Gender, Sex, and Jesus' Love [Easter 5B]
The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson
Acts 8:26-40
Gender, sex, and Jesus' love
If it seems we have been talking
about gender and sexuality in the Church forever, it's probably because we
have. In the past few decades, we've
focused most of our energy on the sacraments of ordination and marriage. We have talked about the ordination of gays
and lesbians; we have talked about the blessing of same-sex relationships and
the nature of marriage. Occasionally, we
do the conversations well; sometimes we actually dialogue – even disagree –
about the complexity of human sexuality in a Christian spirit of generosity,
respect, and reconciliation. More often
we do it poorly – disregarding our baptismal vows to love our neighbors as
ourselves and to respect the dignity of every human being – leaving the body of
Christ fractured.
But difficult conversations are
nothing new to the church. Since the
very birth of our religion, Christians have disagreed and argued. And, not always well; sadly, one can recount
the history of our faith in schisms. Not
every controversy concerns gender and sexuality of course. But many do – even those in the first
century. Already in the first decades of
the Church, Paul addresses arguments around circumcision, gender roles,
chastity, and sexual practice.
In fact, one of the very first
stories of the Church post-Pentecost is this story of the Ethiopian eunuch – a
story that immediately confronts the reader with complicated questions about
gender and sexuality. Sexuality and
gender have always been Church issues because they are life issues. And the topics are invested with a lot of
emotional energy because sexuality is so central to who we are as human beings,
tied to our survival as a species and to our pursuit of happiness. Most of us, in one way or another, identify
strongly with our gender or our sex or our sexual orientation.
And so we are often also identified
by others by our gender or our sex or our sexual orientation. And sometimes, especially for those who exist
outside of that messy mix of cultural norms and religious expectations, that
identification can be meant as insult and wielded to injure and used to justify
exclusion. All of this placed at the
forefront our story from Acts this morning.
We know very little about the
person featured in today's story. We
don't know his history. We don't know
his relationship to Judaism, how a man living with the Ethiopian royal family
would become a worshiper of Yahweh. We
are not even given a name. He is only
identified as an Ethiopian eunuch – and actually, in much of the story simply
as “the eunuch.”
Well, perhaps not so simply. Actually it was a complicated life. “A eunuch typically refers to a person who
has been castrated, often early enough in life to have significant hormonal
impacts...”[1] He lived as an ambiguously gendered person in
a world of clearly defined gender roles.
And while his position in the court of a queen sounds prestigious, the
eunuch held that position because the King did not have to worry about a eunuch
having sex with his wives. A eunuch was
not considered a real man – not a woman, but not quite a man; he couldn't even
have sex – and therefore posed no threat to the king or the royal
bloodline.
The eunuch's sexual identity, his
gender ambiguity, had defined his life.
Most likely it was not a life he chose, but one forced upon him as a
child. And it impacted everything. There would be no marriage, no sex, no sexual
desire, no possibility of having children through which to pass on his family
name. And though this eunuch, our text
tells us, had come to Jerusalem to worship, even that hope was dashed because
of his sexual identity. Because the man
was a eunuch, he was not allowed in. According
to the 23rd chapter of Deuteronomy, “No one whose
testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the
assembly of the Lord.” That is a verse
that does not show up in the Sunday morning Lectionary. One commentator explains, “[The original]
readers [of the book of Acts] know...that the Ethiopian official would not have
been permitted to worship in the Temple, not because of his race, nationality,
or status, but because of his sexual identity.”[2]
It is an old story – this story
from Acts. But also it is familiar. People are still turned away from houses of
worship because of their sexual identity – because they are gay or lesbian or
transgender. People who desire to know
and love and worship God, find the doors of the Church closed to them. They are being told by the words and actions
of Christians that Jesus does not love them.
The eunuch went to the Temple
anyway – knowing that he could not go in.
Because while those with religious authority would not let him in the
building, he still desired to know and love and worship God. And while those with religious authority did
not want him, God did.
Our text is very clear about this
point: the Holy Spirit chose the Ethiopian Eunuch. The Holy Spirit sent Philip to tell him about
Jesus and Jesus' amazing love. The
Spirit plays match-maker in this story.
And once again we are reminded that God's love is impossibly big, God's
embrace infinitely wide – beyond what we can fathom or even what we want.
After hearing the good news of
Jesus, the eunuch asks Philip one question.
It is the kind of question someone asks when they already know the
answer. It is the kind of question
someone asks when they have grown used to rejection. “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” He doesn't tell Philip to baptize him; he
doesn't even ask Philip to baptize him.
The eunuch asks, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” And he knows the answer. The answer is always the same: he is a eunuch. He is damaged goods. He is sexually abnormal. He is unwanted. That is always the answer. And so that is the question he asks: What is
to prevent me?
The truth is too many people are
asking that same question of the Church today: what is to prevent me from
joining you, from sharing your faith, from experiencing your Jesus? When I was at St. John's, I spent time with
the LGBT group at Youngstown State University.
One day some of the students told me their stories about church. One young man shared with me, through his
tears, how his mother told him he was going to Hell when he came out to
her. That is why he doesn't go to
church. A young woman told me about how
the church of her childhood, where she was raised and nurtured, the church that
taught her to be a Christian, kicked her out of the church when she told them
she was a lesbian. She told me, “I
thought they cared about me until I told them.”
That is why she quit church.
Neither student wanted to leave.
Both students were Christians.
They still loved Jesus. But the
Church did not love them. The Church
failed them. And there are millions like
them in this world – desperate to know the love of Jesus – only those called to
share that love choose instead to withhold it, to bar the doors.
Last week millions of people
watched as former Olympic champion and world-class athlete, Bruce Jenner, a man
who reached the pinnacle of masculine physical achievement, shared with Diane
Sawyer and the world that he is transgender.
He said, “For all intents and purposes, I am woman.” For a lot folks, it was maybe the first time
they ever heard someone talk directly about living as transgender. As the world shrinks, we are discovering that
identity and gender and sexuality are not nearly as simple as we might have
thought, or even hoped. And it can be
confusing and that can challenge the limitations of our empathy. It can challenge the depth of our Christian
love.
You know, Philip never answered the
eunuch's question. Actually, he never
even acknowledged the question. He just
walked him to the water and baptized him.
The eunuch came out of that water and rejoiced. Of course.
After a lifetimes of nos, Jesus said yes.
Philip came upon a person whose
skin was much darker than his own, whose gender was ambiguous, whose sexual
identity transgressed religious and cultural norms. And he welcomed him into the family. Because that is what Jesus does. Jesus loves the rejected and the broken and
the marginalized and the weirdos and the losers and the queers and the awkward
and the lonely and the grumpy and the outsiders and the eunuchs and even the
“normals.” It is crazy and amazing and
complicated but also really simple. This
is our good news: Jesus loves us – you and me and everybody else. In this complex and complicated and oft-divided
world, we have one job: not to figure it all out, not to condemn a bunch of
people to Hell, not to bar the doors of the Church; our job is to love. It's that simple.
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