What Will We Choose?
A GOSPEL OF HUMAN FLOURISHING AND LIBERATION OR A GOSPEL OF HATRED AND EXCLUSION?
Content warning: discussion about transphobia and harm towards the trans community
This passage is another complicated parable that has often been used in ways to manipulate hearers. For instance, how many of us have heard (or even worse, given a sermon) with the end goal of “encouraging” (aka guilting) listeners into providing more of their time or wealth to a church or a religious nonprofit? “God has entrusted you with a certain gift or with money and you better use it wisely or God will be very displeased with you.”
Hint: if you need to manipulate and guilt people into volunteering or donating to your cause, then you need to have an honest discussion about whether the services you provide are truly meaningful and impactful. Additionally, your theology needs to be reworked. Manipulation and guilt-tripping tactics directly contradict claims of faith in God.
But instead of interpreting this passage in a way that seeks to induce guilt in individuals for not donating/tithing enough or spending all of their waking non-working hours at church, instead, I want to focus on the idea of human flourishing and the choice we humans, on an individual and a community level have: to create a world that supports the flourishing of all, or to create a world of selfishness and greed. I argue that the first two servants are those who advocate for the flourishing of all-who practice a theology grounded in compassion and grace, while the final servant practices a theology of scarcity. God’s grace and compassion are viewed as limited resources, and as such they create a world marred by hiding and fear.
Monday, November 20th, is Transgender Remembrance Day, in which we honor all those killed because of transphobia. Unfortunately, many so-called Christians have either directly or indirectly contributed to the deaths of trans people by either outright murdering them, advocating for laws that deny trans people medical care and human rights, and/or by advocating for a theology that seeks to force trans people to deny who they are.
Too many Christians embody the third servant: they have hidden God’s grace and compassion. They promote hatred, violence, and exclusion. They at best want trans people to remain hidden- because if they are hidden, society can act as if they do not exist, and at worse advocate for a gospel of exclusion that treats trans people as second-class citizens. The theology they embrace is of a God whose compassion and grace are extremely limited that only certain people get them: typically, cisgender, heterosexual, people. (and some even add more limitations based on race. )
Christians who advocate for a Christianity that excludes and actively harms people have taken what was entrusted to them: a gospel of grace and compassion and thrown it into the ground, hiding it. They have distorted the gospel and turned it into a weapon that binds instead of liberates. They mock not only trans people but the God who made them. They create a world where not only trans people but others who do not fit the standards of acceptability: queer people, women, disabled people, those in poverty, etc are excluded. They create a world where human flourishing exists only for a small group of people. They, like the third servant, are taking God’s abundant love and treating it like trash to be discarded.
This theology is not only contrary to the gospel but it kills. Trans people are beloved children of God, made in God’s image who deserve to live long lives and to be loved. To deny this reality is in fact to deny the gospel. Many progressives are a bit squeamish regarding the last few verses of this passage, because these verses, amongst others, have been used to argue for the existence of an angry, vengeful God who allows people to be tortured in hell for all of eternity.
I get it that concept is horrific and rightfully should be rejected. However, rejecting hell does not necessarily mean rejecting accountability. Many Christians have a distorted sense of justice which is tied to violence and destruction. It does not need to be like that. For me, the last few verses do not automatically mean the existence of hell or of eternal punishment, but it does speak to the idea of accountability.
If we have the audacity to withhold grace and compassion to others, if we preach a gospel of violence and exclusion, we will be held accountable. What that accountability looks like, I don’t pretend to know. But I think we Christians need to take much more seriously the harm and violence that transphobic theology causes and recognize that preaching a gospel that directly or indirectly leads to the death of some of God’s beloved children, is an affront to God. It is blasphemous.
But it’s important to remember that the type of faith embodied by the third servant, is not the only version of faith available. We can choose to be like the first two servants who took God’s love and grace and multiplied it. We can take what God has given us: a gospel of hope, inclusion, and liberation and spread it. Doing so will not only benefit us but will foster a society where all people can flourish especially those on the margins.
When trans people are forced into hiding or murdered, God’s heart breaks. We all lose something of value when a trans person is killed or forced to hide who they are in order to survive. God desires a world where we can all flourish, where we all can live to the fullness of who we are. And God desires to work with us to create that world. We get to decide, however, whether we will allow God’s love to flourish and multiply or whether we will stifle it. We get to decide whether we will be like the two faithful servants or the selfish, third servant. I pray we have the courage to choose wisely.
Before I end this post, I want to uplift some of the trans lives lost because too many people have chosen to limit and hide God’s love and preach a gospel of hatred and exclusion. These precious lives deserve to be remembered and honored.
Please check out the website Remembering Our Dead, for profiles honoring the memory of Trans people who have died throughout the last few decades.
Image: Purple background and sky blue font. Text: When trans people are forced into hiding or murdered, God’s heart breaks.