written for the LOVEBoldly Devotional by our Rector, The Rev. Karl Stevens.

My trans friends are the most courageous prophets I’ve ever known. Again and again, they go and stand before the rulers of this earth and offer a vision of hope. They reveal this vision to representatives and governors, bishops and priests. They are fearlessly willing to speak a better world into being.

Walter Brueggemann, the great scholar of the Hebrew Scriptures, wrote that “the task of prophetic imagination and ministry is to bring to public expression those very hopes and yearnings that have been denied so long and suppressed so deeply that we no longer know they are there.” When a prophet stands before the powerful, their words and presence refuse to accept all of the stories and excuses and obfuscations that the powerful have used to convince themselves that reality is static, that things can’t change, that the way the world is now is the only way that it can be. The prophet points to a future that is radically different then the present, and they do so at great risk to themselves.

To listen to the voice of the powerful, to believe that change isn’t possible, is to despair. There are times when I give in to this despair, not in a dramatic way, not by tearing my hair out or rolling in tears upon my bed, but by becoming complacent, by saying that I want a better world while demonstrating my contentment with the way things are through my actions or inaction. It is then that the trans prophets come to bless me, extolling their vision of hope, speaking of the experiences that made them courageous, revealing the way that God has been present in their lives, and insisting on a future in which our society will emulate God’s love and care for them.

Reflection

What hopes and yearnings have you suppressed or denied, and how might your experience of God’s love allow you to express them?

What vision of the future gives you hope?

Action

Try to adopt a practice of hope-mongering. At least once a week, write down some change in society (a law that is passed, a decline in addiction rates, a demonstration of solidarity for those who are being oppressed) that gives you hope.

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