Images of God desecrated! Yet we also cherish the lives lost and their time with us, often brief. We do this is order to move forward to within the midst of tragedy see the possibilities for creatively, and assertively working for differently realities. This is a responsibility of "community." Why do we gather today, to say "no" to the well-funded anihilation unleashed against this community? Six hundred bills have been brought forward before legislatures throughout this country to deny their rights and even status as human beings; 215 million dollars were spent vilifying the trans community during the last presidential election.
The central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds that bind each to all. There is a connectedness, a relationship discovered amid the particulars of our own lives and the lives of others. Once felt, it inspires us to act for justice.
It is the church that assures us that we are not struggling for justice on our own, but as members of a larger community. The religious community is essential, for alone our vision is too narrow to see all that must be seen, and our strength too limited to do all that must be done. Together, our vision widens and our strength is renewed.
– Mark Morrison-Reed
Below is a list of many of those whose lives were cut short this year through violence. What great losses!
This is the first time our speaker for our TDOR service has not been transgender. I felt it important to include authentic voices from that community.
The following is from the website Enfleshed. It is conversation about God and Gender.
Alaina Cobb
. . . I tend to think of God. Um, I'm very Penn in the cause I'm being honest, um, in that, in my experience of God and my belief about God is that God is in and through all things, uh, to take a beat from Paul who was taking a beat from the Greeks. Um, but, um, and so in that way, I definitely, my understanding of God has God has, um, you know, God has gender full. And in that, in that way, to those who are without gender, those who are agender or God is as much, uh, agender, you know, there's, there's all this, um, room, this galaxy of, of gender. And I see God in all of it. And yet there's another part of me that probably that, that speaks more to the liberation theology. Um, and you know, we, we talk about a preferential option for the poor about God having a preferential option for the poor, the gospel being a preferential option for the poor. But really, I think that's, that's speaking directly to the preferential option for the oppressed. And so I see God, and I think the way we talk about God needs to be shaped, um, by those systems, because unless we're identifying God with whatever gender is being oppressed or whatever person is being oppressed in whichever situation, then the least the less honest view we have of God. Um, if we truly believe, uh, you know, if you're a Christian, you truly believe that the most honest example of God and the grace and sample of God that we have in scripture is, uh, you know, a God who is crucified, um, that, and is in that oppressed state then, um, you know, my God can definitely look like a man, but it's not going to be a man in power. It's going to be Emmett Till, you know, my God can look like a woman. Um, but it's, it's not going to be, um, you know, my God is always going to be, um, it's always going to be gendered in a way that, um, makes me question and it doesn't leave me comfortable. Um, and not in a way that I feel like God is in a position of oppression and power over, but who am I oppressing? Um, uh, that is, that is the question I have to ask myself. And that is how I should see God. Um, as the, who am I? Who am I, um, right now, who am I exercising power over, even if it's unintentional.
Nite:
Wow, this is, it brings - me, it makes me think about like the reflection of God. And, um, I grew up learning about that, you know, from church and from my grandma's like, um, we're created in God's image. So therefore, you know, you want to live your life as a reflection to God in the best way possible. And then, you know, if you sin and Jesus already took care of that. But what to me is most interesting when I hear y'all talking about is like, you know, the stepping away from, and then stepping in or stepping into different parts of understanding of God. Um, and then that reflecting on to the different genders, God can embody, I'm using air quotes around embody. Um, but I am curious about how has your gender like, cause there's this some satisfaction I hear just like, you know, this evolution of, you know, maybe God has gender or, you know, God being reflected in different ways, but has there been an unsatisfied, like a type of unsatisfaction you get when you deal with like God having any gender or like trying to reflect, like having that conversation of like, who am I talking to? And then like, but how am I talking to you? How you're understanding me, you know, when you're navigating the world as a certain gender or not having a certain gender, um, to, to kind of specify the question with an example of like, when I started imagining God as trans, that was really important for me because it was like, okay, now to me, like, cause I want, like, I just want to fist fight God. Like, that's why I studied theology of like, like people are like, why do you want to do it? Like funding on a Sierra on a fist fight, God, like I'm trying to go to heaven to fist fight. Like this isn't a metaphorical thing. Like this is a brawl we're having in a back alley. But anyway, um, but when I imagine God has transgender, it was like a whole new world opened up for me because it was like, okay, now I can see God understanding both like my life growing up as a girl, but also the way in which I'm trying to live life as a man. Um, and like how it's always in flux and in conversation even for myself. So it looks like I'm always trying to be, I guess, confrontational with God about it. So how does that do, does that work for y'all or like, is it, you know, does it like reflect that way or?
Blessing
May the delight of our non-binary God fill your souls with joy and give you strength to celebrate and embody God’s love in the world: and the blessing of God – creating, transforming, and making new - bring you to your true and loving self, your home, now and always. Amen.
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