I’m Not A Woman, I’m Not a Man, I Am Something That You’ll Never Understand

A Re-telling of Mark 8:31–38

(Because if Eugene Peterson can do it, so can I!)

Then Jesus told them that he was about to publicly transition into a new form of humanity. They would fully enter into their identity as a child of God, so their divinity and humanity would both shine through with such radiance that everyone would immediately know that they were a God-Human. But then Jesus warned them that becoming the God-Human meant that they must undergo great suffering, be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, because they would not be able to accept this transition. And because this world likes its binaries and can’t handle a both/and existence, they would be killed. But after three days, the power of divinity and humanity combined would allow the God-Human to demonstrate that living with God’s love for one’s full, authentic self was stronger than any force of death.

Jesus said this openly for they planned to do all of this openly and wanted the disciples to support them. But Peter, distraught, took Jesus to the side and rebuked them, explaining that while Peter personally supported Jesus in whoever Jesus wanted to be, they shouldn’t be so public about it. After all, everyone knew that the Messiah was supposed to be a man who would come an conquer the enemies of Israel and establish a new everlasting kingdom. All this stuff about uniting divine love with human existence to become new creation was just going to distract everyone from the goal of victory over the Roman Empire and the conquest of the world in God’s name. And besides, Peter explained that he loved Jesus and didn’t want to see anything bad happen to them. Why couldn’t Jesus just keep all of that transitioning stuff to themselves to stay safe, rather than risk death.

But turning and looking to the disciples Jesus rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Jesus called the crowd with the disciples to make sure that everyone knew that there was no going back on their transition to a new identity — though it had truly been Jesus’ identity all along, just hidden to the rest of the world — and no going back on the mission that would follow from such a transition. Jesus said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. And when I say deny themselves, I don’t mean that they need to hate themselves. That’s completely incongruous with literally everything I’ve been saying or doing. I mean that you need to deny your pride, your privilege, your self-interest, your posturing, and reject the oppression of people who try to keep you from living as who God lovingly made you to be. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake — the one who transitions to new creation and invites you all to join me on this road to death and new life — and for the sake of the gospel of salvation and forgiveness, will save it.

You can’t save yourselves. You can only accept that God has saved you as you are. For what will it profit you to gain the whole world and forfeit your life? Indeed, what can you give in return for your life? There is nothing more precious than yourself. So don’t be ashamed of who you are. Don’t let any other powers tell you who you can and cannot be. For those who are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation — and to be clear when I say adulterous I am talking about this generation’s obsession with money and power, NOT sex; seriously, this imagery can be traced back to the prophets and it should be obvious by this point that I’m cool with whatever sex life you feel called to so long as it’s safe, consensual, and respectful — of them the God-human will also be ashamed when they come into the glory of God with the holy angels. Not that I’ll hate you or anything, that’s not really my MO. That’s just to say that if you’re ashamed of the self that I have created, saved, and freed you to be, then I’ll be pretty ashamed that you weren’t able to live with the love I intended for you. We don’t play by the rules of power, Peter. We play by the rules of love. And that means loving who you are and who you become, no matter what. And that means that we’re going to suffer, so let’s be there for one another as we live as who we are, rather than trying to fit one another in neat little oppressive boxes, alright? The world is hard enough, let’s love another for who we are as hard as we can.