2021.06.13 | Make Way for Penguins
“Make Way for Penguins!”
Preached by
Rev. Marvin Lance Wiser
Eden United Church of Christ | Hayward, CA
13 June 2021
Thanks for the reading Athena, and Good morning Church. We’re in June and this is Pride Month! Here at Eden Church we are especially proud this year, as we are celebrating 25 years of being an Open and Affirming congregation of the United Church of Christ. In addition, our CICT team members have been participating in great SOGIE training, that is Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity / Expression. And so, when reading today’s passage in preparation for sermon prep that is where I also was, reading it through those lenses. Our spanish-language bible study, estudio bíblico, has also been dwelling with David of late, and so they too have been wrestling with David- and his masculinity. That’s what I want to hone in on a bit today. I originally thought that today was going to be Father’s Day, and so thought it a perfect theme for such an occasion, so I invite you to rethink masculinity via David with me today.
What do you think of when you think of King David? Perhaps a small boy by a babbling brook? A young harpist? Like Conan the he-man who slayed ten thousands? A renegade commander of a rebel army in pursuit of a king? A runaway seeking refuge from a mad king? An older adulterer who abused his privilege and power to force his wishes? Or a contrite psalmist after God’s own heart?
If your answer was close to one or any of these, you’re probably right. The book of Samuel and Kings is full of stories of David, and they don’t paint quite a singular picture of his life. In our reading this morning we heard of a David that was, in stark contrast to his older brothers, not tall nor broad and built out, but younger, shorter, and pretty.
While we may project a lot of our constructions of masculinity and manliness onto David- for the text supplies many that still inform these constructs for us today, we often have overlooked the fuller spectrum of David. Yes, he was the manly man who slayed Goliath, lobbed off his head and hauled it back to camp. He also, so the story goes, wrestled his lambs literally out of the mouths of lions and bears. Pretty Herculean. He was a bit like Gilgamesh, who made all the women swoon. They sang him songs. He could have had any gal his heart desired. And he wound up with the King’s daughter among others, but it was her brother’s love that he would write that was the preeminent for him, surpassing the love of women. David formed a relationship with Jonathan, the son of King Saul that was an exceptional bond. One whereby they formed a covenant together, and renewed their vows to one another. In doing so, King Saul accused Jonathan of betraying him, and cursed him and his mother as perverse for “Jonathan desiring the son of Jesse to his own shame.” For the careful reader another side of David can be read here in his love for Jonathan.
Later, in David’s life, much after the passing of his beloved Jonathan, he desired to build a temple for God, but God would never approve, because as the Chronicler tells us, David wielded violence too readily, he was a man of war, not peace. Something wounded him so deeply, more damage than any arrow could inflict, that he continued to rule with violence. As the Psalms attest, David pleaded with God for healing and forgiveness, but it was his son, Solomon, who ruled in wisdom who would build a house for the LORD.
Men, we’ve got to come to terms with our pain, our insecurities, unlearn bad teachings, deconstruct and reconstruct masculinity- for the benefit of all of creation. Toxic masculinity has been tearing the firmament at the seams, and shaking the pillars of Boaz and Yachin since the founding of the world. We know what unchecked masculinity leads to, look at Samson, yes we have strength to topple, to crush, to force into submission, but ultimately the house falls upon all of us. We all suffer on account of our unhealed wounds and unprocessed trauma.
When David in our passage was chosen as a ruler, Samuel tells us that “the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” It is with heart that we are to rule, and Proverbs guides us that it is the heart that we are to protect. For far too long, we have been taught as males to be strong, not to cry, not to show emotion, to be manly men, not pretty boys, and that to rule is to conquer. Anything else is, well feminine. And this goes waaaaay back:
Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
So God created humankind in God’s image,
in the image of God they created them;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” -Gen 1:26-28
For far too long, masculinity has been portrayed as slaying, beating into submission, ruling with an iron fist. But violence does not build the LORD’s house. Nor with violence did God intend us to partner with creation. We’ve read the Hebrew “rada” to rule for far too long. What if in its stead we were to have the English, “cultivate” or “partner”? How would this change our story- your story? Where would we be today if our primary example of masculinity were not the so many paintings of David decapitating his foe, but covenanting with Jonathan? Partnering not dominating. This is masculine too, and is the way of the LORD.
David was a full man exhibiting the full range of human experience- with shortcomings and all. Let us not bracket out his experiences that no longer align with our culture’s notions of masculine, but rather embrace him in his totality. Church, we are too often guilty of seeing the world in elementary ways, devoid of imagination of God’s grandiose diversity. We fall trap to our own nonsensical categories of binary oppositions. Things are this way or that way, black or white, good or bad, hot or cold, masculine or feminine, the list could go on and on and it does. But in so doing we exclude the middle and everything in between.
But Pastor Marvin, the verse you just read to us in Genesis so clearly states, “in the image of God they created them; male and female they created them.” I came across a viral tiktok Recently retweeted by Michaela Nicole (@micaelaatencio) on June 1st, that I think succinctly theologizes this for us. It goes like this:
“I’m non-binary, how does this reconcile with the verse, “male and female he created them,” you may ask? The variety in God’s creation emphasizes God’s creativity as an artist. Genesis gives us several examples of this.
God made “day and night.” This sounds like a binary, similar to “male and female,” right? That isn’t all we experience in 24 hours. Sunrises and sunsets do not fit into the binary of day or night. Yet God paints the skies with these too.
On the second day, God separated the sky from the water. Seems like another binary. Yet, the clouds hold water for us in the sky, the condensation and the rain cycle, refreshing our earth constantly. The sky, separate from water, contains and releases water.
God also said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” That isn’t the full story either. Consider marshes, swamps, bogs, and fens. Not fully land, not fully waters. There is such glorious variety in God’s creation.
We see another binary in the celestial bodies God made: “The greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night.” And then, almost as a footnote, “and the stars.” There is more than just sun and moon in outer space. Planets, asteroids, black holes, supernovae.
Side note: these magnificent stars are hundreds of times more massive than our sun, as simple as that to God. “and the stars.” I marvel. Hallelujah.
God created “the great sea monsters” and “every winged bird of every kind.” A split again between water and sky. Yet we see creatures like penguins that are definitely a “winged bird,” but do not fly and instead walk and swim.
And finally, “male and female God created them.” First off, intersex people exist. But, and perhaps more importantly, friends look around. Listen. Do you have friends or family that say they don’t fall under “male” or “female” If so, honor that.
Does all this variety invalidate God as creator? Of course not! I believe that this instead is an example of how authors weave words to tell a story. We see the authors in Genesis give examples of the extremes that God creates. It doesn’t exclude the possibility of more.
And so we worship the God of more. The God of the marsh, the penguin, the God of the sunrise, the cloud, the supernovae. The God of the nonbinary.
And with that Church, I say let’s make way for penguins, for sunsets, sunrises, the liminal luminaries among us. It’s time to embrace the fullness of God’s creation and our own stories, not just the parts that fit into boxes that we don’t even know who made. Take time to heal and affirm. Guys, take care of the heart. In this we can truly be proud, being an affirming, healing church outside the box. Amen.