Pastoral, Liturgical, Teaching, and Social Justice Moments brought to you by DignityUSA.

Breath of the Spirit is our electronic spiritual and liturgical resource for our members and potential members. Nothing can replace your chapter or other faith community, but we hope you will find further support here for integrating your spirituality with your sexuality and all the strands of your life.

Too often the internalized shame that any Christian may feel based on the idea of original sin is exponentially inflicted on LGBTQ+ and other minoritized communities as we are told in, so many words, that we are defective. In myriad ways, society tells us that who we love, the color of our skin, the way we talk, or even our gender is not what it “should” be. The accumulated result can be a pervading sense that we are damaged, less than human, and even unlovable. Today’s readings soundly refute and reject such damaging doctrine by reminding each one of us that we are formed by and in Love. We are created as a unique manifestation of Love’s own self, missioned and destined to share that love with one another. Our original state is not damaged, but delighted in – a condition so precious Jesus fiercely fought for it in life and in death – and God confirmed it in resurrection!

January 30, 2022: Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time 

Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19
Psalm 71:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 15-17
1 Cor 12:31—13:13 or 13:4-13
Luke 4:21-30

We are originally, and fiercely, blessed!

We are originally blessed!  Yes, we are…and it bears repeating…WE. ARE. ORIGINALLY. BLESSED!  As queer people, as people of color, as queer people of color, as women, as people living with disabilities, as people minoritized and marginalized, we are no strangers to messages from the church and from other societal institutions that we are less-than …. We receive messages that we are second class citizens, that we don’t deserve or have a right to receive sacraments. We have to constantly justify our very existence to counter the harmful and dehumanizing rhetoric that pervades all parts of society onto all parts of our being and living.  Sadly, many of us have internalized these messages which has led to higher rates of mental health issues, self-harm, violence, and suicide within many minoritized communities.   

And then there are the readings of today. The prophet Jeremiah, the psalmist, and Paul all knew that we would need reminders that we are equally blessed, that we have worth, and that we are created with the fierceness of Divine Love. Many of us raised in conservative Catholic homes are very familiar with the teaching on original sin and how we enter the world “defective.” However, Jeremiah, the psalmist, and Paul offer us an alternative, radical, revolutionary truth – we were known by God in the womb, we were loved by God from the very beginning, our births are not passages into a life of shame but a life of sacred possibilities. There is no mention of us being stained or dirty; quite the opposite, we are beheld and beloved by God as holy and sacred. Why do we forget this teaching? Why do we focus so much on sin? Why does the Church coercively make us feel icky about ourselves and our lives? How might our lives be different, and possibly more hope-filled and spiritually healthier, if we focused on “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.”? Tragically, many of us were taught theologies that made us feel guilty, shameful, and less-than (and this doesn’t even scratch the surface of how many of these feelings are intensified by also being a queer person). The readings today offer a transgressive message:  we are originally blessed, period.  

With this blessing comes responsibility. We were loved from the womb and from the womb called to embody that love in actions. As the late writer, activist, and prophet bell hooks said:  

Love is an action, never simply a feeling … there can be no love without justice … the moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression; the moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom; to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others; that action is the testimony of love as the practice of freedom.” 

These words said and lived by bell hooks resonate with Paul in his letter to the Corinthians.  Love is felt, experienced, embodied, and expressed—sometimes with words, sometimes with actions, hopefully with and through both.  Love does not have to be expressed in grandiose gestures and pronouncements.  It is lived into when we say, “Hello,” and “Thank you,” to the cashier at the grocery store, use a person’s pronouns, practice and encourage self-care, recycle and compost, listen to, and center the voices of, minoritized individuals/groups, share petitions through social media, write letters to the editor, etc. One of the guiding truths for early Christians was (and should continue to be!): “they will know them by their love.” 

I close with a few ramblings about the Gospel. It’s an interesting story about Jesus’ interaction with others in the synagogue. Part of me is intrigued, part of me is confused, part of me doesn’t know quite what to do with it. In reflecting over the other readings that center how we are beloved from the womb and our call to live that love in actions, Jesus’ interaction doesn’t seem to connect. Many often focus on “no prophet is accepted in his own native place” as a reflection that speaking truth to power and embodying justice can make us unpopular and comes with risk.   However, I would like to focus on the end of the reading: “But Jesus passed through the midst of them and went away.” Jesus owned who he was, he owned his voice, he owned his experience, and he owned his witness. Jesus knew he was loved by God and was living out that love in action (from healing, to turning tables, to lifting up women as examples of faith, to the passion and resurrection).  He owned the love he felt for himself and for others – love that he feels for us now.  By owning it, he “sissied that walk” as RuPaul would say; that is, Jesus defiantly, pridefully, and lovingly moved beyond the haters. And because Jesus owned his loving and lovedness – the haters couldn’t touch him! A truth so deep it manifested even when they killed him. May we own our own loving and lovedness, and may we help others own this truth with Jesus’ same fierceness, boldness, and sassiness. We are originally – and fiercely – blessed. Period.