God is Not Binary: A Sermon for Holy Trinity Sunday

I come to you in the name of Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.

 

While some places have already started their celebrations, June is officially Pride Month. Pride started as a protest movement, born in the Stonewall riots of 1969. These riots were a series of violent confrontations that began in the early hours of June 28, 1969, between police and gay rights activists outside the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of New York City. As the riots progressed, an international gay rights movement was born.

 

This season has, historically, been a time of advocacy and protest for basic human rights to be shared with sexual and gender minorities. And I would love to say that things have gotten better but considering things like the anti-2SLGBTQIA+ laws continuing in the US and around the world (especially anti-trans laws), the high rate of murders against the community, and the heightened debate around the rights of transgender people, this unfortunately is a topic that needs to remain in the forefront.

 

It feels appropriate that the reading for today, as we kick off Pride Month, is the first chapter of Genesis, one of the stories of creation, a story frequently used against queer people to say that we shouldn’t exist, both from a sexuality perspective and also from a gender perspective. This creation story is a story filled with apparent binaries.

 

A lot can be said in celebration of the binary. It’s an ancient system of organization, dividing reality into complementary or contradictory halves. Binary thinking is said to be a trait of Enlightenment thinking as modernity desired to classify and categorize, and with that to control. Binaries give easy handles. Pairs. Opposites. They’re definitive, comprehensive, and universal.

 

Binaries come in handy when trying to explain and teach. Think true/false tests and yes/no answers. Male-female. Right-wrong. Conservative-liberal. First world-third world. Capitalist-socialist. Civilized-uncivilized. White-black. Rational-irrational. Human-beast. Spiritual-material. Friend-enemy. Clean-unclean. Either-or. Good-bad.

 

Arranging reality in black-and-white terms can make it as interconnected as swirls of yin and yang or as conflicted as two armies squared off on a battlefield. Dualisms are appealing but often fail to tell the whole story. The story from Genesis and all the binaries found within is a perfect example of this.

 

“God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” (1:5) Light and dark, day and night. These are two distinct and opposite binaries. But is there only light and dark, day and night? What about gray, dusk, and dawn?

 

“And God said, ‘Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’… God called the dome Sky… Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’… God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas.” (1:6, 8, 9, 10) People used to believe that the sky was heaven and the only way to get there was to die.

History has given us airplanes to the sky and shuttles to space creating all the in-between spaces of the atmosphere. As for land and sea, who doesn’t like a good beach? If there were strictly land and sea, there would be no beaches, nor would there be swamps.

 

“And God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.’… And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.’” (1:20, 24) Here come the fish, birds, insects, creepy crawlies, and every type of animal and creature you can imagine. According to the binary system, fish will swim and birds will fly. What about the fish that fly and the birds that swim? Insects that both crawl on the ground and fly in the air? Not so clear cut, is it?

 

Finally, after light and dark, after sky, sea, and land, after fish and birds, after insects and animals, God creates human beings. Here is the damning verse, “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (1:27) When Christians think about gender, they return to this verse. If you grew up hearing these stories and living with people who seemed to fit inside these gender boxes, the existence of transgender people might seem to fly in the face of God’s created order. However, when we look just a little closer at each of the passages in the creation story, we find a much more complex and beautiful world. When God finally gets around to creating people, it’s after creating all of those other opposites. Humans, then, are also created in an opposite pair – male and female.

 

The text might set up these binaries, but God’s creation exists in spectrums. No one would argue that a penguin is an abomination for not fitting the categories of Genesis 1, or that a beach isn’t pleasing to God because it’s neither land nor sea. In the same way, God gives every human a self that is unique and may not always fit neatly into a box or binary.

 

I believe that many people understand Genesis 1 to be a story, a metaphor of how the world came into being, not a scientific paper. I think there has been enough scientific proof that the world was created over the millennia, not a week. But many Christians get stuck on the binaries listed within the text, especially with regards to gender. We don’t have to argue that dark and light mean only dark and light, or male and female mean only male and female. But they can also encompass all that falls between what is named.

 

Rather than writing Genesis 1 off as fiction that doesn’t match reality, affirming Christians recognize that the stories set down in this chapter were never meant to catalogue all of creation, but rather to point us towards God’s power and love. Not every microbe and constellation must be named in this chapter in order to have a purpose and a blessing. God’s creatures are all wondrous, strange, delightful, and surprising. All are necessary to the fullness of creation, from amoebas and spiders to buffalo and orangutans.

           

The story of creation lists many binaries, but does that mean God didn’t create everything in between? It’s as if God got bored creating binaries after a few days and began to have some fun. Despite the push to honour God’s binary creation, perhaps blurring that binary was always part of the plan. Days and nights enjoy fuzzy transitional moments we call dawn and dusk. Swamps are neither dry land nor lakes, necessitating the curious term wetland. The Genesis writer takes pains to describe the uniqueness of human beings who bear the divine image and they represent perhaps the greatest binary: not maleness and femaleness but rather the division between a species bearing God’s likeness and all the rest. As Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, once said, “Each of us is made in the image of God. That’s why we have the chance to encounter Christ in every person we meet – especially those on the margins.”

 

Binary pairs are useful for simplifying large amounts of information we are required to process. But binaries are limiting and inadequate. If binaries are part of a grand project to categorize and explain, and probably also control and restrict, it is amazing how small and limited to our time and circumstances many of our most cherished binaries actually are, especially when it comes to gender.

 

After hearing all of this, I hope we will recognize our responsibility to challenge traditional understandings of gender because of the danger they pose to some of God’s children. I want us to acknowledge our responsibility to rework our theology to remove the binary as a show of support and advocacy for transgender people. And I want you to know that your role in this is to accept all people as members of the family of God, and thus your siblings in Christ. You never know whose life you may save. Amen.           

Empowered by the Holy Spirit: A Sermon for the Day of Pentecost

Grant us your peace, we pray, as justice and love pour down upon the yearning earth. Amen.

 

I want everyone to sit tall in your seats, as you are able. Feet flat on the ground. Hands on your lap. Close your eyes, think about the readings you’ve heard today, and open your mind to any imagery that might show up.

 

Now, take a deep breath in….and let it out.

And again, deep breath in….and let it out.

Let’s do that one more time,

deep breath in….and out.

 

Excellent! How do you feel after that? What kind of images came to you?

 

Those deep breaths in and out? That’s what the church year is like. We spend six months of the year, hurrying about in high holiday mode as we muscle our way through Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and Eastertide, taking deep breaths and holding them in as we come into each holy season, praying that we get everything right. And then the other half of the year we get to sit in Ordinary time. And I don’t mean “humdrum” time. I mean a time to exhale, a time to reflect on all that happened in the other six months, a time to grow into the lessons we heard and learned.

 

Next week we will celebrate Trinity Sunday as the final day before we exhale and head into Ordinary time. But first, there is today, Pentecost, the fiftieth and the last day of Eastertide. You will hear some people call this the birthday of the church. But a friend of mine has a different take on it that I really like. Celebrating Pentecost as a birthday lead us to self-congratulatory reflections of “yay us!” causing us to turn inward. Pentecost is more than that. Pentecost is the “empowerment of the church. Recognizing this helps us reflect on what we are empowered for. We turn outward; we celebrate not our existence but our calling.” Which I think is an excellent way of looking at what’s going on around us, especially as we consider the baptisms we will be celebrating shortly.

 

Luke tells us that the community of disciples is gathered because of the Festival of Weeks. Jesus had promised the arrival of the Holy Spirit not long after his departure and sure enough, on the festival day itself, the Holy Spirit arrives. The scene is spectacular and chaotic: a violent, rushing sound like wind, evoking imagery of the creation in Genesis 1; and then “divided tongues, as of fire” – not a fire that destroys, but rather like the fire that Moses encountered at the burning bush, which was “blazing, yet it was not consumed” in Exodus 3.

 

You see in these verses wind (or spirit) and fire, and as each person was touched by these, we are reminded of the waters of baptism. Air, fire, water. Three of the four ancient elements. But where is earth? Well, we are earth! Human beings, the “adam”, the dust from which we are all created. We, as earth, are incomplete without the other three elements. God as Holy Spirit comes as fire, air, and water so that the dust can be moistened, the air breathed in, and the divine spark put into us so that we can become who we fully are – the messengers of God.

 

The Spirit’s immediate effect is linguistic: many are empowered “to speak in other languages,” and at the same time, each person hears each testimony in their native tongue. Think of a meeting at the United Nations, in which everyone hears the proceedings (through a headset) translated into their language.

 

The upshot of all of this is a sense of togetherness and unity: diverse as they are, everyone understands and can communicate. Accordingly, they’re dazzled, bewildered, and taken aback: “What does this mean?” (Acts 2:12).

 

As if to answer this question, Peter stands and speaks. He cites the prophet Joel, adapting those ancient words to illuminate the present: the final and decisive chapter of history has arrived, the dawn of God’s joyous Jubilee that Jesus declared early in his ministry, and now comes the long-promised “pouring out” of the Holy Spirit upon “all flesh”. Jesus both heralded and inaugurated this new era, and the Spirit will empower a community through whom the movement’s message of healing, liberation, and joy will go out to the ends of the earth.

 

In other words, the church is born and the people within it are empowered! The church is more than the building, more than a gathering in a specific location. The church is God’s empowered people. All of them. And the first act of God’s Spirit at Pentecost honors the diversity and individuality of the believers. God wants the Good News to be heard by all people and in all languages, especially in God’s mother tongue, which is love!

 

This radical new community about which Joel speaks and which Peter says is realized in the earliest Christian community is remarkably inclusive. It is gender inclusive: “your sons” and “your daughters” (2:17); “servants – both male and female” (2:18). It is age inclusive: “your young people” and “your old people” (2:17). And if we are to take seriously the opening (“all people”) of this citation, then this community is also destined to be ethnically inclusive. Diversity is a blessed feature of the Christian life.

 

And we have all been joined by our Baptism into communities of faith that look for – and expect! – the Holy Spirit to come along side us and shake things up, preparing and equipping each and all of us to share the disruptive, surprising, and life-giving words of grace of the God who will not rest until all people enjoy abundant life.

 

Breath means new life; new life means growth and change. The Spirit is breathed onto us to protect, to challenge, to provoke, to push, and to call us into action. The church is on a mission, God’s mission, to love and protect our neighbours as much as God loves and protects us. The church’s ministry begins with the gift of the spirit, not for the sake simply of the church, but for the whole world. The Spirit mobilizes us and opens up new horizons for ministry. The Spirit makes visible and tangible God’s promise to be present, to empower, and to compel testimony. We, as witnesses, testify about God who interjects God’s self into diverse cultures, languages, and life situations making God’s presence felt, heard, and seen, and compelling us to interpret, as best we can, what we have felt, heard, and seen. This is what we will spend “ordinary” time doing.

 

Amen.

Resources

The Reverend Kyle Norman

Hope Revealed: A Sermon for the 6th Sunday of Easter

Grace, peace, and mercy are yours from the Triune God. Amen.

 

Peter is probably the most celebrated of all Jesus’ disciples. He is always listed first among the twelve, he features prominently in many Gospel stories, and he becomes the cornerstone of the post-Easter church.

 

Peter was ultimately martyred in Rome under the emperor Nero. Nero was the fifth Roman emperor and final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. He is best known for his political murders and a passion for music that led to the rumor that Nero “fiddled” while Rome burned during the great fire of 64 CE. Nero was also a persecutor of Christians. When Peter wrote the words “always be ready with an answer”, it was a very dangerous time to be a Christian, as Nero liked to blame everything that went wrong in the Roman Empire on the followers of Christ.

 

Over the last few weeks, we have been reading from Peter’s first letter. Peter’s audience was Gentile Christians in Asia Minor (a geographic region located in the south-western part of Asia comprising most of present-day Turkey) who were suffering for their faith. The letter was meant to provide them encouragement from someone who knows a bit about suffering and who can testify to them about God’s grace. Peter pressed this community to remain steadfast in living honourably and ethically in spite of hostility from unbelievers.

 

Throughout the letter, Peter offers suggestions that might help make life for bearable for his readers. Specifically in today’s reading, Peter tells his readers that they should be ready to give a defense of the gospel that sustains them, that they must show that they are different in a positive way, that they should concentrate on conducting themselves honourably, so that those who ridicule them will see their honourable deeds and be put to shame, (or possibly converted).

 

Peter wanted his audience to remain faithful to Christ even in the face of pressures to conform to the larger world’s social and religious values. He asked his readers to have courage, to have compassion and gentleness and respect for their assailants, to live lives beyond reproach, to follow the teachings of Jesus, and to love their enemies to the point of death. Those oppressed by the empire were encouraged to respond to their persecution by imitating Christ. By saying “always be ready for an answer”, Peter was urging his readers to fearlessly defend hope, the hope given to us in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the hope given to us through the eternal love of God.

 

Peter knew that his people would be questioned about the way they were acting. He knew that they would be subject to interrogation about their unconventional lives. But shouldn’t our lives inspire others to ask questions? Christians are called to live just lives that are above reproach. How we live becomes our best defense against those are questioning us. Few among us live under the threat of death, but if we seek to live out our faith in the world, we may indeed encounter systems that oppose our witness. We may not be being persecuted as Peter’s readers were in 1^st century Rome, but there are likely those of us out there who have been questioned by friends, family, and maybe even strangers about why we believe in God, why we believe in Jesus, why we are Christian.

 

How do you respond when someone asks you about being a Christian? Do you become apologetic? Defensive? Do you run away from the conversation? We don’t need to have all the answers. But we need to be willing to talk about it. With each other, with friends and family, with anyone who asks us the question. Having the answer to every question doesn’t prove why we are Christian. Living our life the way Jesus taught us shows others why we are Christian.

 

Our confidence and trust in God’s absolute love for us is revealed through our actions toward others. If we work for justice, if we are doing what is right, we can be sure that our lives are in God’s hands, and that God will have the last word. Christ walks with us in our daily lives. He has already won the victory. Our task is to remain faithful and wait for God’s triumph to be revealed to the world. The author of 1^st Peter encourages his audience, and all of us, to maintain this faithfulness. No matter what trials we may endure we are not to be intimidated. We trust that Jesus lived and died for all of us.

 

We see this faithfulness also in John’s words of hope. Jesus comforts his disciples with words of promise. Once they no longer see Jesus in physical form, he will always be with his disciples through their faith. Jesus’ address in the original Greek is in the plural, meaning that he is encouraging his disciples of every age as a community, to know they will never be alone. Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit will be with them always. “You will know that I am in God, and you in me, and I in you.” This is a comfort to all of us who are challenged with the struggles in this world. For we have that divine presence in us as well. All who are willing to trust in Christ, even though he is not physically present, will be saved and embraced by the loving arms of God. Whatever struggles we face, our triune God is with us always. We who share faith and hope in Jesus Christ are assured of being welcomed into this continual ever flowing dance with the divine.

 

And that is good news indeed. Amen.