Reconciling

(2022)

In 2022, I was invited to return to my undergraduate congregation to guest preach on Reconciling in Christ (RIC) Sunday. RIC Sunday, recognized by many Lutheran churches, is a day that celebrates the inclusion of all people in the church, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us on Reconciling in Christ Sunday.

It’s been nearly two years since my last sermon at LCM. Some of you were there, but you’d be forgiven for not recognizing me. Just after graduating college, I came out as a bisexual transgender woman. It also wasn’t long before I left my home town, and moved across the country where I started working and supporting myself.

To say that I’ve grown in that time feels like an understatement. When I look back on my life a mere 24 months ago, it can sometimes feel like I’m a different person. Perhaps some of you who knew me better have noticed as well. When you meet someone after a long absence, gradual changes seem pronounced, and you can sometimes even catch yourself doubting that this new person is really the one you used to know.

Today’s gospel is still relatively early in Jesus’s journey but he’s already been baptized, tempted by the devil, and is now traveling from town to town, preaching in synagogues and performing miracles. I can only imagine that he, too, looked back on his life and reckoned with the growing tension between the person he was becoming and the person others had expected him to be.

At this time he visits Nazareth, his hometown, and there he encounters a scene with which many LGBTQ+ people are likely to be familiar. At first, people are happy to have him back.

He goes to the synagogue and reads from the prophet Isaiah. It’s a radical passage in which Isaiah calls out the injustices of Israel. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.” It’s a fitting passage for Jesus to read. Isaiah is speaking about tearing down structures of oppression to bring people in from the margins. But then, as he’s speaking to the congregation, he brings up what I like to call “the topic.”

“The topic” is any point of disagreement that people avoid bringing up in order to keep the peace. It’s often been fought over before and already caused a great deal of hurt. But it’s also a topic that needs to be discussed for relationship to survive.

For Jesus, “the topic” is his status as a prophet and a worker of miracles. In the text, it’s difficult to know if the people want Jesus to perform a miracle in order to prove himself, or if they’re simply tired of all this prophet business and hope he just keeps a lid on it while he’s in town.

But Jesus, never one to skirt the issue, opens the metaphorical can of worms and calls out everyone in attendance on their feigned hospitality. He tells them that “No prophet is accepted in his hometown.” He was expecting a less-than-warm welcome, but he takes the opportunity to make a point which the people in attendance immediately prove for him.

What Jesus has to say is enough to turn a congregation of temple goers into an angry mob. They drive him out and come this close to literally throwing him off a cliff. All for bringing up “the topic.”

In our own lives, “the topic” can be many things. Political, interpersonal, marital. The sad truth is for many people in the LGBTQ+ community, the topic is simply who we are.

I’ve now gone on a dangerously long time comparing LGBTQ+ folks, including myself, to prophets. That comparison is specific to this text, but I think, generally speaking, we have some interesting similarities. Like many biblical prophets, I denied my identity for a long time. It was an inconvenient, dangerous, truth. It didn’t seem to fit into my life plan. But in the end, it was all kind of inevitable. And now that I am out, people, many of whom I don’t even know, form all kinds of polar ideas about me. As if I’m famous, some people think I’m amazing for the sole reason of existing while others genuinely believe I’m evil. Few of these people actually care to learn anything about me. Like a prophet, it’s not really about me, but rather what I stand for.

I am, however, in no way a prophet, at least not more than any of you. I am transgender and also bisexual, but I cannot teach you what it means to be either. I’m not qualified. I cannot speak for all bi, trans, or much less all queer folks. What I can do is speak to my thoughts, experiences and the way I see the world, all of which work their way through the many lenses of who I am.

So what do I mean by that?

When Jesus says, “No prophet is accepted in his hometown,” I cannot help but notice that same phenomenon I mentioned at the very start. The people are happy to see Jesus and willing to go along with him as long as he stands before them as, in their words, “Joseph’s son.” It’s the moment he reveals himself as a prophet that they turn to anger. To see someone you thought you knew return to you, changed, is to feel unyielding doubt. How can you trust a person is who they say they are when everything you thought you knew says otherwise?

Love.

The answer is love. As we read in 1 Corinthians, Love “does not insist on its own way.” It lets us trust when we would otherwise doubt and it lets us be proud of unexpected growth instead of hurt by it. Love gives us a way to cope with other people’s change, even when it isn’t part of our plan. Love is what completes us. “If I have not love, I am nothing,” so says Paul the apostle.

It sounds easy on paper but don’t be fooled. Love is work. Especially when it comes in the aftermath of hurt. That work is called reconciling, and it’s where this day gets its name.

So as we lift up the LGBTQ+ community today, please, save your tolerance and respect. Those are important, but on their own, they are false hospitality. Today is a day for setting aside pretenses and prejudices so that we may work through uncomfortable topics in godly love. That is reconciling.