Being in Liminal Space Within Your Community

What is culture? It feels like this would be an easy word to explain but when I actually sit down and try to put a definition to it, suddenly I struggle to find the right way to explain it. Even the Merrian-Webster dictionary can’t put its finger on it, providing up to ten ways to try and define the noun “culture”. The trouble is that culture doesn’t really have a singular definition. It is a whole mixed bag of things like beliefs, language, social traits, race, attitudes, values, clothing, and the list goes on. No matter what the descriptor we use, the important piece of any definition of culture is that it is anything that express a collective experience. For example, a group of people wearing kilts would be in culturally appropriate dress for being from Scotland or having Scottish background. Or a group of Trekkies would consider themselves geeks and center their culture around Star Trek.

Ultimately, culture is linked to identity. Both culture and identity are social constructs, ways of grouping people together in relation to others, “constructed in community, not autonomously, and that a person’s unique sense of individuality is derivative of his or her existence in a given society.”[1] When we consider that cultural identity is formed in relation to others, that is where cultural differences emerge. And where there is difference, there is often conflict.

Canada, as a nation, likes to claim an identity of multiculturalism, often being called a cultural mosaic. In theory, multiculturalism is a good thing because it should be a means to welcoming different people, faster inclusion, social cohesion, and a recognition of diversity. Canada’s supposed tolerance of others is a central pillar of its national identity.[2]

However, many people will attest that, overall, Canada is working against such claims by trying to become a more homogenous country, leaning heavily to an identity of the “ordinary Canadian” – white, English-speaking, heterosexual, middle-classed male. In contrast, everyone else is “special” is some way or another.

Many Canadians, wanting to show their joint ethnicity, may identify as hyphenated peoples such as French-Canadian, German-Canadian, Ukrainian-Canadian, and so on. Others, perhaps not wanting to highlight their “otherness” or perhaps because they have the privilege to do so, will drop the descriptor and simply say they are “Canadian”. A person who is conflicted between being proud of who they are but acknowledging the struggles that come with being anything other than the “ordinary Canadian” ends up in this liminal space of being both accepted and not accepted depending in which space they are in relation to others. Sometimes this liminal space even occurs within their own cultural group with some accepting the person’s choice of identification and others making them feel guilty for not being more obviously proud of their heritage.

This liminal space is often found within the transgender community as well. There is an inherent “otherness” that comes with being transgender. If we are to consider that the “ordinary Canadian” is all the above but also cisgender, then anyone who’s gender identity is anything else would be considered “special” and outside of the Canadian societal norm. Just as with ethnic identities, some transgender folks wear their non-conforming gender identity on their sleeves. While others, whether for safety or any other personal reason, choose to live stealth, not publicly revealing the fact that they are transgender to anyone.

The liminal space occurs because transgender people are both accepted and not accepted in the 2SLGBTQIA+ community as well as the wider world. There is a neither here nor there type of relationship with those around us. For example, I am a white man and can enjoy all the privilege that comes with that identity. However, I am also part of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community because I am transgender. So, while I can enjoy white privilege, I am also at risk of experiencing discrimination for being queer. However, I could choose to hide that part of my identity, thus returning me to a position of privilege but outwardly appearing no longer part of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. I am neither one nor the other but also both.

I similarly experience this liminal space as a transgender priest. I am part of a religious community where I experience both acceptance and rejection for being transgender, and I experience both acceptance and rejection in the transgender community for being a priest.

In reflecting on cultural differences and the inherent “otherness” of being transgender, I believe that there are similarities in the societal concerns that exist with regards to exclusion and oppression in a country that claims to be built on multiculturalism, diversity, and the inclusion of all people. As a country, there have been great strides in bringing forth acceptance and inclusion, but there is still a long way to go for the liminal space to disappear entirely.

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[1] Driedger Hesslein, Kayko, “But You Can’t Be Both! – Multiple Loyalties in Theories of Multiculturalism.” In Kayko Driegder Hesslein, Dual Citizenship: Two- Natures Christologies and the Jewish Jesus. Bloomsbury Academic, 2015, p. 33.

[2] Mackey, Eve. “Unsettling Differences: Origins, Methods, Frameworks.” In Eve Mackey, The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002, p. 16.

Baptism Beyond Boundaries: A Sermon for the 5th Sunday of Easter

 

May only truth be spoken, and truth heard. Amen.

The Books of Acts is a book carefully structured by Luke to do many things, not the least of which is to paint a broad canvas of the Spirit’s work in growing the church from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. But the book of Acts is misleadingly titled. Its traditional name, "Acts of the Apostles," is true enough – except the apostles are not the ones driving the action. We know the apostles are busy organizing a reform movement and new institutions based in Jerusalem. But the Book of Acts shows the Holy Spirit continually calling into action the people who make up the second generation of this new assembly, blowing the breath of God into new and distant places and bringing new, boundary-pushing people into fellowship with Jesus. The Spirit, not bound by human constraints, not bound by any law that claims who’s in and who’s out, is continually pushing the limits of who God welcomes and where this good news is to be proclaimed. In the chapters leading up to today’s reading, the disciples have been concentrating their work within Jerusalem, but as this new generation of Christ followers begin their evangelizing, they are starting to widen their circles, moving outwards from Jerusalem.

 

Philip is one of those evangelizers, a deacon sent out towards Samaria, following whatever path the Holy Spirit sends him down. Today’s story begins with Philip answering a call to go south on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. And while he’s travelling down this road, he comes across a man in a chariot. But this isn’t just any man. He is a eunuch from Ethiopia. We don’t have a name, of course, but we are told that he was from the court of the Queen of Candace. We are also told that he “had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home.” In light of Jewish law, this man, being a eunuch, would have been turned away at the temple doors, rejected by his religious community. Being described as Ethiopian indicates the dark skin color of his people, but it also could have resonated with other Greco-Roman literature that speaks of “Ethiopians” as people who lived on the fringes of the inhabited world.

 

So here is a man with a royal job in a worldly court, who would have gotten the impression from reading the bible that he was unwelcomed in God’s court. Deuteronomy 23:1 says that no one who is sexually mutilated “shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.” This man is not Jewish, he’s a foreigner, from the “ends of the earth”, and a sexual and gender outsider. This court eunuch is the embodiment of intersectionality, queering the boundaries and binaries of male and female, free and enslaved, whole and mutilated, pure and impure, potent and impotent, native and foreigner. By all accounts, the man would be rejected by the very religion that he puts all his faith into. And yet here he is, riding in his chariot, reading the bible, meditating on the 53^rd chapter of Isaiah.

 

Then along comes Philip. Having heard the Ethiopian reading aloud, Philip runs up to the chariot asking, “do you understand what you are reading?” When Philip heard what the eunuch was reading, he seized upon the common ground between them by viewing it as a good opportunity to begin a discussion about the connection between that passage of scripture and his own mission of proclaiming salvation through Christ.

 

When was the last time you talked to someone about your faith? Would you walk up to a stranger who was reading a bible and say, “I want to talk to you about Jesus Christ”?

 

Well, that’s exactly what Philip did, and the Ethiopian, despite being of a wealthier class than him, welcomed Philip to sit beside him for a conversation. Barbara Brown Taylor provides a modern parallel, “imagine a diplomat in Washington, DC inviting a street preacher to join him in his late model Lexus for a little Bible study.”

 

The inclusion into conversation has gone both ways – the rich man is sitting with the poor man and the religious man is sitting with the impure person of African descent. But this is the way Christianity was in the beginning – full of diversity through race, gender, sexuality. The goal of the people within the Book of Acts was simply to reach as far as they could and to anyone they could with their message of salvation in the name of Jesus Christ.

 

When Philip joins the Ethiopian in conversation, he doesn’t talk theology, or at least that’s not what’s written. It only says that he told the eunuch about the good news of Jesus Christ. And not only does Philip not talk theology, but he also doesn’t talk about rules or behaviour. He doesn’t tell the Ethiopian that they aren’t allowed to follow Christ because of their gender. He doesn’t tell the eunuch that to follow Christ they need to change their behaviour. We have no idea what Philip actually said, but after only a short conversation, the Ethiopian has decided that he believes in Jesus Christ and wants to be baptized.

 

There are so many reasons Philip could have denied this baptism. This man belonged to the wrong nation, held the wrong job, and was considered an impure gender. “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” Oh, let’s see… They were in the middle of nowhere, the eunuch was not welcome in the temple, he had just heard about Jesus 20 minutes ago, he was from another country, and, oh yeah, he was a eunuch. Philip had every reason to walk away, but he didn’t.

 

“What is to prevent me from being baptized?” Nothing. That’s the point. Race, gender, sexuality…nothing prevents a person from deciding to become a follower of Christ and being baptized as a declaration of that faith. The Ethiopian simply believed in Jesus and chooses to be baptized. As Shannon Kearns says, “It’s a rewriting of the boundaries of who is in and who is out. It’s a radical reordering of the rules.” Whatever Philip tells him about Jesus, the court official discerns on his own the fitting outcome for him – inclusion, participation, belonging.

 

As the gospel moves into the world, it gathers under the protective wings of God more and more of those who have been lost, pushed away, or forgotten. One message that we can receive from the story of Philip and the Ethiopian is a message of hope – hope that there is room for us all in the kingdom of God. We don’t have to change who we are to be worthy. We don’t have to change our behaviour, or our sexuality, or our skin colour to be worthy of God’s love. We are all already worthy, simply by wanting to be included.

 

This story encourages us to accept people who are biologically and sexually different from dominant sociocultural norms. As well, the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch puts the church on notice that identity, be it race, gender, sexuality, or any other identity, is not a legitimate basis for deciding who should or should not be included in the community called into being by the Holy Spirit. We, like Isaiah, Jesus, Philip, and the eunuch, are affirmed in the call to share the good news of God revealed in Jesus without partiality or prejudice.

 

So, what’s to prevent you from being baptized? Absolutely nothing.

Amen.

Resources:
workingpreacher.com

pulpitfiction.com (& Queer Bible Commentary)

theafricanamericanlectionary.org

"Feasting on the Word" edited by David L Bartlett & Barbara Brown Taylor

'In the Margins" by Shannon TL Kearns

Joint Committee Struck Between Anglicans and Lutherans

Over the last few years, there has been an incredible increase in attacks on the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. Certain persons in positions of power have done and said things that has given permission by proxy for homophobic, transphobic, and biphobic actions and attitudes. Quite often, the arguments against the existence 2SLGBTQIA+ people claim to be of a scriptural nature, with leaders from within the church frequently heading the attacks on the community. Statements like “Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve” and people quoting Leviticus as well as a handful of verse from throughout Paul’s letters are used as bullying and fear tactics to get the public riled up against people who identify as 2SLGBTQIA+.

However, there are church folk out there, clergy and lay alike who are starting to get louder with statements of love, standing in support of minority groups in the name of Jesus, declaring that Jesus called Christians to love, not hate, and that everyone is a blessed child of God.

A response from two religious groups based in Winnipeg to the anti-2SLGBTQIA+ rhetoric was to form a joint committee to address the issues that have been arising around the treatment those who identify as 2SLGBTQIA+. The Manitoba Northwestern Ontario Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Diocese of Rupert’s Land of the Anglican Church of Canada decided to make use of their full communion relationship and form a single committee called the MNO Synod/Diocese of Rupert’s Land 2SLGBTQIA+ Committee for Education, Advocacy, and Policy. This committee is made up of a mix of Lutheran and Anglican clergy and lay people and has three pillars of focus:

1.      Education

Usually, the reason people fear something is because they don’t understand it. The only way to fix that issue is to provide opportunities for education. Everything from pronouns to how to be a good ally, this committee will be creating educational resources and workshops that will be available to all Lutheran and Anglican congregations and clergy.

2.      Social Justice

Advocacy is very important and when a minority group is doing all of the advocacy work, it can be exhausting for that group of people. As Christians, it is part of our baptismal call to stand up for oppressed people through faith and love. But sometimes it’s hard to know how to do that. This committee will be on the lookout for advocacy opportunities, will share them with the Synod and the Diocese, and will encourage members of both to take advantage of these advocacy opportunities.

3.      Policy and Governance

Both the Synod and the Diocesan policies are long overdue for a review, to be rewritten with inclusive language, and to bring in policies and procedures that reflect support of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. This committee will comb through policies and canons in the hopes of proposing changes. As well, the hope of the committee is to help parishes who want to be truly inclusive by creating policies as simple as enforcing church buildings to have all gendered washrooms.

Under these three pillars, this new committee desires to provide support for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community within the MNO Synod and the Diocese of Rupert’s Land as well as helping parishes who wish to become inclusive churches to do more than the words “all are welcome” could ever convey. A committee such as this reinforces both the commitment of the Synod and Diocese to work harder at promoting their full communion relationship and the support the Synod, which is a Reconciled in Christ Synod, and the Diocese wants to provide to the 2SLGBTQIA+ community within and without their parish walls.

God is Light: A Sermon for the 2nd Sunday of Easter

Photo Credit: loops7 via iStock

May only truth be spoken, and truth heard. Amen.

While it is a week later for us, for the apostles it is the same evening as when the women find the tomb empty. In the gospel reading, we find the guys hunkered down behind a locked door, everyone except Thomas that is, who is out getting groceries for dinner or something, when Jesus shows up and says, “Peace be with you.” Thomas returns to the room, and everyone starts telling him about what happened. You can picture everyone trying to talk over each other in excitement. And, of course, Thomas doesn’t believe them and becomes forever known as Doubting Thomas.

 

That’s usually where we would sit today, talking about Thomas and his doubts. But I thought maybe we’d give poor old Thomas a break today and talk about the letter from John, instead.

 

No one knows for sure who wrote the letters from John, but with their inarguable parallels to the 4^th gospel, it is most likely that the writers were one and the same. John’s letters are believed to have been written around year 90, about 60 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus and yet there has been no second coming of the Messiah. Conflict and schisms are starting to occur as the letters speak of things like deceivers, liars, false prophets, and antichrists. It is very likely that, just as with the letters from Paul, John is writing to doubters, people who are questioning the events that happened, and whether or not Jesus was indeed the Messiah they had been waiting for.

 

Today we heard the opening of the first of three letters that John wrote to his Johannine community. He is writing to his community about the proclamation that the word of life was revealed in Jesus Christ, and he does so with such certainty as he writes,

“We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life – this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us.”

 

There is a parallel here to “In the beginning…” from the Gospel of John. However, the Gospel was referring to the beginning of time, before the heavens and the earth were created, whereas the letter refers to the beginning of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, an actual human being who would be heard and seen and touched. John is appealing to his community that what he speaks about is the truth.

 

But what is truth? Is it only things that can be heard and seen and touched?

 

There are basic truths in the world that are assumed and unchanging. Things like the sun will always rise in the East and set in the West. Or if I breathe in, I will breathe out. Or if I touch water, my hand will get wet.

 

But does something have to be heard or seen or touched to be true? In only 60 years, the community to whom John is writing is already starting to doubt the truth of Jesus Christ because they weren’t there to see the resurrection. But two millennia later, Christ has been the truth to generations of Christians who never get to hear or see or touch him except through faith. Those who were present on that day were charged with passing along the message and it is in this same fellowship that we belong, a fellowship that goes well beyond the walls of this building into a world that perhaps has not heard the truth of Jesus Christ.

 

And just what is that truth? The truth is that we are all in fellowship with God, Son, and Holy Spirit and that Jesus became human in order to kickstart that fellowship. And while his death and resurrection might feel like an ending, it is really just the beginning. That while we were momentarily in darkness, the light of God is seen brightest in the light of the resurrection, helping us to see clearly that life isn’t always what it can or should be. We will most assuredly fall short of God’s glory, but the light of God also gives us hope by enlightening our minds and our hearts.

 

The resurrection provides us with the hope that everything will be okay despite the circumstances and challenges we face. Hope, in contrast to the darkness of despair, holds a transformative power. It lights our path with a sense of purpose and belonging in our world, assuring us that things will work out. This hope empowers us to maintain a positive outlook in our personal lives and relationships. It magnifies our well-being, even in the face of life's most difficult challenges, inspiring us to keep moving forward one step at a time.

 

We who live in fellowship with the Holy Trinity can hold off despair when things don’t quite turn out the way we hope, when the Messiah doesn’t return as planned, when shadows fall across our journey, because we know that we will always have an advocate in Jesus who will walk with us and enable us to move in confidence from shadow into light.

 

And we can be thankful that “God is light and in God there is no darkness at all” as God’s light offers the greatest source of hope, the “light that shines in the darkness and is overcome”.

 

The beginning of the first letter from John that we heard today leads us towards a fellowship that is grounded in God’s grace by declaring that we need God in our lives. John is telling us that God invites each and everyone one of us into community with God and with one another. As Debra Freeman writes, “If I walk alone, then I walk in darkness, but when we walk together with God, we walk in a light of joy and fellowship.”

 

To all the earliest Christian communities, and to our community gathered today, John proclaims the good news of Easter. God is light, and in God, there is no darkness at all. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

 

Amen.

Resources:

episcopalchurch.org

pulpitfiction.com

mindfulchristianitytoday.com

"Introducing the New Testament" by Mark Allan Powell

"Feasting on the Word" edited by David L Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor

A Review of the Book "Iron Gold" by Pierce Brown

Title: Iron Gold

Author: Pierce Brown

Publisher: Penguin Random House

Year: 2015

596 pages

From the Back: A decade ago Darrow was the hero of the revolution he believed would break the chains of the Society. But instead of peace, the Rising has brought endless war. Now he must risk everything on one last desperate mission, while other destinies entwine with his. Darrow still believes he can save everyone, but can he save himself?

Personal Thoughts: Death begets death begets death. Iron Gold is the continuation of the Red Rising series (see my blog post about it here.) As with his other three books, Brown captivates the reader with his exciting style of writing, bringing you deep into the characters and making it hard to put the book down.

    The political warfare is ongoing and once again touches homes with the subject matter. Whether we have experienced it or read or watched about it, we can all relate to ongoing war as each side tries to fight for what is right. Bringing about the end of war is not easy and our hero is trying to figure out how to deal with the fact that the war he started 10 years ago has brought nothing but death and destruction with no end in sight.

    I will admit that I struggled a bit with the movement from character to character between the chapters, but I think that might have been more to do with having to try and remember who was who from when I last read the series (which was quite a while ago) and less to do with Pierce's writing. I say that because once I got my memory sorted, the back and forth actually made the book exciting to read because of all the little cliffhangers.

    The Red Rising series continues to be one of my favorite science fiction series at the moment. I look forward to reading the next installment, Dark Age.