The Continued Crucifiction of the Transgender Christ...

There is a core reality of the cross... that the life of the shepherd has been taken for the sake of the sheep. That act is done, and has been done in a way that transcends time and space. That means to this day when we take up persecution, when we enable oppression, we bring down the hammer onto the wrist of christ. That means to this day when we are the victims of persecution, when we are beaten and broken by our neighbors and the system they enfranchise, that wounds upon our bodies are wounds upon Christ's body. Maybe we are not the person holding the hammer, often we are the one enabling that hammer, too often we are not the one stopping it.

At any point in time we have to ask our selves: how are we crucifying Jesus in our day and age? How is the society we allow to exist around us ringing with the strikes of the hammer against the nail? For the event whose resonance redeems all time and space as surely enters into the pain we inflict upon each other through all time and space. Where is the nail biting against the Body of Christ?

On November 20th what the world is called to do is recognize the nail it is plunging into the Body of Christ, specifically into the Transgender Body of Christ. The hammer is lifted by many, and while white cisgender christian men play a major role they are enabled by a diversity of others. Feminist authors who continue to refuse to acknowledge transgender women as women and transgender men as men. Gay Men and Lesbians who wish to "drop the T" in order to more quickly gain legal protections for themselves. The countless number of us who do not know what the term cisgender means, much less take the time to process it as aspect of our identities.   

This wound plays out in many ways. A severe lack of housing and employment security within the transgender population. Problems accessing basic public accommodations, from buses and streetcars to restrooms. Rejection from families, faith communities, and basic social service providers. An inability to find affordable and appropriate health care. All of these caustic realities create a society that continually denies the inherent dignity of transgender individuals. Living without basic levels of respect from the society in which one inhabits is dynamically caustic and escalates the possibility of depression, substance abuse, and suicide.

It also creates a society whose environment enables physical violence. The base reality is that per capita transgender women, especially transgender women of color, are the most likely to be the victims of a deadly hate crime. Over the past decade the number of recorded murders of transgender women has gone up. As of now in 2015 there have been twenty four such murders, one every other week. Their deaths are often ignored, their killers never found, and if tried rarely are charged to the full extent of the law. 

There are many places where our society is ripping a nail edge across the tendon's of Christ, a pressing and cutting edge, an edge that cannot be ignored, is the edge of persecution against the transgender community. If we cannot begin to bring a halt to the ringing of that hammer then we cannot truly begin to be fully transformed by the redemption offered by Christ. If we cannot begin to acknowledge and name our sins, known and unknown, against the transgender community then we cannot enter into the depth of God's forgiveness in our day to day lives in their midst.

A first small step is to know the names of this years victims of fatal hate crimes, from thence to learn their stories, and from there to bring about a society where this is not an event we face every fortnight. This week may these names be prayers on your lips. They are sheep of God's fold, children of the family of which we are all members, washed in the blood of the lamb as we placed them on the cross as part of Christ's body.

Papi Edwards, Lamia Beard, Ty Underwood, Yazmin Vash Payne, Taja DeJesus, Penny Proud, Bri Golec, Kristina Gomes Reinwald, Keyshia Bilge, Vanessa Santillan, Mya Hall, London Chanel, Mercedes Williamson, Jasmine Collins, Ashton O’Hara, India Clarke, K.C Haggard, Shade Schuler, Amber Monroe, Kandis Capri, Elisha Walker, Tamar Dominguez, Kiesha Jenkins, Zella Ziona...    You are remembered. Amen.

Saints, Souls, and Remnants...

A tridium of sorts appears to us these very days and nights. Which is another way of saying that if one keeps with traditional christian calendars one is about to enter into an experiential learning event. The hope is that one day will be spent, with a bit of frivolity, contemplating fear of death, ghouls, ghosts, devils, demons, and other such things that go bump in the night. Then a day will be spent honoring and recognizing the paradigms of faith, the Saints. Finally we will take a moment to pray for, mourn, and remember those who we are no longer with us. Thus Halloween, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day come and go each year. What are we to make, however, of Saints, Souls, and those who may not fall into either category...

Saints are perhaps the easiest to name. They are those whose lives as Christians so stand apart that we can say that if any one shows forth the life of Christ then they do. In the Episcopal Church we primarily use the term Saint to refer to those major individuals in Christian history marked as "Saints" before we split from Rome in the 1500s. We do have our own list of saints, exemplars of faith, prophets and judges of their time. All of these we recognize throughout the year and on All Saints Day. A day in part set aside for all the Saints who we do not know and cannot name. It is thought that as Christians we join with them in our prayers and celebrations and that in some way they are still in community with us.

Souls are generally departed love ones that we name, remember, and mourn. All Souls Day is a yearly point of remembrance. A chance to reflect on our lives and our transitions since those we mourn have left us. It is a bittersweet day of remembering past joys but also our faith in the resurrection of all believers. Some churches have solemn services while other Christians simply say a few simple prayers. This is still a day, however, where we live in faith and hope of the resurrection.

Who then remains. When we have covered the Saints and Souls what are the Remnants. Are there those who, in the end, are neither Saint nor Soul and where are they in the midst of the Resurrection? I am not a universalist, and I do not think that the Christian message is well served by such theology. I think it is possible for humans to remove themselves from the Grace of God. I think naming that capacity is inherently important and is essential to understanding the human condition. It is the possible cost of the manifold gifts we have been given.

That being said I truly do not believe in damnation either, especially eternal damnation. If one has some how gotten oneself outside of the Grace of God then one has meandered outside of things eternal. Things eternal can only exist in the midst of God's Grace. It is simply not possible to be eternally damned, eternally outside of God's grace. What I do believe in is the refiners fire, or the bringing of ourselves out of disharmony and into harmony.

The question for me then is if there is something there to refine. Is there enough basic seeking of harmony with oneself, one's community, and God in the midst of someones life that there is the capacity for a person to come into full harmony with those things. One does not have to have consciously named these things in a Christian context but are such things part of the persons overall existence, even if not understood by the person. If such is there then such will be refined, caught up in Grace, and manifested for what in fact they are.

I am not sure exactly what it takes to not have those things, and to not have those things in such a way that they are, in the end, absent from the whole of one's existence. I think, however, that such is potentially possible and thus needs to be named. I think, therefor, that the work of the church is over and again to ensure such does not come to pass.