Rev’s Mid-Week Thought

Greeting’s My Wentz’s Tribe, Tomorrow is the first day of LGBTQ Pride Month. I am excited to celebrate with each of you. To be clear, you don’t have to be LGBTQI to celebrate. Many of us have children, grandchildren, family, and friends who are part of the LGBTQI community, not to mention folks who call Wentz’s home. Over the last few weeks, I have been thinking about my journey. Contemplating my own story. How did I get from there to this moment in time? Theologian Howard Thurman posed the question that I used in my work with men and women leaving long-term incarceration “Who Am I, and what do I really want?” This is a question most of us have asked ourselves at some point in our lives. We have a deep need to find some answer to that question. We look for the answer in many places. We try to find our identity through social groups, affinity groups, political affiliations, and athletics, to name a few. The truth is we are very interested in ourselves. Many of us have come to know God because we desperately needed to know ourselves (Lord, tell me who I am, what is my purpose?) In the 32nd Chapter of Genesis, Jacob was a leader with a limp who was privileged to know who he was, resulting from a divine encounter. A struggler, Jacob wrestled with the only one who could give answers to his questions. He wrestled with God. Jacob was his mother’s favorite. In today’s vernacular, he was a momma’s boy! While Esau, his twin brother, was a manly man who hunted and killed the game, Jacob baked cookies and tried new recipes. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with boys baking cookies and trying new recipes. There are some of us who can relate. Jacob was softer and more timid, but he was also more dangerous. It wasn’t long before Jacob learned to be manipulative, tricky, and cunning. Only when his shadiness brought him to a dead end did he begin to struggle with God for an answer. In the 27th Chapter of Genesis, Isaac, the son of Abraham, had become old. The Bible indicates, “Isaacs’s eyes had become dim.” Isaac called for Esau so he could bestow upon him his blessing, making him the family leader. Still, Jacob pretended to be Esau and stole the blessings. Now Jacob is in trouble because Esau wants to kill him for what he did. He’s in trouble and doesn’t know what to do. Jacob, whose name in Hebrew means trickster, was left alone with God. Beloveds, we cannot accomplish our purpose, our why, until we have one-on-one time with God. It took an encounter with a God Jacob couldn’t “scam” to bring this young man to a place of surrender where he blurted out, “I won’t let you go until you bless me.” Then God tells him what he really needs to know. He tells Jacob that he’s not who he thinks he is. The fact is he is really Israel, a prince. Wentz’s family, like Jacob, when we seek to know God, the divine will inevitably show us our identity. Showing you and me who we really are. God revealing his name was the greatest blessing this young man ever received. Imagine how life-altering it was for this dysfunctional boy to find he wasn’t who he thought he was. Everyone had been calling him something he wasn’t. All his life, he had been called a trickster. Wentz’s, a name cannot be overvalued. It tells us where you and I come from and where we are going. Words have power! “Life and death are in the power of the tongue.” Many of us are walking under the stigma of what someone else called us who really didn’t understand who we were. We see this dynamic today around pronouns. Honestly, I get tickled when people lose their complete minds over pronouns that don’t fit neatly with their understanding of someone else’s gender. I read not long ago some people railing against the makers of M&M’s, Bud Light and Target for being too gender-affirming. Really? We will have a meltdown over what someone else wants to be called? As for me, I won’t lose one bit a sleep over your pronouns. I hope you will not either. Early in my education, I was deemed slow by some teachers and the administration. Fortunately, I had parents who understood in those days the stigma that would attach itself to me, a young African American male. They fought back by insisting I stay in a regular classroom and decided to give me the gift of time by holding me back a year in the 1st grade. The issue with me was emotional maturity and not academic prowess. Needless to say, I graduated high school on time with my original class and have several advanced degrees. The feeling associated with what others called you or think about you can limit you as you strive forward. We have to get to the point where it doesn’t matter what other people think. Even if it’s only you who knows who God says you are. Understanding your new name is for your own edification. 27 So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.” Genesis 32:27-28