From the Pulpit: The Cost of Being Clothed in Christ

Chances are you've heard or read St. Paul's famous declaration that in Christ, "there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female." Pay attention to the grammar, Vicar Dana Corsello says.

Preaching at the Cathedral as Pride Month comes to a close, Dana said the distinctions that St. Paul makes — or doesn’t make — in his letter to the Galatians are important as the country is divided on the issue of transgender rights:

Note the use of conjunctions here, it’s subtle, but telling the first two couplets are binary. This or that, Jew or Greek slave or free. But the third couplet indicates a pairing male and female of this and of that.

Paul’s vision of a human nature restored in faith in baptism hearkens back to the original creation stories In Genesis, when the first humans are created in the image of God, male and female, the defining and distinctive feature of human nature is not what separates the male in female genders, but what unites them, the fact that they are of the same substance and have been shaped in God’s image.

In other words, the defining and distinctive feature of human nature is not gender, but rather creation in the divine image of God.

Turning to the debate of LGBTQ+ rights, she says:

We Episcopalians are not a binary-minded people. We do not see the world as black or white. Right or wrong, good or bad may be easier to live with and preach absolutes, but it is neither authentic nor realistic. The world is not beige or gray. We live among a spectrum of colors. Just as there is a full spectrum of humanity in gender, in God’s creation, I like to think of our communal existence as a tapestry.

Think of those beautiful medieval tapestries in St. Mary’s Chapel in the hands of a skilled weaver, the tapestry displays extraordinary artistry and fine to detail its images are created by the master weaver in an interplay between the infinite colors and textures of different threads. But the back of the tapestry is a mess. It is covered in knots and loose ends.

Much like all of us, in my pastoral ministry, I personally know five families whose children have accepted themselves as transgender. I know a handful of adults who have sacrificed a great deal to accept and present to the world whom they truly know themselves to be. Do you think that these people woke up one day and said, my life is not hard enough. I think I will come out as transgender? Gee, that sounds like fun. I can assure you that they did not.

Their lives were turned upside down and inside out. And as for the parents and these families, they did everything in their power to understand and accept for the simple fact that they love their children and want to keep them alive and thriving no matter the societal cost to them.