October 23, 2016 – Pride Sunday

Psalm 139

For me and I’m guessing maybe for you, too, politics as usual, has been more challenging than usual. The vitriol never seems to stop, but then, in the middle of the myriad challenges to sanity and serenity, I also discovered a profound spiritual opportunity that I did not necessarily invite. Whispered underneath the hate speech of late came some gentle questions I need to revisit about who I am as a citizen and as a member of a spiritual community, how I regard and speak about my own and others’ human bodies in all of our myriad forms and parts, our shapes and sizes, our many colors, and our variety of gender identities and expressions. It’s not a small matter. As you well know, the way we use language–it’s more than words. Whether it is bullying on the playground, racist talk on the TV, or jokes about another’s size, sexual orientation, clothing, or gender identity, hate speech alters consciousness, squelches hope and tragically, kills.

In the midst of one of the days of the name-calling spew pouring out of the radio, I started thinking about the times when I uttered negative things about my own body–how I internalized others’ negative opinions, calling myself names a lot worse than piggy, and sometimes have not modeled the self-regard before my daughter or other girls and boys that I claim to teach and preach to other people. I wish I had back all the money I have given to Lean Cuisine, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, and the companies that make weird body building machines you can use right in your own home, that I purchased not because of a pursuit of health, but because of shame. With all that money back, single-handedly I could push us really close to our pledge goal. But even more, I wish I had back the wasted time and energy poured out in internalized homophobia and judgment about my own appearance. Gay or straight or however known, maybe you’ve done some of that, too. We can’t get the past back, but it is not too late now for us to alter the negative thoughts and destructive words. The names we call ourselves and others matter.

What names do you call yourself? What pronouns do you use in reference? The Bible is full of very interesting references to name calling. In the birth narratives of Jesus, it is proclaimed that he will be called, “Immanuel, which means ‘God with us.'” In the story of his baptism, Jesus hears the voice of God calling him a new name, saying, “This is my child, my beloved, in whom I well-pleased.” And centuries later, in the early church, there are many traditions of converts when they were baptized or confirmed, taking on a different name from the one given at birth, a mark of the new self rising from the old identity. When those new converts took on the new name, the intention was to become or to embody the spirit of that new identity. And I wonder if we are experiencing a reimagining of that old tradition in our own time when those whose gender identities change or are fluid also choose to take on a new name to describe their expanded self-understanding and transformation. How do we understand ourselves as the beloved child, the empowered female, the gentle male? The either, or, both, and, God with us? What if we reimagine our names to include God-with-us, God’s beloved ones?

The teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh also describe this idea that the imago dei–the image of God, God-with-us, the beloved, is the imprint that can be found in the face of all humanity, not just in Jesus, but in my face, too, and in yours. He wrote, “It is our duty to transcend names and concepts. When we see someone overflowing with love and understanding, someone who is keenly aware of what is going on, we know that they are very close to the Buddha and to Jesus Christ.” How would you feel if you met a person like that? Overjoyed? Of course. Comfortable? Perhaps not. I have had the privilege of encountering men and women close to the living Buddha, the living Christ—some of them world famous, others completely unknown; it makes no difference. Their very presence awakens us and challenges our complacency.”

What if it is that the variety and immensity of God, the Beloved One, is reflected in all our true colors and transgressive identities—beyond the binaries, beyond the constructs of religion? What if, for those who believe in any sort of Higher Power, or for those who do not, the understanding of that Spirit of Life expands beyond the expected borders?

Theologian BK Hipsher writes: “We need a trans-God alright. . . one that transgresses all our ideas about who and what God is or can be, one that transports us to new possibilities for how God can incarnate in the multiplicity of human embodiments, one that transfigures our mental images from limitations, one that transforms our ideas about our fellow humans and ourselves, one that transcends all we know or think we know about God and about humanity as the imago Dei.”

How shall our conversation transcend the usual dichotomies and divisions? How do we name each other “beloved,” and invite one another to health wholeness, to unshame, and belonging? The New Testament says our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit. How do we talk about and occupy our own temples? How do we name and encourage others to occupy theirs? The poet James Broughton once wrote, “The soul expresses itself throughout the body, in its members, organs, nerves, and cells, in all desire and daring–wherever you ache and wherever you soar—experiencing the pleasures and pains of being alive. The body is a holy place of romp and renewal.”

Today is PRIDE Sunday, but we are not just here to offer lip service to one more special day with a giant rainbow flag where we have great music and fun and then we go home and forget about it all until next year. I believe we are here to celebrate this time in history and this place in the culture. We have made so much progress! Allies and family, all together. But we are also here to mourn and to protest the time in history and this place in the culture when we continue to experience hate speech and violence, when since our last Pride Sunday we have been scarred by the tragic massacre at Pulse nightclub, and by the knowledge that our trans sisters and brothers, particularly those of color, are in danger every day–precious lives–images of God. Both progress and pain are always happening. And I believe we are called to be, all of us together, in our bodies, the standard bearers of all that flag means. To bear in the body the life and the death and the hope for the future for all of us–particularly on behalf of those whose very lives are wrapped in these colors.

No matter the names you or I choose to call ourselves or have been called, whether they are accurate and welcomed or hurtful or wrong. We have survived. Maybe you have been ignored, invaded or injured. But you are here. You and I are here, aren’t we? How do we want to occupy the body that is this community of faith so that our hearts and minds and actions and speech are celebrations and invitations to others to occupy their own bodies and souls with courage and joy? We have the opportunity to speak words of healing to ourselves and to others and to look upon one another with the divine gaze.

To close I invite you to be in an attitude of prayer as I reimagine a little part of the Psalm 139 reading Amy shared with us earlier.  This is a description of what it feels like to be seen and known and loved unconditionally. May you experience yourself loved in this way.

Psalm 139

Beloved, always creating, restless One,
you pressed me for the sweet truth, and in every way, you have known me; you understand what I do;
you’re in my head, so wound around my thoughts.
You see through my brashness and fear,
You look beyond the costume of my appearance and into my inmost self.
There is not one corner of my mind that you have not played around in–danced around in circles, completely.
You wrap me in your arms before me, behind me,
and you hold me in the palm of your hand.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me–
so deep that I cannot fathom it.
Where can I go from your spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I dress up with my beads and bangles and take the wings of the morning
and fly to the ends of the sea, even there your hand will guide me
and your spirit will give me strength.
When I am in heaven’s ecstasies or when I am lying dead in hell, you are there,
when I am afraid and hurt, I am not alone–you are with me in the deepest infinite compassion.
You see through my outer self and into the inmost me. If I am dressed in drag, or in a suit, if I am sparkly, wrinkled, beautiful, pale, bald, black, scared, scarred, saggy round the middle, quiet, loud, narrow, straight, fussy, flamboyant, tatted up, brash, shy,inside, outside, however known—imago dei, image of the divine, even then my soul was not hidden from you.
Even as when I am figuring out who I really am, woven in secret, in the depths of the world.
How can I keep from praising you? I am fearfully and wonderfully made,
Sleeping, waking, being born, transitioning, dying, always I am still with you.
How measureless your mind is, O Lord; how deep is your love.

I believe when you and I internalize that, and see one another and ourselves with the precious divine gaze, then we occupy our bodies and help others occupy theirs. And we will hold in faith the hope and the truth that no matter what, Love wins. The pulse of life keeps beating on. The Scriptures put it this way, “And finally, these three remain: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love.”