Proper 29 B + Trans Jesus + 11.25.18

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard

(2 Samuel 23:1-7; Psalm 132:1-13 (14-19); Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37)

Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” (John 18:37)

And later, “What is truth?”

In this, one of the most dramatic moments of scripture, we see two people facing each other. In a sense, what they are each sharing is so iconic, it almost doesn’t matter the kind of men – indeed people- they are. They represent two different paradigms. Pilate, of the Roman hierarchy, a wielder of power and a confident decision maker, for whom authority looks like might, and sometimes like violence. Jesus, a seemingly humble Jew, a rabbi or teacher, a vagabond, who represents none of the ideas Pilate has around power. 

What is truth? What is power?
But Pilate sees power in Jesus. He smells it on him and catches it in the glints of other’s eyes, in the snatches of others’ dreams. Clearly this man wields power.

So he asks Jesus what, to him, is the logical question. Are you a king? This would simplify things. Let the Jewish kings duke it out. And Jesus kind of says yes and kind of says no. Because he is like a king in authority, and yet nothing about his kingdom is of this world. Nothing of his leadership is about domination or violence. But it is about love, overpowering love overpowering any urge to hate, to disconnect.

I saw Jesus in a trannie the other night. What I mean to say is I saw his example in a young trans man who spoke at the local Trans Day of Remembrance Event.

He mentioned how, born female into a family of traditional Iranian Jews in Westwood, he would return home each year from college and after just a bit changed. First, slacks instead of a dress. Then shorter hair. Then what his grandfather called “heavier boots.” He never officially “came out” as trans to his family, except perhaps to one or two. Instead he presented himself with his family again and again saying “Hello, I am here. I love you.” And they asked “Do you respect your family? Are you working hard?” And because the word for grandchild is gender-neutral in Farsi, his grandfather just continued to say “This is my grandchild” when presenting him to others. And perhaps because it is such a reserved culture, he didn’t break it down for them. He just expected them to accept him. And they did! He shared a Farsi saying that goes “I live for you and you live for me.” And that to him was showing up, loving his family and just expecting them to love him back, no matter what gender he presented.

In a way, this is Jesus. Jesus transgressed or interrupted all of the expectations of leadership, messiah-ship and power in our human context. And then he just presented himself, just as he presents himself here, before Pilate, saying, this is me. Yes I am a king, but not in the way you expect. I am more about loving you than frightening you into submission. Yes that may seem a bit authority non-conforming, but guess what? This is me? And I love you. And I come in respect and deep tenderness. I present myself. How will you accept me? Will you live for me as I live and die for you?
Sadly, we know that we didn’t handle that all too well. Jesus’ story had to be told for even some of us to begin to grasp even a smidge of what that love looks like. Dying and rising happened and showed us about real love and salvation.

But the way Jesus presents himself to Pilate reminds me of a song several of us heard last year in the movie “The Greatest Showman.” It is called “This is Me” and some of the verses go thus:

“and I know that I deserve your love
(Oh-oh-oh-oh) 'cause there's nothing I'm not worthy of
(Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh, oh)
When the sharpest words wanna cut me down
I'm gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out
This is brave, this is proof
This is who I'm meant to be, this is me

Look out 'cause here I come (look out 'cause here I come)
And I'm marching on to the beat I drum (marching on, marching, marching on)
I'm not scared to be seen
I make no apologies, this is me”[1]

And earlier

“But I won't let them break me down to dust
I know that there's a place for us
For we are glorious.”

In fact, Jesus was more glorious than this because he went to the dust for us so than none of us might ever need to fear death again. But just as Jesus was glorious not in the way of traditional might but because of his loving strength, we too are glorious not because of the way the world would have us act but because God made us uniquely.

Perhaps a gift of Jesus’ transgressive kingship is that he did it differently, and we can, too. We can live into our leadership, our gifts for ministry in just the loving way he did. When we see spaces in the world that invite us to dominate, we can reject those and move towards love.

One of the scariest places that takes me is how to respond to the fear of potential violence in the church. It has been harrowing to hear the stories of church, synagogue and mosque shootings, just as it has been terrible to hear of the same in other public places. But as Christians and indeed as people of faith (because I think many other faith leaders are showing us this also) we know that the answer is not a sort of hypervigilance. We cannot train ourselves to the point of fear of whoever might enter this door. We must be bold in love and embrace people, albeit with appropriate boundaries for the safety of the flock. But Jesus tells us that whomever we give a cup of cold water is a representative of him. And whomever we welcome to pray just might really need the space we provide. Even more so in a world that is increasingly scary and where safe places seem fewer and farther between.

We can show another way.

And we can feel Jesus today presenting himself again to us, not as a fearsome king, but as our brother and friend, loving us into being even better in the unique us-ness that only we have. Being the bold and different lovers of the world that the world doesn’t know how much it needs.

Amen.

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[1] Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, “This is Me,” from The Greatest Showman, 2017. Lyrics at: https://www.google.com/search?q=greatest+showman+this+is+me+song&oq=greatest+showman+thi&aqs=chrome.3.0j69i57j0l4.7933j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8.