08/25/2026
Sunday Sermon Excerpt on gender and sexual diversity, scripture, God, and following Jesus—2000 years ago and now:
“Love is not always comfortable. The Way of Jesus is not about convenience.
And that matters in this violent, reactive, hyper-polarized moment.
Right now, we are witnessing the targeting of vulnerable minorities as a core mechanism of authoritarian consolidation. Transgender people—especially trans youth and trans women—are targets of political fear and hostility not merely as a policy agenda. This is a strategic operation.
[As Scot Nakagama writes in a letter to churches for today:]
“The function is not primarily to harm the targeted group, [though that harm is real.] The goal is to test the solidarity of potential opposition coalitions, to find and exploit fractures, and to establish a precedent: that some members of the coalition can be sacrificed when the political cost of defending them is judged too high.”
Targeting immigrants and trans people is a way of testing the rest of us to see: Who will speak? At what point will people stop standing with their neighbor? Who can be sacrificed without too much cost?
Trans people are a small minority. That is exactly why they are so easily targeted and made into a political wedge.
But if the Gospel means anything for us today, it means that we, "people of the way," followers of the way of Jesus do not abandon people because solidarity-love in action-is inconvenient or because the political cost feels too high.
It is entirely understandable that folks are still learning about gender and sexuality-that's why we do the work we're doing after worship today with Youth Outlook. It's OK to still be working through theological questions about gender, or medicine, or ministry. It's OK to get confused about pronouns.
But theological uncertainty or lack of understanding is not the same thing as—must not be the same things as—abandonment.
We do not have to have every question resolved before we decide that no child of God should be demeaned, erased, denied care, or made unsafe. We do not need perfect understanding before we practice solidarity; before we embody the love that Jesus unequivocally calls us to.”
Listen to the whole sermon at the link in bio!
