A Letter from Pastor Ray

By now, our country will have cast their votes for the next President of the United States, marking an end to one of the most polarizing and inflammatory elections of our nation’s history.

No doubt the tension and anxiety for many will run high throughout the rest of the week before the President elect is certified, and possibly well beyond depending on the outcome.

It is tempting as people pursuing meaning and safety to seek refuge in answers of power and certainty; however, knowing that reality does not always afford us this, what comfort might we find in the life and teachings of Jesus? At Kaleidoscope, regardless of where you might be coming from, I believe LGBTQ+ people following or exploring Jesus have a unique insight into a story of the Bible that speaks to all of us who await the results.

Regardless of where you might be coming from, LGBTQ+ people following or exploring Jesus have unique insights for those of us who await the results.

As written in John 18, moments before Jesus is arrested and tried to be executed, one of His followers Peter draws a sword and cuts off the ear of the servant of the high priest. The response of Jesus is captivating as it is challenging; He reaches out His hand toward a man whose own hand would guide Him toward His death and He heals the wound, saying, “Put away your sword.”

Aside from the fact that this story appears in all four gospel accounts, it stands out as one that has much to speak to us about the posture and attitude exemplified by our Lord and Savior in a setting of political violence, governmental corruption, and zealous fanaticism in every corner of society – much like our country today. It is no small thing that John particularly mentions the servant’s name as Malchus, which in Greek translates to “kingdom.”

The kingdom of God and the way of Jesus are what we, much like Peter, often inadvertently take up the sword against, even as we believe we are standing for the right values or the right person or simply the right side. And yet the language of “What do you stand for?” and “Which one do you support?” has led to two major phenomena that have damaged our ability to move forward as a nation:

1. Dehumanization

In our passion and our efforts to fight for the outcome we seek in this election, it has become far too easy to minimize the inherent dignity and value of those we see as the opposition. Within a week, we saw leaders and representatives from both parties use the word “garbage” to refer to large groups of people and exchange hatred for hatred. So, too, our violence often comes by way of silencing the stories of the “other,” by punishing those with the perception of complicity, and by shaming or humiliating those who fail to behave or speak or vote as we do. Too often we have also reduced groups of people on both sides to sensationalized news headlines and bureaucratic talking points. The demonization of one leads naturally to the idolization of another, and we have seen that in the inflated hopes we have put upon any one candidate in this election.

Jesus was dehumanized into a political pawn by leaders. Yet Jesus refused to be placed on a pedestal that would victimize and degrade His opponents.

Jesus, too, was dehumanized to the point of being a political pawn and a power grab between the religious leaders and the government officials. And yet Jesus, too, refused to be placed on a pedestal that would result in the victimization and degradation of His opponents. Impossible and painful as it may seem, in Jesus I see the call to recognize the fundamental worth and belovedness of those made in God’s image – even those who have power over us. We are called to humanize others through humble, patient, often frustrating efforts to listen to the perspectives and concerns of those who are seen as the “enemy.” To perpetually keep people’s names off our lips and stories off our hearts is perhaps one of the most insidious forms of violence towards the children of our Creator.

2. Disengagement

We have made it possible through social media to both connect with a wider variety than ever before of people, yet also become more disconnected than ever before from them. Making a post that will disappear after 24 hours gives us the illusion of engagement and the excuse to return to our regular, often unaffected lives after having signaled our positioning on the “correct” side of virtue. By dehumanizing one another in our rhetoric, by grouping each other into sides and tribes that we can largely condemn, we actually begin to move further away from the real individuals involved – especially those in our local community. This tendency is the very thing that causes us to disengage from our neighbor, for it is always easier to say that we stand with an ideal than to be in relationship with the person sitting next to us. It is always easier to say that we support (or even donate to) a cause than to become personally involved with those around us who are actually impacted.

When we engage by dehumanizing, we move further away from real individuals, especially those in our local community. We disengage from our neighbor.

When our democracy becomes minimized to the way we vote or the words we say, we forget the call to choose public involvement in a way that goes far beyond what happens once every four years. Make no mistake: the results of the election do matter, for they will challenge us to determine the way in which we must daily work from the ground up for the society that we are all trying to see come to this earth. The spiritual forces of dehumanization and demonization, disengagement and divisiveness fight regularly to keep us paralyzed out of fear, hatred, or apathy. Our true Enemy would like nothing more than for callous lack of participation in God’s kingdom masked by the guise of self-righteousness.

As Queer people at Kaleidoscope who may have come from a spiritual background or are exploring faith, we relate to the compulsion to look back on our own stories of rejection, marginalization, and dehumanization. We often feel that the only way to move forward is to retaliate with the same toxicity and vitriol that has been given to us. Even in the effort to hold accountable and disempower those who continue harm, we recognize the temptation to become just as violent and hostile as the actions that have been inflicted upon us.

And yet, wherever we are coming from or whatever we might believe, we also are called by God to the radical generosity and kindness toward our enemies that Christ Jesus displayed toward us. We seek to work daily, not just as individuals, but as an organization here at Kaleidoscope, to live out the kingdom of God and become the Church that we would like to see in this world — the Church that has always been most influential when it has not seized power, but freely emptied itself of it.

We seek to work daily, as individuals and as an organization, to become the Church we wish to see in the world: one whose influence comes from the messy work of being personally involved in the concerns of our neighbors.

In Jesus, we see a God who humanized the lowest of the poor and afflicted in our society, as well as the highest of the wealthy and the powerful — not just through words and sentiments, but through self-sacrificial love and service of those that included His opposition. In Jesus, we see a God who became personally involved in the needs and concerns of those around Him — not just through positions and statements, but through messy and often undesirable work that ultimately culminated in His sacrifice for us on the cross.

And so the question I challenge us to wrestle with is not, “What will you stand for?” but rather, “What are you willing to lay down your life for?”

When November 6th comes, what will you wake up and choose that day, and the next, and the one after? What local causes or community organizations can you participate in to bring about the changes you’d like to see in our country? And who are the people Jesus is calling you to humanize and engage in a way that will build bridges and heal divides?

This, we believe, is a hope made real by our faith in a God who is already working out a larger narrative to restore and to reconcile all of creation.

For it is not unfamiliar at Kaleidoscope for us, as Queer Christians, to see two things come together that seem impossible.

– Pastor Ray Low (he/him)