A Benediction for My Fellow Queer Christians

For personal safety reasons, I’m going to ask anyone who chooses to share this post to please not tag me on any social media sites. Thank you. 

 ______________

It’s not a sin to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual.

And I don’t mean it like some folk mean it–“It’s not a sin to be gay! Just to act on your gayness.” To quote my grandmother-in-law, “That’s horse piss!” Acting gay, lesbian, or bisexual–finding members of your own sex attractive; crushing on, dating, marrying, flirting with, and/or sleeping with members of your own sex–is a part of being gay, lesbian, or bisexual.

You can do justice, love mercy, walk humbly, and still be proud. 

It’s not a sin to be transgender and/or genderqueer.

Whether that involves, for you, taking hormones, getting surgeries, changing your name, dressing in ways that some people try to tell you you shouldn’t dress, all of the above, or none of the above: You aren’t rebelling against God. God cares about bodies and God cares about names. God longs to be known and to reveal hir true self, and we are made in God’s image. Whatever you need to do in order to be known is an act of godliness: 

No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD (Jeremiah 31:34)

It’s not a sin be asexual or agender or aromantic or intersex (or all of the above!). 

We’ve been fed this lie that everyone is born with either a penis or a vagina (False). That all those born with penises grow up to be boys/men, and all those born with vaginas grow up to be girls/women (False). That when boy meets girl, they will fall in love and want to have sex (We all know by now that this isn’t always true, right?). We don’t all fit into that simplified narrative. Though that narrative works for some, for many of us, that narrative is suffocating.

You can question and explore and change your mind about who you are.

You don’t have to know just yet who you are. We are constantly learning more about ourselves and about the world around us. God is constantly calling us and renewing us and asking us to die to some identities and be born again into others. It’s okay to not have it all figured out yet. It’s also okay to be confident and sure of who you are. It’s even okay to know who you are one day and be completely confused the next.

We are all on our own journeys. And God is with us on those journeys.

Whether you are out and proud, still hiding in the closet, or standing in the doorway like a cat that can’t make up her mind, may “the LORD…guard your going out and your coming in From this time forth and forever.” (Psalm 121:8)

The God of the Trinity, who is inherently diverse community, made us all in hir image. And God saw that it was good.

We are diverse–that is a thing to celebrate, not stifle.

So let’s celebrate, for we are fearfully and wonderfully made!

______

The LORD bless you and keep you. The LORD make hir face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The LORD lift hir countenance upon you and give you peace.