A few months ago, the notoriously short attention span of the
U.S. media focused for a brief moment on the experience of transgender people –
folks who don’t identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. The
catalyst for this momentary fascination with a group that is often ignored or
mocked in media representation was Caitlyn Jenner’s decision to come out as
trans and subsequently to appear on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine. I didn’t quite understand the media buzz; my fiancée
had to explain to me that prior to coming out as trans, Jenner was well-known and
loved as a Cold War-era Olympic decathalon gold medalist and All-American Wheaties
box celebrity.
I don’t
usually spend a lot of time reflecting on the U.S. celebrity scene, and this is
the first and likely the last time that I’ve ever mentioned Vanity Fair in a sermon. But in all of
the buzz around Caitlyn Jenner’s cover shoot, one response in particular caught
my attention. The actress Laverne Cox, star of the hit HBO series Orange is the New Black and herself a
trans woman, posted a reflection on her blog, of which I will quote only a
brief excerpt. She writes:
“I am so moved by all the love and support Caitlyn is
receiving….Yes, Caitlyn looks amazing and is beautiful but what I think what is
most beautiful about her is her heart and soul, the ways she has allowed the world
into her vulnerabilities….For me it is necessary everyday to celebrate every
aspect of myself especially those things about myself that don’t align with
other people’s ideas about what is beautiful….Most trans folks don’t have the
privileges Caitlyn and I have now have. It is those trans folks we must
continue to lift up, get them access to healthcare, jobs, housing, safe
streets, safe schools and homes for our young people. We must lift up the
stories of those most at risk, statistically trans people of color who are poor
and working class. I have hoped over the past few years that the incredible
love I have received from the public can translate to the lives of all trans
folks.”[i]
I was struck
by the power of this reflection. I should mention, for those unfamiliar with
Ms. Cox, that she is a woman of color. She is someone who has faced multiple forms
of societal stigma – as a woman, as a trans person, and as a person of color –
using the media spotlight to lift up the needs and voices of those with less
privilege than herself.
I – a white,
straight, cisgender male – find myself deeply humbled by Ms. Cox’s witness. How
easy it is for me, on a daily basis, to forget my privilege, the unearned
status and power granted to me by USAmerican society. For me to learn a lesson
about the importance of using one’s status to amplify the voices of those less
privileged – and to learn this lesson from a transwoman of color – is to enter
into a space of self-reflection and repentance that I associate with
encountering the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Ms. Cox does
not identify as a Christian. She has spoken in interviews about her upbringing
in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and how she has come to understand
and practice her spirituality outside of the institution of American
Christianity.[ii] But to me, her words
strike a deep, resonating chord within the prophetic and pastoral tradition of
our religious heritage. In her refusal to hide behind the power of celebrity
status or beauty standards, and her decision to identity instead with those who
share aspects of identity often targeted for violence, Laverne Cox reminds me
of another celebrity woman: the biblical character of Esther.
The book of
Esther, as many commentators have pointed out, is not a historical record, nor
is it particularly theological – God does not appear in the story at all.[iii]
Rather, it’s something like a fairy tale – though a pretty grim one, if you’ll
excuse the pun. It is a story of palace intrigues and political rivalries, of
gender and ethnic violence, of the folly of power and the surprising ability of
individuals to challenge the status quo. The main character, Esther, is a young,
status-less Jewish woman who becomes a princess because she happens to meet the
objectifying beauty standards of the Persian court. This, indeed, would seem
like a fairy-tale-princess dream come true, if not for the horrifying violence
on the horizon. In the scene which we read this morning, Esther’s cousin Mordecai
informs her of a plot in the royal court to massacre all of their people – for no
reason other than a petty rivalry between Mordecai and Haman, the king’s chief
courtier.
At first, Esther, who has hidden her Jewish identity from the
court, reacts defensively. She sends him new clothes, so that he will stop embarrassing
himself with his public acts of mourning and protest. She tries to explain to
him that she is a marginalized individual, with no power to change things in
the king’s court. Her reaction is, I think, quite understandable – she is
young, and scared, and sticking one’s neck out in this situation is likely to
end with that neck on a chopping block.
And Mordecai
tells her, essentially: “Look, don’t think that your status will protect you.
You’re one of us. We will all share the same fate.” And then, that powerful
line: “Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”
And
suddenly, it’s as if something shifts inside of Esther. She has been largely
reactive up to this point in the story, but now she orders her older, male
cousin to take action; she commands a fast; and, over the course of the
following chapters, she sets into place a clever strategy to get the king on
her side and to disrupt the plot against her people.
The story,
like many fairy tales, ends violently, with a happy ever after for the good
guys and a horrifying end for the bad guys. But it’s not the climax of the
story that interests me today; rather, it’s this moment when Esther comes to
see with new eyes and speak with a new, powerful voice – or should I say, her
own voice, a voice that must have been waiting inside of her, longing to be let
out. Esther stops hiding behind the privileged aspects of her identity and instead
chooses to act from her most vulnerable, endangered identity. It is that identity which creates connection
with others, rather than isolating her in the illusion of security and the desperate
loneliness of affluence. She turns down the false promises of upward mobility, exchanging
them for the risky action of societally-downward solidarity. In doing so,
Esther is able to use her status and privilege to affect change, to challenge
violent systems of power, and to save her people.
Esther’s insight speaks
powerfully into our situation today, as a church and as a society. We are
terrified of vulnerability, terrified of shame – and, paradoxically, this
prevents us, particularly those of us with a high level of status and
privilege, from naming and claiming our own ability to make change. And so in
2014 when women responded to the misogynistic manifesto of a mass shooter in California
by posting stories on social media with the tag, #YesAllWomen, many men
responded – not by joining together to end sexist violence – but rather by
starting their own campaign, called #NotAllMen.” When the #BlackLivesMatter
movement began, protesting police violence against unarmed African American men
and women, many white folks responded – not by joining the effort to end police
violence and racism – but instead by insisting on the slogan “All Lives Matter.”
In fact, just recently, several Black Lives Matter signs hanging outside of churches in Maryland and DC were
vandalized to erase the word “black.”[iv]
That’s privilege at work, denying rather
than challenging violence and
discrimination. And meanwhile, the church in the U.S. spends its time fighting
amongst itself and worrying about whether or not it will survive for another
few years.
Do we see how different
this is from the decision of Esther? Do we see how much we have to learn from
the risk-taking young princess of this Jewish fairy tale?
Centuries after the
fabled Persian court portrayed in the story of Esther, another young Jew grappled
with questions of power and vulnerability, upward mobility versus downward solidarity.
Writing to the church in Philippi, the apostle Paul admonished them: “Let the
same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of
God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied
himself.” Interestingly, modern translators have added the word “though,” which
does not exist in the original Greek. We read, “Christ who, though he was in the form of God,
emptied himself.” But the actual text reads something like, “Christ who was in
the form of God, emptying himself.” We decided
that there was some sort of contradiction between who God is and the idea of
emptying oneself, of identifying with the vulnerable and the marginalized. We decided that choosing to give up
power and status is somehow out of character for God.[v]
But the Christ we
Christians claim to follow, the God we claim to put our faith in, does not shy
away from vulnerability. This God does not hide behind power or status or
beauty in order to avoid risk. This God, this Christ, identifies with the
threatened and the excluded. This God, this Christ, tells us that beauty and
power and status are nothing except
opportunities to speak out for and with those who have been denied such
privilege.
And when I am tempted
to say, “Look, I don’t really have that much power. I can’t really change
things. It’s too risky. I’m too vulnerable.”
Or when churches wring
anxious hands about shrinking budgets and empty pews, wondering whether we will
ever ascend back to our former glory at the center of societal prestige.
This God, I believe, speaks
– though just like in the book of Esther, not always directly. God speaks through
the scandalous grief and protest of those whose people are threatened with
violence, through young women who find their voice to challenge the status quo,
through trans women of color, through countless marginalized people all over
our land – this God speaks.
And says:
Perhaps, you have come
to your current place of privilege for just such a time as this.
Amen.
Amen.
[i]
From Laverne Cox’s tumblr blog: http://lavernecox.tumblr.com/post/120503412651/on-may-29-2014-the-issue-of-timemagazine
[ii] “Laverne
Talks Spirituality with Miss Ross Live”: http://www.missross.com/laverne-talks-spirituality-ross-live/
[iii] Sidnie
White Crawford, “Esther Introduction,” in The
New Interpreter’s Study Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 2003), 689-690.
[iv] Petula
Dvorak, “The ugly message behind erasing ‘Black’ from ‘Black Lives Matter’
signs,” The Washington Post, 6 August
2015, available: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/the-ugly-message-behind-erasing-black-from-black-lives-matter-signs/2015/08/06/1d87a892-3c57-11e5-9c2d-ed991d848c48_story.html
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