This week, I finished my tenure as a supply minister in an Oklahoman church. This was a wonderful experience, and the church was filled with the love of Jesus. Oh, how wonderful it was.
And, in leaving them, I wanted to leave them with a word that reassured and pushed them in their current direction—a movement towards creating a place where all can belong in their church.
I felt that I did as such; they thought so also. I believe it brought a tear to more than one eye.
It brought tears to my eyes as well, but I cried not for them...
I cried for my siblings who don't believe that all belong in the community of God. I cried for my siblings who say God's community is limited to the straight, cisgender person. I cried for those who believe that queer and trans people must forego their identities to belong in this beloved community that we call the Church.
And when I gave communion, my heart broke. While I saw in front of me a congregation of queer and straight people eating and drinking together, I envisioned thousands of congregations where the queer and trans person was simultaneously being barred from the body of Christ.
The most beautiful thing about Christianity is its belief that Christ's sacrifice and resurrection opened the doors for all people to experience communion with God. Yet, how incredibly wrong and antithetical to Christianity it is to believe that one's queerness or transness is a "sin" in need of redemption! How holy queerness and transness are already!
I cried yesterday, and I continue to weep for those to whom communion and community are denied.
Do we weep together?