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LENT EASTER PENTECOSTTransformed Lives Made RiteThe themes of struggle, trial, and resurrection drive these holy days just as they frame the lives of many transgender people. The Lenten journey to Easter and Pentecost, as well as the journey to baptism, leads us to new bodies, new names, and new lives. |
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See us, hear us. Listen to our stories from
Lent through Easter to Pentecost…
Monica Cross, a trans woman, links her transition to the Lenten journey, to Easter and to baptism.
“The last seven years of my career in the U.S. Navy, before I transitioned, was an intense time of prayer, hope and faith. This time of waiting strengthened my faith. The season of Lent became a similar time of strength and authenticity as my Spirit and body were reformed, reshaped and redefined. My transition was like a rebirth igniting my journey of faith, and changing my view of my life as a follower of Jesus Christ of Nazareth and as a transgender woman of African descent. It calls me to take a new look at baptism, not out of dogma, but out of my life experience. Taking the time to dwell in this Lenten experience has reshaped my understanding of baptism.”
Jakob Hero also connects the Lenten journey, his baptism, and his life’s journey as a trans man.
“Although I had been sprinkled with water and claimed for Christ as an infant, I spent the first 18 years of my life as an agnostic in a very secular family who did not go to church. I became a Christian as a young adult and, not long after, transitioned from female to male. Both of these events signified a rebirth for me. Although it is somewhat theologically controversial, it was very important for me to be baptized as ‘Jakob.’ Standing in front of my family of faith, committing my life to Christian service, and asking God to connect to me in my chosen name and sex was one of the most meaningful and empowering experiences of my life. After years of prayer and discernment about both my faith and my gender, in that moment I became whole for the first time in my life. I was infused with the spiritual energy to face the wilderness yet to come. My journey was not over; I was stepping into the unknown. The memory of the living water of Christ on my flesh carried me into my spiritual journey beyond my own gendered baggage.”
Through Our Eyes: Seeing Lent and Easter to Pentecost
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The journey of Lent to baptism at Easter is an ancient Christian practice. Through the centuries, many churches have set aside this holy time as a prayerful one for spiritual formation and preparation for the rite of baptism to be celebrated on the great day of resurrection and new life.
Just as old are connections between baptism and the transgender experience. When our group looked at the lives of many of the earliest Christians, we believe they connected their baptism to gender transformation as well as spiritual transformation. What happens when one “puts on Christ” at baptism (Galatians 2:20, 3:27; Romans 13:14; Ephesians 4:24)?
For example, in the early Christian writing of the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus explains that Mary is able to find salvation because in baptism she takes on the male form -- clothed or covered in Christ. Even though this “female to male” example privileges a male/patriarchal perspective, there are also “male to female” examples of the transforming power of baptism. The Medieval Christian theologian and church father, Anselm, continued to associate baptism with trans-gressing gender roles when the male monks began to think of themselves as brides of a mother Christ. These patriarchs believed that the fulfillment of their baptismal call was literally to feed humanity with their breasts as a mother suckles a child. 1
The space created for individuals to transgress gender stereotypes should not be forgotten. We believe this is significant and complements, rather than contradicts, Bible passages that see gender boundaries destroyed in Christ (for example, Galatians 3:28, “there is no longer male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”). We connect new birth in Christ and the transforming possibilities of these holy days with new life discovered through the transgender experience.
Baptism is an act of grace-filled covenant, signifying a rebirth, spiritual cleansing, and devotion to Christian life and community. Baptism can be especially significant to transgender people as we connect to the feeling of being reborn into the world in our new gender realities. The rites of baptism, reaffirmation of baptism or renaming can also be validating experiences. This is true not only for those trans people of faith completing full medical transition, but also for those whose transition is occurring in their hearts and minds. Just as the Lenten season is a time of wandering and contemplation, experiences of gender nonconformity also take us on a contemplative journey that often does not follow a clear path. We must realize the importance of affirming people at all moments on their gendered journey of faith.
Lent’s Wilderness Journey
The traditional gospel readings for the first Sunday of Lent move from baptism to wilderness and lead us back out of the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, and Luke 4:1-13). Immediately after Jesus' baptism, he is led directly to the wilderness, and then sent with a renewed identity back into the world. As humans, we are constantly finding new ways to understand, name and authentically embody our truest nature. We find ourselves regularly returning to the water to rediscover that we are not alone and that we are with God. As we go in and come out of the baptismal water, we discover our true identity.
The Easter Story of Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch
The reading for the fifth Sunday of Easter (year B) points us to this amazing transformation or, even more accurate, discovery of true identity in Christ. Acts 8:25-39 tells the story of a person whose body and gendered reality made him the target of misunderstanding and thus exclusion from religious life. The Bible chooses the word “eunuch” to identify him. Despite living in a culture that saw him as not even fully human, much less a child of God, he sought a connection to sacred community.
When the apostle Philip heard him reading aloud from the book of Isaiah, Philip offered to help him decipher the text. Philip shared with this stranger the news of his own unique journey. In hearing of the man from Nazareth who accepted the poor, the outcast and the misunderstood, this stranger asked Philip if there was anything stopping his own baptism. Philip was not concerned with the shape or functionality of whatever was hidden under the clothes of this stranger. He did not care that he had a soft voice, or feminine features. Philip was not concerned that others might not want this person to find affirmation in the eyes of God. All that mattered to the apostle was that this person believed with all his heart. And so, Philip took the stranger and turned him into a sibling. He anointed him with living water and they emerged rejoicing.
Perhaps Philip was able to overlook the eunuch's external flesh, because he remembered that God formed our inmost parts (Psalm 139), knows our beginnings, all our transitions and our end. We remember too, that God does not need a ritual to show us that we are beloved, for God's embodiment in Christ does that. Yet, as humans, we sometimes desire to mark the important transitions in our life with ritual and need to be reminded, as we choose to name and claim our own bodies, that God is with us and calling us good. God, through such grace-filled rites, helps us discover the truth we have always known – although hidden and silenced for so long.
Another Bible Story for Easter
Scriptures are full of people whose bodies and names are changed as a result of their relationship and interactions with God. So, it seems only natural that trans people of faith should encourage churches to celebrate, witness and honor both the physical and name changes of its members and friends. One story we wish was part of the Lent and Easter lectionary readings is found in Genesis 32:22-32. It is the story of Jacob wrestling an angel and links for us to transforming theme of these days and to our lives as transgender people.
Having sent his family and all of his worldly possessions across the stream, Jacob was alone. It was during his time of solitude that an angel of God came to him. This angel did not want to simply give Jacob a blessing and send him on his way. Jacob's journey required struggle and he wrestled with the angel of God throughout the night. The battle left him with a permanent mark, for the rest of his life the remnants of this struggle would be written on Jacob's body. At daybreak the struggle ceased and Jacob, knowing he had been eternally changed, demanded a blessing. The angel renamed Jacob and gave him the name “Israel” because he had struggled with God and with human beings and had overcome.
This story illustrates the power of renaming. Jacob/Israel endured great struggle and as a sign of how he had been irreversibly changed he was gifted with a new name. Not only was his name changed, but he also renamed the land on which his struggle took place. He named that place Peniel, which means face of God, because he had seen God in that place and yet his life went on from that point.
The Resurrection Body
Transgender individuals, like Jacob/Israel, experience struggle that can lead to physical and emotional scars. This theme of struggle, trial and resurrection drives the Lent/Easter/Pentecost Season, just as it frames the lives of many transgender people. Some, like the post-resurrection accounts of Jesus, are not recognized as the same person after their transition; just as they were not fully recognized before their transition (see Easter readings from John 20:1-18 and Luke 24:13-49). Others, may relate the requests to see and touch Jesus' scars with the fixation on the transgender body and inappropriate questions and requests to see and touch places others are allowed to keep private (see Easter reading, story of “doubting Thomas,” from John 20:19-31).
Yet this season leaves us with hope that the wilderness wandering ends. New life rises and the Spirit comes. While they may not last for long, there are moments of resurrection assurance. Transgender people face many wildernesses, but God’s grace-full celebrations can mark a significant moment in our journey. Through such moments, God can sustain and bring hope and assurance that we are not alone on our journey.
Just a few of the wilderness times that transgender individuals go through include: beginning hormones; changing a name; changing name and/or sex on a birth certificate, identification, social security, financial or employment records; a year of passing/therapy before being allowed hormones; surgery; coming out as transgender to family, friends and the world; and the move to “passing” fulltime.
The Spirit at Pentecost
Transgender individuals continue on the wilderness journey, like all humans, longing for Pentecost when the Spirit comes and barriers between "us" and "others," or between who we believe ourselves to be and how we are seen, can be torn down like those great walls of babble (see readings for the festival of Pentecost, Genesis 11:1-9 and Acts 2: 1-21)
Additional Trans Connections with Holy Week, Easter and Pentecost
Below are additional connections we discovered as trans people of faith with the days leading up to and during Holy Week.
Palm/Passion Sunday: The tension between fame and shame and the experience of being recognized are themes that emerge in Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. These themes spoke to our own struggle as transgender people to pass as our “true selves,” and to the pain of not being recognized for who we are.
The Prayer at Gethsemane: Jesus’ troubling and submissive prayer of discernment spoke to our sense of dwelling in a troubling moment and our waiting for the privilege to transition.
The Last Supper and Maundy Thursday: The power of taking on Christ’s body and blood in the Lord’s Supper/Eucharist and the transformation that implies registered deeply with us. In the passage from the gospel of John with the washing of feet, we recalled the play on the meaning of the word “feet” which in some ancient references means “genitals.” With that understanding, we saw Jesus caring and serving the whole person – each as they fully are.
The trial of Jesus: We identified in this story our own trial. In particular, how the government and medical community often seem to be given the authority as the ultimate judge over whether or not we can surgically have a sex change.
Good Friday and Crucifixion: As transgender people, some of us identified Jesus’ death with the trans experience of having to completely die to an old life. Others identified with the vulnerable exposure of genitals and the violation and poking at Jesus’ flesh.
Easter and resurrection: We identified with a rebirth through our experience of transitioning. The story of the resurrected Christ showing his scars touched us as we thought about our new life and our scars. We also identified with times of not being recognized (before or after transition) and people wanting “to touch and see” before they believe we have changed.
Pentecost: In exploring Pentecost, we recognize that when the Spirit comes old walls break down. We also have experienced how some people think we’re crazy, even drunk, because of our joy of this new life.
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Great Spirit, We are born of water, sustained by water, known in water. As we travel the familiar and unfamiliar places of death and resurrection may we be attuned to the teaching of water and give ourselves over to the mystery of the ebb and flow of life. Continue to open us to the vastness of the experience of you. In the name of God who gave and gives us new lives, In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, One God, Mother of us all, Amen. |
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| 1 For more information see Megan Rohrer’s online article “Male Brides of the Mother Christ” at http://www.meganrohrer.com/writing/trans/brides.htm |
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