Living the Questions, Part 2

Isaiah 55:6-11

 Here are the questions we’ll discuss this morning . . .

·   “Why are there so many different religions, and even different forms of Christianity?  Where did religion come from?”

·   “What does the Bible say about people who are transgender?”

·   “Why do some faiths believe they must go to the pastor/minister/priest to seek forgiveness of sins?  Instead of going directly to God?”

·   “How do you know when you have truly forgiven someone?  If you still feel hurt and angry, have you really forgiven them?  The Bible tells us to forgive.  How do you forgive?”

 

“Why are there so many different religions, and even different forms of Christianity?  Where did religion come from?”

Our reading from the prophet Isaiah reminds us that our religious habits should be held lightly.  The various religions – including our own – are fickle, capable of doing good and doing harm.  Religions are at their best when they point away from themselves to the goodness of God.  God is the one whose life and love and word nourish the earth.  And if we’re to respond rightly, that response will always have to be marked by humility.  God’s thoughts are not our thoughts.  God’s ways are not our ways. 

So where did religion come from?  Why did early human beings undertake their funeral rituals with an awareness of life that comes from God and returns to God?  Why did our ancestors do their farming and hunting with prayers and festivals that gave credit to the Creator Spirit for the world’s bounty?  I’m not sure.  You could claim, if you’re a skeptic, that religion is manufactured, made up to help humans cope with something hard to face . . . maybe death, or anxiety, or meaninglessness. 

But the view of the major world religions, including Christianity, is that religion is an appropriate human response to the divine, an authentic connection, a way of reaching out to the divine love which is the energy that authors the world and sustains it in being.  Christianity makes the further claim, and we should never forget how odd and surprising this claim is . . . that this Creator God appeared in a special way in the life of Jesus from Nazareth.  What makes this claim so hard for many is that when God appears, God identifies with the poor, the sick, the immigrant, the refugee, those in pain, the children and the child-like.  Rather than commanding respect and reverence, God embraces suffering and freely chooses a path of solidarity with our brokenness.

Now why are there so many different religions and different forms of Christianity?  I find it unhelpful to say that anyone whose religious orientation is different from mine is wrong.  More helpful is to listen when others speak.  Try to hear what they’re saying.  Try to imagine what life looks like and feels like for them.  My task is to be true to my own experience of God’s love for me in Jesus Christ.  I don’t have to explain why my customs are better than everyone else’s. 

All religions are continually learning and growing.  Christian faith, in particular, is always deepening, moving, reforming, adapting.  And in every age new questions emerge.  New discoveries are made.  Old assumptions fade away and fresh insights appear.  A living faith has to evolve in order to address the needs of the moment.  As Jesus put it, you can’t put new wine in old wineskins.  You put new wine in new wineskins.

“What does the Bible say about people who are transgender?”

First, what does it mean when a person identifies as “transgender”?  Well, it means that the cultural expectations for a person’s male or female gender don’t make sense, don’t feel right.  A person who is biologically male feels like the cultural expectations for the male gender are alienating and false.  A person born biologically female feels like the cultural expectations for the female gender are constricting and unnatural.  This experience of feeling at odds with the biological identity of your birth sex is called “gender dysmorphia.”  Some people decide to live with this tension.  Others decide to change their gender identity and appearance to match what they feel.

I have learned a lot about transgender issues due to the fact that one of my good friends, and an important mentor in my life, is now a transgender woman.  Born biologically as a man, he lived as a man in public for most of his life.  So in all my years of knowing him, I knew him as a man.  And then in his early 60’s, he came out to his family and friends as transgender.  He explained how difficult his life had been.  And he began dressing as a woman and identifying as a woman.  The person I had long known as “Paul” became “Paula.”

One of the things Paula helped me understand was the terrible pain and suffering experienced by those with gender dysmorphia.  The rates of depression and suicide attempts for those whose biological sex does not match their experience are staggeringly high.  Young people, especially, are prone to suicide. 

Another person I knew came out as transgender a couple of years ago.  After a life of depression and emotional heartache, he began dressing and identifying as a woman.  The first time I saw her dressed as a woman, I gave her a hug, smiled, and told her that I was happy for her and that I would pray for her.  She broke down in tears and thanked me for supporting her in a difficult journey.

Now this reality of those born male dressing and living as female, and those born female dressing and living as male – this will be confusing and difficult for many of you.  Most of us grow up with fixed maps of what counts as male and female.  And it is disorienting to us when people violate those boundary lines.  Most of us are raised to believe that people who cross-dress are deviants and perverts.  Maybe some of them are.  A lot of straight people are deviants and perverts too of course.  I encourage you to practice empathy – to listen to the stories of people who are in pain.  If Scripture teaches us anything, it teaches us to hold our assumptions lightly; to be ready and willing to change our minds when we have an opportunity to show compassion.

So what does the Bible say about people who identify as transgender?  I’ll point you to Galatians 3:26-28: “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  

“Why do some faiths believe they must go to the pastor/minister/priest to seek forgiveness of sins?  Instead of going directly to God?”

I am guessing that this is broadly a question about some of the differences between being a Catholic Christian versus being a Protestant Christian.  In the Catholic tradition, confessing one’s sins to a priest is encouraged as a concrete sign of one’s humility and desire for change, of one’s willingness to do the work of moving in new directions with God’s help.

Yet the Catholic Church allows for and encourages prayers of forgiveness offered to God.  And Protestant Churches like ours encourage us to confess our sins to one another, in other words, to seek forgiveness through the mediation of others.

Yes, I will grant, the theology of the Presbyterian church aims to share power and authority among all of God’s people.  That’s why in our congregational life, I as the pastor work together with our ruling elders.  And in our wider regional life as a network of Presbyterian congregations, all committees and meetings are made up of half pastors (teaching elders) and half ruling elders.  Liturgically, you will notice that the words of forgiveness are not offered by me as your pastor.  They are offered by the lay leader who happens to be leading worship that day.  This role may be filled by someone who is new, or by a young person.  It doesn’t matter.  The forgiveness is spoken by an ordinary sinner to other ordinary sinners in Christ’s name. 

But I encourage you not to dismiss the wisdom of the Catholic tradition.  We ought not underestimate the power of confessing our sins to another person or group who is devoted to protecting what we entrust.  Don’t underestimate the power of hearing another person say that we are forgiven yet again.  As a pastor, I have lived with many people who struggle with whether they have really been forgiven by God.  It is a real gift to come face to face with forgiveness – in the waters of baptism, in the act of breaking bread in the eucharist, or in the spoken words of forgiveness and reconciliation within the worship service or within a conversation.

“How do you know when you have truly forgiven someone?  If you still feel hurt and angry, have you really forgiven them?  The Bible tells us to forgive.  How do you forgive?”

This person isn’t questioning that God calls us to forgive those who have harmed or hurt us.  This person is asking – how does it work?  What does it feel like to really forgive another person?

First we should say that forgiveness is a process that can deepen over time.  It is normal for that process to have some peaks and valleys, some times when it feels real and other times when it doesn’t.  So while we are in the process of forgiving someone, we will from time to time be plagued by feelings of anger and hatred, of fantasies of revenge.  These are good times to laugh at ourselves, to breathe deeply, and to begin again the great voyage of forgiveness.

So feelings of hurt and betrayal, feelings of anger and frustration are normal parts of the process of forgiveness.  They are not signs that your forgiveness is somehow less than genuine. 

There are two things that can help us forgive.  First, those who hurt you are wounded themselves.  That doesn’t excuse what they did to you.  But it will help you see them in a compassionate light.  Second, extending forgiveness is more about your own health than about expecting the other person to change. 

In an email this week I received this: In their book, Forgiveness and Health, the authors reviewed the psychological literature and found that forgiveness consistently lessens the severity of depression, anxiety, and other psychiatric disorders, as well as reduces the prevalence of physical symptoms and premature death, in the person who forgives. Reflecting upon these outcomes, they identified the key ingredient as a decrease in chronic stress. To hold a grudge takes psychological energy, and it's a burden that stresses us out. When we let go of the grudge, we experience psychological freedom, and positive psychological and physical benefits ensue.

These wonderful questions deserve far more time than I could give them here.  These small attempts at answers are only a very small beginning.  May God be gracious to you as you continue to live the questions that are part of your life.  And may God continue to draw all of us into the love that is spacious enough for all our questions and doubts, all our befuddlement and clumsy attempts to grow in grace.

And finally I’ll leave you with the words of Kallistos Ware, Eastern Orthodox Priest and Theologian:  “It’s not the task of Christians to provide easy answers to every question, but to make us progressively aware of a mystery.  God is not so much the object of our knowledge as the cause of our wonder.”