Holding Space
Clare L. Hickman
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Ferndale
February 25, 2024—Lent 2B
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:22-30; Mark 8:31-38
We don’t like it any more than Peter does, to be honest. Jesus lays out the path ahead of him, and the only reasonable response is to say “Say it isn’t so!” and hope to hear some kind of reassurance, or maybe to brainstorm some easier ways forward. Instead, Jesus ups the ante: “and you must do the same.”
In order to make God’s kingdom come on earth, to bring us into closer alignment with the ways and values of God, these things must happen. This is what Jesus is desperate for his followers understand: I have to go to Jerusalem, because our mission has brought me into conflict with the authorities, and make no mistake: they have the worldly authority, and they are going to put me to death. But God has the ultimate authority, and God will raise me from the dead.
You too, if you wish to be my followers, will be caught up in this. You too must face the cross. But you too will also be raised from the dead.
It’s worth noting that the popular understanding of “take up your cross” misrepresents what this passage actually covers. The cross is not code for all the various pains and difficulties of this life; rather, it refers specifically to the price that you pay when you work to relieve the suffering of others in this world. Especially when that work brings you into conflict with the status quo and the powers that be!
It’s also worth noting that the cross is meaningless without the resurrection. A theology that relies solely on the death is no more sophisticated than those who believed that sacrificing an animal would appease the gods. What transforms death on a cross into salvation is the rising from the dead. By itself, the crucifixion is merely the world’s proclamation of what happens to those who go too hard on ideas like “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.” The resurrection is God’s proclamation that Kingdom work will indeed be costly, but it will bring about new life for all.
There will be suffering and death, but there will also be resurrection.
This past week, some of you might have heard about a trans non-binary teen named Nex Benedict, who was badly beaten by a group of girls in a high school bathroom in Oklahoma. Nex, who used they/them pronouns, was taken to hospital, treated and released; but the next day they were rushed back to hospital and, tragically, pronounced dead. Whether as a delayed result of head injury, or by their own hand, we do not know.
They were innocent, and (directly or indirectly) they were killed. But their death was not a cross they had to bear. Their death, and the deaths of all trans people by hate crime or suicide, are simply the kind of terrible cruelty and injustice that makes the cross necessary; their death is a sign of a world so broken that it requires Christians to take up our own crosses, in order to participate in whatever resurrection God is bringing about.
This church has welcomed and embraced a number of trans visitors and members over the years, including young ones. Many of us also have family members and other loved ones who have transitioned, or are exploring their gender identity in one way or another. Because there is a sea change in the world right now, when it comes to openness and awareness around questions of gender identity. Perhaps there is even a major surge in the phenomenon itself. It’s hard to know, and that can feel confusing. This is still new territory for many of us, and that newness can be an uncomfortable place to be.
Such discomfort presents us with two options, which are, as ever, fear or love.
The fear response, at its worst, not only indulges the discomfort but feeds and exploits it. Stoking fear and outrage has always been an extremely effective way of getting attention and votes. Which has made it easy to take the discomfort and unfamiliarity of gender exploration and spin narratives about safety and protection that ignore the testimony of the very people they claim to protect. This has then led to a whole raft of anti-trans legislation across this country, ranging from so-called “bathroom bills,” that require trans women to use the men’s room (and vice versa), to bans on gender-affirming care that take medical and psychological decisions away from the parents and doctors of trans kids.
This is the environment in which the death of Nex Benedict occurred. One in which the governor of Oklahoma recently signed just such legislation into law. One in which online activists like the one behind “Libs of TikTok,” spew hateful rhetoric, work to get teachers who are too supportive of queer kids fired, and get appointed to the Oklahoma Library Advisory board. One in which, in other words, discomfort and unfamiliarity have been encouraged toward fear and hatred.
A death-dealing environment that desperately needs the sacrificial love of the cross. That needs us to be willing to pay the price of leaning in.
It starts with our own hearts and minds. As we explore this new and unfamiliar territory, the temptation to fear, rejection and retreat might sometimes be strong. But Love calls us to be resilient enough to stay. To take on an attitude of humility, curiosity, and learning. To ask questions before passing judgment. To wonder, and listen, and read, and gain actual understanding. In other words, as I have described it before, to hold space. To acknowledge that we might not understand something, and indeed it might make us uneasy or uncomfortable, but we will nonetheless hold space for it to develop and become, and our own understanding to grow.
Perhaps this doesn’t sound painful or difficult enough to be compared to the cross. But sometimes the smaller things are more difficult, and we probably shouldn’t underestimate the challenge of remaining in a place of discomfort, or the power in choosing this kind of humility. It’s akin to what I said a few weeks ago about how hard it is to let go of our need to be right. But, in order to relieve the suffering of trans and non-binary kids and adults everywhere, we need to be willing to be uncomfortable, to acknowledge that we do not know everything, to stay and learn and grow.
There is also the need to hold space on a societal level, which requires us to pay attention to the laws that have been proposed in our own state, or perhaps enacted by your local school board, and find ways to oppose or mitigate the legislation and the rhetoric that makes life so much more dangerous for trans and queer people of all kinds, especially the kids.
Hard as it may be, this kind of costly, difficult work will always bring about resurrection. It’s the way that Jesus calls us to follow, whose destination is not simply (as Peter feared) suffering and death, but life and thriving for more of God’s children. And it is only my bone deep trust in that fact that can stop my tears in times like these (which is to say, in every time), in which God is good, and we have the opportunity to pick up our cross and participate in that goodness. May God give us the courage to do so, Amen.
They/Them by David Gate
dedicated to Nex Benedict
If God created the night & the day
& the dawn, of course
& the dusk
& the tangerine rosepink sunset
& the infant bright of morning
& the deep amethyst twilight
then to perceive the world in binary
is to forego knowledge of the divine.
And may our God, who is only Alpha and Omega because they are also every letter in between, bless you with the power to go forth and proclaim the gospel, in everything you say, and everything you do. Amen.