I want you to notice the Saints of the Week in your SunBurst. You’ll notice a pair of eunuchs, a gender and sexual minority in antiquity, Protus and Hyacinth, who may have been a couple as well. You’ll notice their mentee, St. Eugenia, who was assigned female identity at birth but who lived in adulthood as a man and even became the abbot of a monastery. Queer people of faith are nothing new. Mychal Judge is on the list, a chaplain (and gay man) who risked and lost his life ministering to the wounded in the 9/11 NYC attack.
You’ll notice Walter Righter, an episcopal bishop and straight man who was brought up on heresy charges for ordaining a gay man to the diaconate. His church has come a long way since then. You’ll notice the martyrs of Birmingham, children killed by hatred, by bigotry, by violence stirred by dangerous rhetoric. Yes, hate speech leads to hateful actions. You’ll notice Mary, the Mother of Jesus. It was Mary who sang that revolutionary song in Luke’s gospel: “My soul magnifies the Lord And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, who has regarded my humble state… God scatters the arrogant in the conceit of their hearts. God has put down the mighty from their thrones, and has exalted the lowly. God fills the hungry with good things, and the rich God has sent away empty…” She prays for tyrannical leaders to fall, for those whose greed causes them to overlook others’ need to know what it feels like to be overlooked, for the hungry to be fed, and she affirms that the lowly, the poor, the unmarried pregnant teen is noticed and loved by God. #Saints #Faith #LGBTQ+History #Inclusivity #SocialJustice #ReligiousDiversity #Acceptance #Equality