Jesus would've been a drag mother

 

Ephesians 1: 3-14
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
July 11, 2021

Marsha P. Johnson, one of the founding mothers of gay liberation

When I hear the word ‘adoption’ used in scripture, I am reminded of an old friend who tells another layer of the story every year of how he came to be with his parents and his siblings, each of whom have passed on, and now he has found his birth mother and his sister. Each year when he was a child, he would ask his parents why he was put up for adoption, and his mother would reply, “Your mother and father loved you very much, but they knew that they couldn't take care of you, and they wanted you to be adopted by a family who could.” His family called the day he came home, and both of his siblings came home, Chosen Day.

Recently I found out that I am a child of adoption…of sorts. Through DNA testing of two of my father’s brothers, it was discovered that they had no Robinson DNA, that is, there were no DNA links to our line of the Robinson family tree. My grandfather, Richard S. Robinson Sr., was not the biological son of my great-grandfather, Walter Raymond Robinson. My great-grandparents eloped to Biddeford, ME in 1912 and didn’t tell anyone they were married for two years. No one knows why. They lived apart during that time for obvious reasons. In February 1914, the local paper announced their marriage with the headline “Kept Secret for Two Years”. My grandfather was born later that year in September. No one knows how or why my great-grandmother became acquainted with the man to whom we do have a DNA link. All we do know is that my great-grandfather raised my grandfather as his own son.

Whenever we open our lives and our hearts to another human being, to another living creature, to community, we are making a choice that will impact our life, their life, for the rest of our lives, having really no idea where that choice will lead us. For some people that choice is a matter of life and death, a matter of survival. Many, most likely millions of gay, queer, and transgender folx have had to find chosen family because their family of origin rejected them. In fact, a whole culture of chosen family evolved because particularly Black and Latinx queer and transgender folx had literally nowhere else to go.

It was an underground culture called ballroom, mostly in large cities like New York, Philly, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., dating back to the 1880’s. Drag queens, gay men, and transgender women with enough resources, would take in homeless queer and gender-nonconforming folx, essentially adopting them into their House, providing safety, identity, and mutual support. These Houses would vie against each other in themed ballroom competitions that were a combination of costume presentation, posing, lip syncing, and dance. Ball culture was comfort and refuge, a community where everyone could be who they truly were. It was and continues to be both an act of resistance and a celebration of life, especially during the AIDS crisis and the persistent violence against the LGBTQIA community.

Even though gay, queer, and transgender folx now have much more visibility in the media and there are 17 states with explicit protections, this community continues to suffer discrimination that is egregious. This year alone 33 states have introduced over 100 bills designed to restrict the rights, housing, employment, and healthcare of transgender individuals. 80% of Americans say they are not personally acquainted with anyone who is transgender and so most of their misperceptions and assumptions come from the media. In the past 5 years, 75% of trans or gender non-conforming people killed have been Black transgender women. Though we may have empathy, we have no idea what it is like to wake up every day in this country with such existential dread and trauma as this.

Rev. Derrick Porter, formerly of the Newark Methodist Church, said, “The beginning of justice is when we make their problems our problems.” How and where are we in material solidarity with those who suffer? How do our lives intersect? Lawyer and social justice activist Bryan Stevenson has said that we must be proximate to those who suffer from and experience inequality, that if we are willing to do things that feel uncomfortable, to get closer to people who are suffering, we will find the power to change the world. Which is another way of saying, “I am willing to disrupt my life for you”.

I know that taking responsibility for another human being or group of human beings is a tremendous decision. And yet when we recall the stories of Jesus calling his disciples, what did we think was happening? Jesus was creating a chosen family, a House of his own, a roving home for God. And that through living a human life, Paul declared that God adopted, chose all of humankind as God’s children—at least that’s how Paul understood it as a Jew speaking to Gentiles who were new to following the way of Jesus. Jesus was a drag mother because God is a drag mother.

I think if humanity and this planet is going to survive, we will need to adopt one another, make family of each other, become siblings, be even more proximate and available to those who suffer. Of course, empire is the exact opposite of this. Our culture is set up for independence, competition, entitlement, self-interest, an earned place at the table. Which is also where all our problems and all the isms come from.

When we speak of growing the church, one thing it is most certainly about is inviting people to join us in being more proximate and available to those who suffer, to choose them as family. It is not about the future of the church but the future of humanity, if there is to be a hopeful future. A prophetic voice is not one with which we nod our heads in agreement but from which we are tempted to turn our heads away. If Jesus is our drag mother, sometimes he is dragging us kicking and screaming into the kindom. If all God’s children are to receive an inheritance of mercy and justice, we will have to give up some of ours.

Someone on Twitter asked the question “Tell me why you still love Christ (even if the label Christian isn’t one you claim) in 5 words or less”. Many replied with, “Because he first loved me”. Because Christ chose me, which is what this passage is all about. Or is it? My answer was, “It's never been about me”. Christ chose us, God adopted us, not for our sakes but for those who have been rejected, who need to know they are chosen and beloved, to know God’s love with skin on it.

Why do we do this? For joy—the joy that comes from liberating and being liberated, the joy that comes with the freedom for all of us to be who we truly are, to be refuge for those who need refuge, comfort for those who need comfort, mercy and justice for those who require mercy and justice. What greater joy is there than knowing who we truly are and what we are living for?

(clip from the 2014 movie "Pride")

Thanks be to God, known to us in the Way of Jesus, that love that chose us so that we would recognize this sacred mystery in all genders, all colors, all of humanity.




Benediction – enfleshed.com

Go forth: neighbor, sibling, sage,
caregiver, comrade, confidant,
soul-friend, Drag Mother, grandparent,
godchild, foster child, inner-child —
lean into the lushness
of your own belonging, that you might
widen your web of chosen family
through ordinary acts of Love.