Devotional Messages

DEVOTIONAL MESSAGE

Galatians 3:28 – There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. (NRSV)

One of the most precious gifts that a congregation can receive by becoming an officially Open & Affirming congregation is the opportunity to learn more about ourselves.  Those of us who have lived our whole lives in bodies that match our internal understanding of our gender (referred to as “cisgender” or “cis”) and whose romantic interests and attachments have matched society’s expectations have likely never examined what those parts of our identity mean to us.  Nobody ever asks us when we decided or figured out that we were straight or heterosexual.  We simply haven’t had to think about it.

But when those who are dear to us begin to wrestle with these questions – because their body doesn’t seem quite right or because their heart is leading them in other directions – if we are honored to accompany them on those journeys, we may also observe our own reactions and thoughts teaching us new things about ourselves.

If a loved one starts using “they/them” pronouns, we may find ourselves cheering them on, because we’ve always found gender an annoyingly restrictive category.  On the other hand, we may find ourselves struggling to fully embrace the “new” them, because we attributed things to them in our own minds simply because of their presumed gender – things that may or may not have even been true – that we now feel are lost.  It’s even possible we will have both reactions at more or less the same time!  It can push us to reflect on assumptions we’ve been living with for years that we’ve never thought about before.

The important thing to remember is that someone else always knows themselves better than we ever will, so we must trust them when they tell us who they truly are.  But these reactions we have can help us understand ourselves better.  How important is your gender or sexual orientation to your sense of who you are?  As you contemplate what it means to be “one in Christ,” if it meant your gender were no longer part of who you are, would that distress you?  Would you feel like you had to leave something important behind to be made one with Christ?  Or is it something you wouldn’t miss?  I do believe that each of us is a precious creation, formed to be and become the specific someone God is calling us to be.  I don’t think living in Christ erases any of that.  The goal is that those differences don’t divide us from one another or give us excuses to allow some in while keeping others out.

As we learn more about all these questions and reflect on them in the light of God’s love, we will learn more about what it means to be human, in ways we may have never considered before.  There are blessings waiting for us on this journey, if we can open our hearts and minds to receive them.