Leaning into hope

Advent is the season when the words of the week are hope, peace, joy, and love. These are glorious words for many who are afraid or alone, sick and sad. This week more than 40 clergywomen of the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church gathered to share community and story. We gathered to celebrate the sisterhood that is our shared ministry. 

Food, punch, coffee and laughter filled the house. When Bishop Shelton gathered us, she asked us to tell our stories of where we had seen God break in with grace. Several of the stories were of the numbers of gender different parishioners who had come to them saying, “I feel safe in the church now.” Many of these people were in closets and undercover, afraid to reveal who they really were. 

Oh, the over-reaction of those who are quick to hurt the marginalized of our world. LGBTQ persons in our churches and families have been maligned to the point, half of United Methodist pastors and churches left the body, left the united part. They don’t want to be united with the more open minded of us. Narrow love is not God’s love. Exclusion is not God’s way. People are divided over how we love. 

I think of the words of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116. “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds. Or bends with the remover to remove. O, no! It is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken; it is the star to every wandering bark.”

William Shakespeare, from the early 17c, wrote poetry to his lovers, a dark lady and a young man. Binary, genderfluidity was around even them. He hid his love in words. He tells the world love is the fixed mark. Even when the tempests and the barking against it become loud. Love is love, he says. 

As Christians, we believe God is love and that our love for one another marks us as followers of the way. Love is love. It does not alter with alteration, any alteration.

The gathered pastors shared fears of their parishioners who are worried about what MAGA/ Trump world will do in efforts to alter love.

The ugliness about bathroom usage is the tip of the iceberg. LGBTQ people are being singled out. Congresswoman Nancy Mace is picking on one specific person, Sarah McBride as the object of her malice. But other trans people are also being singled out. Fear is increasing among this population, all because our actions lack compassion and grace. 

What happens in this conversation is that trans and gay people are singled out and portrayed as sexual predators. That’s a leap some fearful people seem willing to take. Nobody is singling out men who peep under stalls or through holes in walls. Nobody is squawking at the predators whose names and deeds are in the news daily. One of them will be our 47th president.

Gender dysphoria is something few of us know much about. The books I’ve read are stories about the pain of self-discovery young people experience when they are made to feel they are “less than.” Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex and Jodi Picoult’s Mad Honey tell stories of anguish, rejection, and fear. There is a difference between biology and identity that we seem hell bent on denying.

In the churches I served, young people dealing with gender identity struggled, wondering if they would be accepted. There was great angst about puberty and bodily changes they did not know how to hide. In a place where hope and love are the message, we have been slow offering such grace to those among us who suffer.

Two young people come to mind. First is Jacob, an exuberant child who came to church in pearls and played with dolls. As Jacob grew, Jacob’s unique identity began to flourish. Jacob had superior intelligence and thrived at Duke. Jacob’s mom was a champion undergirding Jacob’s personhood. Jacob’s story is shared in the memoir, Sissy, published by Random House. (It’s a really precious read.)

Then there was a young woman in our youth group who was the speaker on Youth Sunday at our church. As she told her “coming out” story, she reflected on the struggle, and the difference church support in her life had made. She very much felt she accepted as she shared her story in a very safe place, surrounded by many who love her.

John Powell wrote a small book many years ago titled, Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am. The thesis of the book is, “If I tell you who I am, and you do not like who I am, that’s all I have to give you.” When we fail to know and accept people across all spectrums of the human condition, we miss knowing some truly incredible people. 

Hope, peace, love and joy are the primary message of the Advent Season. When we cannot surround the marginalized with a community of love, our faith is cold and empty. Devoid of Christ. Now is the time to lean into hope.

A closing word on the bathroom issue…A friend said all the bathrooms in her house are unisex. Unisex bathrooms are everywhere today in restaurants and coffee shop. No tensions here, except maybe when the toilet seats are not put down. Problem solved. 

Lib Campbell is a retired Methodist pastor, retreat leader, columnist and host of the blogsite www.avirtualchurch.com. She can be contacted at libcam05@gmail.com