Bathroom Sign Blessing

"We welcome a diversity of gender identity and expression. Please use the restroom that best fits you." 

These are the words posted under our gendered bathroom signs. (The ones with a person wearing a dress and a person wearing pants - hello, gender normativity!) We hope that this along with the addition of clearly labeled all-gender restroom signs our congregation is clearly communicating our welcome and blessing of people of all genders. Before they were posted, these signs sat on our altar - the first and only time a toilet will hold that sacred place - and they received this blessing in worship:

God who is all gender and no gender,
God who became incarnate in a body, who is no-body
God who created our bodies and identities
    and is present in each of our bodies,
    expressed through our identities,
Bless the work of the Gender Hospitality Ministry Team,
As, on behalf of our congregation
    they seek to make explicit our welcome
    of your beloved queer and trans bodies into our worship and spaces.
May we truly proclaim, holy and what you have called holy.
May we proclaim welcome what you proclaim welcome.
May we, like Peter, see clearly the vision
    that allows us to lean deep
    into our identity as a body of radical hospitality
    without partiality.
May these signs - markers for our doors and windows -
    also mark us.
May they mark us and our doors as open.
Open to your Spirit and open to all who enter,
That your welcome may be our welcome.
And that even when we harbor fear and uncertainty
    we may use these as an opportunity for understanding
    - of ourselves and of our neighbor.
We pray in the name of Jesus,
    whose Spirit is with us and welcoming us still.
Amen.

Welcoming Transgender Christians

Then Peter began to speak to them: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality’ ~ Acts 10:34

In my experience as a parent and working with children and youth, young people are not as confounded as adults sometimes are at the growing understanding of gender identity as unlinked to attraction or to biological organs or chromosomes. It’s not that they don’t have a clear sense of their own gender; most children know from the time they’re about three what gender they are. But that sense doesn’t have to do with what’s in their pants, it has to do with simply knowing.

Unfortunately even very young children already also know very what’s ‘for girls’ and what’s ‘for boys’. It’s remarkable - or maybe it’s not, really - how much our social programming around gender roles, expression and identity is entrenched as truth. This was also true for the early Christians related to Christian identity. Peter, speaking in the quote above, is absolutely certain that Gentiles cannot be Christians. How could it be possible? He learns, however, that God’s spirit is continuing to work in spite of our doubt and in spite of our uncertainty. In fact God’s Spirit powers through our uncertainty.

As a congregation of radical hospitality who has embraced an open welcome of LGBTQ+ people (an acronym that means Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer or Questioning Plus multiple other sexual and gender identities) we are still learning more about how to fully welcome people who are trans and queer. This Sunday in worship we will hear the full story of Peter’s vision and transformation. We’ll also be blessing the work of our Gender Hospitality Ministry Team, who are working on behalf of our congregation to be clear in our welcome and notice places where we have room to grow.

While we work at this as a congregation we all have the opportunity to grow in our understanding of our own gender identity and expression. We have an opportunity to undo some of the expectation in ourselves and in our children about what’s expected of being a male or female and that there are folks whose identity is as neither - or both. I actually think that knowing God can help us know people beyond the binary is a better way. When discussing gender with my older child, talking about people who are a-gender or non-binary, she replied, “Oh, like God.” Yes!! Like God!! We are indeed made in the image of a queer God.

As a part of my own learning I’ve embraced resources and media that help me see and hear from people who are transgender or non-binary. I compiled a few resources for adults and for kids last fall around Trans Awareness Week and I’d like to share that list (to which I’ve added a few) to help us all continue our growth in understanding trans experiences in order that we all might be more compassionate. So that we can advocate and amplify the voices of trans gender non-conforming folks. See the list below.

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A Note on the image: We’re all familiar with the rainbow flag image which is a symbol for the gay pride and is a visual cue of openness to welcome for people who are gay and lesbian. The trans flag is a similar symbol and visual cue to trans folks that those displaying it are knowledgeable about and welcome people who are transgender or gender non-conforming.

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Resources:

Reading and Resources for Adults and Older Teens

Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians by Austin Hartke. Austin uses stories of trans folks as well as the Bible to weave a theology for affirmation and welcome, in addition to telling his own story of being trans in the church.

Trans 101: a brief guide from BMC. I found this really helpful in framing gender as beyond a binary. It also has a helpful glossary and personal stories from Mennonite and Brethren people who are transgender.

A Quick Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns I have not read it but I saw it on the yellow-sticker shelf at the Seattle Public Library. So you can have it for as long as you need it!

“Dear (Cis) People Who Put Your Pronouns on Nametags” by Sinclair Sexsmith. Help from an experiential perspective for understanding why pronouns are so important.

Jaimie Bruesehoff - A blogging parent of a transgender child who is both an outspoken advocate for trans rights and committed to raising her children to be people of faith in the Lutheran Church. Her now 11 year old daughter was just blessed in a naming ceremony honoring her 'forever name' in her congregation. I find her writing about the intersection of faith and parenting a trans kid especially meaningful.

How To Be A Girl - a podcast by a Seattle parent of a now 11-year-old (I think) trans girl that documents the whole journey and most recently the very real concern they've had about moving to a suburb where her daughter is not out and where they are concerned about how she will be received. I've also listened to this with my child and we've had some good conversations about it.

Picture Books

I am Jazz was one of the earliest picture books that approached being transgender in a normative way. Jazz Jennings is now a young adult and still an outspoken trans advocate.

Julian is a Mermaid by Jessica Love - a gender non-conforming little boy who admires the beautifully dressed ladies in his neighborhood. So beautifully illustrated, the pictures say more than the words.

Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress by Christine Baldacchino. Morris loves his swishy, crinkly tangerine dress that reminds him of the color of tigers. But his classmates are not so sure that boys can wear dresses. Together they begin to understand that “this boy does.”

Middle Grade Books:

Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart - a middle grade novel about a transgender girl who is afraid of the onset of puberty. It's also very real about the experience of bipolar disorder. It's really good and a very quick read for an adult.

A Boy Like Me by Jennie Wood - I haven't read this one yet but it's on my list. This is what I gathered from Good Reads: All the awkwardness of an eighth grade boy trying to impress a girl, take on the prejudice and small-mindedness of his small town and getting his first period.

The Day You Begin

There will be times when you walk into a room and no one is quite like you.
Maybe it will be your skin, your clothes or the curl of your hair.
There will be times when no one will understand the way words curl from your mouth,
The beautiful language of the country you left behind...
And because they don't understand the room will fill with laughter until the teachers quiets everyone...
There will be time when the words don't come.
Your own voice, once huge, now smaller.

I love every, single thing I've ever read from Jacqueline Woodson.  (In fact I wrote about some of her middle grade fiction here.) This beautiful book about the fear of new beginnings is no different.  I got teary just from reading the preview pages online. Beginnings are hard! We who have had so many first days of school can easily forget that our children are staring into the unknown and possibly scary when they walk into a new classroom or a new school for the first time.

Beginnings can be full of anxiety, especially if you have a kid that leans that way anyway.  What will my teacher be like? Will the work be too hard? Who will be my friend?  Am I wearing the right thing? I don't want to leave my mom! Woodson's book layers in the additional complexity of language and race and offers an opportunity to ask, "Why do you think 'the curl of her hair' might make her fell out of place?" and "What make you feel unsure or alone?" Young or old we all know what it's like to want to be understood and feel welcomed in a new place.

We may not be able to completely remove our kids' anxiety about beginning something new, but we can assure them of two things: our love for them and God's constant care.

Small comfort? Maybe.  But if you have the space for it and can carve out the time, try a night-before or morning-of blessing and litany of beginning.  You can make up your own words that make sense for your context and the age of your child, but the scripts that we repeat in our heads are powerful, no matter our age, so give your kid the script.  It might go something like this:

Tomorrow you are beginning a new thing. I'm proud of you and I want to bless you and send you on your way with words to help you when you feel nervous or uncertain. When you need to remind yourself of your own strength.  I want to to say these words each time:  God is with me. My family loves me. I can do hard things!

When you step into your new classroom for the first time...
When you're discovering all your new routines and schedules...
When you're wondering who will be your partner, who will sit with you at lunch, who to be your friend...
When you feel challenged by the school work...
When you feel overwhelmed or anxious...
When you miss the ones you love...
God is with you.  Your family loves you. You are strong and you can do hard things!

An optional addition to such a blessing which has been helpful in my experience is a meaningful tangible reminder of the care, love and safety for your child to carry with them.  A piece of jewelry or small item that fits in a pocket quietly says, "God is with me, my people love me, I am not alone."

If you have a child for whom newness is exciting, an adventure to be embraced, rejoice! Or even if this new beginning is just another day, I think it's still worthwhile to bless these new steps with courage and joy and determination.  To thank God for the the Spirit within them, delighting in the opportunities that await.  A litany for such a child can be a celebration, in the spirit of the end of Woodson's book:

This is the day you begin
to find the places inside
your laughter and your lunches,
your books, your travel and your stories,

where every new friend has something
a little like you - and something else
so fabulously not quite like you
at all.

Peace to you in the days of preparation and beginnings.

Parenting in the Pews (or on the chairs, as the case may be)

My mama and me when I was
about the same age as my
littlest one is now.

It is family lore that when I was about three, and my family was sitting in our usual spot on the front pew in the balcony of our church, that I was (as usual) fidgeting and talking out loud. So my mom tried to put her hand over my mouth to keep me quiet. Instead it had the opposite effect. I wriggled away screaming, “Mommy don’t hit me! Mommy, don’t hit me!” This, to the extreme embarrassment of my mother (my distress about being struck was completely unfounded) caused heads and eyes below to swivel immediately to the commotion above.

Now, as a parent of vocal, wiggly, strong-willed children I can see where it might have been a mistake to try to physically restrain a child whose first response is defiance. And as a parent I understand the struggle of trying to help my children understand that there’s a time and place for moving around and being loud and there’s a time to do quiet activities. As a pastor I want church to be a place where both are okay. As a pastor I want other parents to know that their children will be not just tolerated but loved in their loud questions, their running around the altar, their inattention, their stomping across the mezzanine floor and down the ramp, in addition to their quiet coloring or precocious scripture readings.

I am proud to be a part of a congregation that boldly and warmly welcomes little ones into the faith family with a commitment to their formation and care throughout their growing years and to supporting families. I encourage us to be visible and proactive in that support. On a Sunday morning, this could mean sitting beside a family with children and quietly talking with a toddler about what you notice happening in worship or what’s in the bag they brought. It might be engaging with the teenager next to you during the passing of the peace to ask about school. It could mean volunteering for the next Parent’s Night Out or bringing a snack to Sunday school. For 20 or more of you it could be adopting a family with kids as their prayer partner (that’s how many families there are with kids under 12), checking in regularly and bringing them into God’s light as a spiritual discipline.

I thank God for you when I think of you, Seattle Mennonite Church people. You care deeply for our families with children. May we welcome and bless them just as Jesus did.

The Good Centurion

This blog's title is 'What's Not in the Sermon' but every once in awhile a sermon so consumes me that there's not much left that's not in it.  That was kind of the case this week...

This is Memorial Day Weekend.  And as a gift, the Lectionary gave us a story about a centurion so that we might remember a soldier.  Luke 10:1-7.  A recap: After a discourse, Jesus went to Capernaum, where a centurion who had heard about him sent messengers – Jewish leaders – to ask him to come and heal a particularly highly valued slave.  Jesus commends the centurion for his great faith and the slave is healed.

My big struggle with this story and my immediate reaction to is has been, over and over: Jesus, why are you saying that a Centurion – occupier, soldier, holder of power – is good?  You praise this man? Basically, WTF, Jesus??  I really got bogged down in this incredulity and disbelief this week.  It is a good thing that Jesus can handle my skepticism and righteous (or maybe self-righteous would be more accurate) anger because I’ve been growling at him in my head – and sometimes to other people – all week.  I am not often an external processor, but I can think of at least 4 settings in the past 10 days in which I complained about Jesus and about this story in particular.

Here are some of the things we know: the relationship between the Centurion and the Jewish people is a complicated one.  Yes, role and title are military.  He is a ranking officer.  And yes, he has a lot of power.  He openly and explicitly describes the way his command is immediately obeyed both by the soldiers and the slaves under him.  Yes, he is the occupier, a foreigner and who commands not only people but wealth and means.  Under his rule, the synagogue of Capernaum was built.

It is something of a complicated relationship, that of the centurion and the leaders which he commissions to Jesus.  Or even between the occupier and those under occupation.  This man is, if we take the story at face value, a friend to the Jews in Capernaum.  At the very least he is benevolent.  He has invested in their community by building their place of worship, the synagogue.  But in the custom of the time, there is a patron/client dynamic going on here.  He makes a good investment to keep the Jewish population happy and grateful.  Benevolent or not he is the one with the power and the Jewish leaders are beholden to him.  They may be truly appreciative and they may feel that they are obligated because of his position and theirs to praise him and commend him to Jesus.  “They appeal to him earnestly,” (NRSV) “’He is worthy of having you do this for him.’”  Perhaps their feelings are a little of both.

The man himself never ends up meeting Jesus face to face, because again messengers intercept Jesus, this time with the message, “Don’t come.”  And with the audacity (in my mind) to compare himself to Jesus.  In his understanding of being a man under authority of another and through that authority also in command himself.  He is a man with a rank, and this is his framework for thinking of Jesus – someone who commands authority over (over demons, over illness, over nature) because he is under the authority of another (God).

A few weeks ago I spent a meal in a restaurant staring at the back of a shirt in the booth opposite me that read, superimposed over a weathered American flag, “Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you.  Jesus Christ & the veteran.”  And even now, as a pacifist Christian deeply steeped in the understanding that Jesus Christ’s death was one of non-violent love, that unmasked of the myth of redemptive violence, I cannot even tell you how wrong I think this is.  In that judgment I thought I knew all there was to know about the dude wearing that shirt – and none of it was good.  But I need to get over it.  Because the man who is wearing that shirt – the veteran (presumably) who was wearing that shirt – is a man who has great faith and whom Jesus loves.  There is no healing in my judgment.

The Centurion whose slave Jesus healed is a man who has great faith whom Jesus reaches out to in love and compassion.  If Jesus were writing a report card, and one of the subjects is ‘faith’, this guy gets an A+.  And A+ in worthiness, even if his self-evaluation in that regard is and F.

What I think of the centurion doesn’t matter.  Whatever else the Centurion is, or has done, or believes does not matter to Jesus.  The man had faith that a somewhat out-there Jewish rabbi had the power given to him by the God of Israel to heal a man in his household.  And to heal the slave without even being present, because the rabbi Jesus was under the power of God and was able to use that authority for healing.  Even at a distance.  Even though he hasn’t met him.

He hasn’t met him but he has heard of him.  And he has heard about Jesus ‘sayings’.  Immediately before this story, Jesus has given a sermon.  In Matthew it’s called the Sermon on the Mount and that version is a little more famous.  In Luke it’s called the Sermon on the Plain.  Let me give you some highlights (I bet you know them):

Love your enemies.

Do to others what you would have them do to you.

Do not judge.

Whew.  Jesus nails it every time.  He certainly puts me in my place and marks me with a big ‘J’.  Judgy McJudgerson over here.  He finishes off this sermon with this, “I will show what someone is like who…hears my words and acts on them.  That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock.

When he heard about Jesus, the centurion acted on what he heard.  He heard a sermon about loving his enemy, the centurion is counting on Jesus doing exactly as he says and loving the one who is his purported enemy.  Indeed, without even a word.  Without a question or challenge, Jesus hears the summons and goes with the messengers on the way to the centurion’s house.  Luke’s story is all about the Gospel being for all people, not just for the insider.

I spoke a covenant in community with you all as follower of Jesus in Seattle Mennonite Church, a community of radical hospitality, an open table and unconditional welcome so I better check myself.  I was challenged by my spouse when we were in conversation about this story the other night, “Look at it this way.  If a soldier came to you for help, would you turn that person away?”

Well, of course I wouldn’t.  No!  Shame on me!  Jesus is not going to make this man jump through hoops and recite the correct creed.  It is an appeal for help.  And not even on his own behalf but of a slave.  In fact, our congregation, in partnering with Valor Housing have to some extent already made the same claim as Jesus.  Soldiers are beloved members of God’s kingdom.  We have faith that housing folks will offer opportunity to find healing from the trauma of homelessness.

I am tempted, as perhaps we humans are, to categorize: good/bad; right/wrong.  I like to think I have an open mind, but in this area, I categorized.  I recently heard from someone in this congregation not long ago how hard it is to get along with other Christians and how resentful they can feel toward people who are supposedly the same and yet who have profoundly different understanding of what being Christian means. I decided I knew what that man in the t-shirt was like.  I decided I knew what that centurion was like.

I have been listening to a podcast called Shmanners recently.  It’s present by a husband and wife team (Travis and Teresa McElroy) who tackle issues of etiquette by category based on their listeners’ questions. They begin with the history and move on to current conventions and expectations in N. American society. The most recent was about apologies.  So they talked about how and when to apologize, but what they seemed to come back to was how to get along with those with whom you disagree and emphasized: you don’t have to agree (and you don’t have to apologize for not agreeing) but basically don’t be a jerk and apologize when anything you’ve said is hurtful or mean-spirited.

So I think I owe the centurion an apology.  Even if he’s not here to hear it.  Officer, I am sorry.  I am sorry that I made assumptions about you based on your position.  I am sorry I judged your faithfulness in Jesus based on my bias.  I am truly grateful that Jesus intervened with healing in your life and the life of your servant.  I pray that your faith in Jesus will only grow and that each of us can be open to new understandings of what that faith means.

And you know what, I owe an apology to the anonymous veteran in the restaurant.  I am sorry.  I don’t know anything about you, or the experiences you’ve had or the authority that you’ve been under and the situations that you have been in.  And I am sorry that I judged you based on a t-shirt.  I am sorry that I made assumptions about you out of small-mindedness. I commend your faith.  And I pray that each of us can seek Jesus’ healing and the path of life.

Safwat Marzouk, an Egyptian American professor at AMBS approaches this near-encounter between Jesus and the Centurion as an intercultural/ecumenical encounter. Like Travis and Teresa of the Shmanners podcast he says, writing in Christian Century,“Tolerance should not depend on denying one’s own faith”.  He also suggests coming with ‘open…hands, hearts and minds to receive the gift of the other for who the other is, finding way to serve one another and with one another.”

Well, you all may be better people than me.  I suspect that is the case.  But may God bless us all with open hands, hearts and minds.  May our faith in Jesus also be great and may we seek to follow.

Easter Sunday: Welcome to the Table

I sent this to members of our congregation in anticipation of Easter Sunday.  I've been wanting to for a long time.

Grace and Peace to you in the name of Christ,

I am looking forward to worshiping with you this Sunday and worshiping in the presence of the risen Jesus.

When we gather at the Lord's Table this Sunday, all are invited to participate.  It has always been our practice to welcome everyone to the table, but we are not always explicit about what that means; people still ask if they are welcome if they are unbaptized, if they have never taken Communion before, if they are too young.  I'm here to tell you that everyone means everyone.  Jesus does not place limits on the welcome.

To that end, we have made efforts to make the bread allergen free (but still delicious) and serve juice as the 'fruit of the vine' in lieu of wine.  Because we have wanted to include children in a special way, we have often offered a grape and a cracker.  However the more I've thought about this (and feel free to challenge me) the more this feels like not inclusion in but exclusion from the open table.  Children have been receiving something less-than, something that marks them as set apart from the people who are really welcomed. I've observed that teens sometimes just opt out altogether - not a kid who eats crackers, but not quite an adult whom the place at the table is more obvious.  So this Sunday we will not have grapes and crackers. 

The invitation to the bread and the cup is for all of God's children, young and old.  To you who have been baptized, may this Communion meal be a re-affirmation of your commitment to Christ and the body of Christ.  To you are seeking, may you find in this meal an invitation.  To you who are hungry, may this meal feed you, as Jesus fed the crowd.  To you who have never participated before, may this meal be the first bite in a feast that goes on and on.  May it be all these things and more as we eat and drink together as the family of God.

The more I hear and read about how other contemporary Mennonite churches commemorate the Lord's Supper, the more I realize that in spite of a history that put limits on participation in Communion, there is no longer (if there ever was) a prescription for how to celebrate this meal.  Our hope in this congregation is to be a place of radical welcome and hospitality.  Our call to be a people that welcomes is rooted in the wide open welcome that God gives to us and that we are shown in the love, life, teaching, healing, preaching, death and resurrection of Jesus, summed up and symbolized in 'Whenever you do this, remember me.'

 

A holy Holy week to you :)

Further Food for Thought about God's Table

I was referred to this article on the BMC (Brethren, Mennonite Council for LGBT Concerns) website. A sermon by Ann Brekbill at the MC USA convention several years ago in Atlanta, at which the theme was "God's Table, Y'all Come". Some provoking thoughts about what welcome really means.