A theology beyond divisions and binaries

This is a reflection from Sofia during our Reconciling in Christ Hymn Festival Worship Service on Sunday June 29th

Our world may be full of divisions and binaries, but it’s also full of people who live in the

both and the many.

Maybe you’re both a partner and a caregiver. Both someone known for helping others and someone who needs help.

Maybe you love more than one gender or identify with more than one gender.

Maybe you fit somewhere in between.

Maybe you identify with more than one race or have roots in multiple cultures.

Maybe you feel both hopeful and hopeless, or both grief and relief.

Maybe it feels both like you’re healing and yet are not healed.

Maybe after trauma or illness or gender dysphoria, your body is yours but it also feels like it’s not.

Maybe you’re on the precipice of something new, thrilled and yet deeply saddened

to leave something behind.

Maybe you feel too much of “this” for that place but not enough of “that” for the other place.

Maybe you feel like you can never show up as just yourself.

Maybe you look inside to your “both or many” and it makes you feel joy.

Or maybe you look inside to see this and it makes you feel really alone.

Now I’d like you to think about God the Creator, who is everything and made everything and who is all around us.

God, the pillars of fire and cloud, God the burning bush, God the thunder and wind, God in our dreams and God in our hearts.

And when God created the world God created things that are both and in between: twilight and sunrise, fog and frogs, marshes and shorelines and us.

Jesus came into our world as both a child and a savior.

He was completely human and completely divine.

He knew the struggles of a world that rejected him.

He felt fear and sorrow.

He was human.

And he was God.

The Holy Spirit comes to us in as many different ways as there are people on this planet.

The Spirit is fluid.

The Spirit is everywhere, in all the spaces between.

The Spirit feels like a fire, a breath, a song, a friend.

God of many faces, many genders, many names, our world reflects you.

God is both, God is all, God is everything.

And when we are both or many things, we reflect the holy nature of our God - even when we feel like the way we exist is too complicated for this world.

Maybe we’re still searching to understand our feelings or define ourselves in ways we can't yet put into words.

But the next time we say “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” I want you to remember that God’s holiness is a part of you, too.

Amen (let it be so)