Life & Ministry of Mt Paul United Church

Here at Mt Paul

Mt Paul – SUNDAY WORSHIP
Sunday worship services will be held via ZOOM at 10:00 AM for the foreseeable future in accordance with the following: Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has announced wide-ranging new rules for controlling the spread of COVID-19, including mandatory masks in indoor public and retail spaces and restricting social gatherings to household members only for everyone across BC.

Mt Paul – DID YOU KNOW
DID YOU KNOW That our offerings for June 2021 have declined by $1,050, or 19% compared to June 2019. Our offerings of $4,708 in June 2021 only paid for 62% of our June 2021 expenses of $7,540.65.
Mt Paul – SUMMER HOURS
The office is still temporarily closed. So keeping with tradition work hours will change for the months of July and August. This summer the work hours will be Thursday and Friday from 9 AM to 1 PM beginning Friday July 2nd.

Mt Paul – AFFIRMING STORYTELLING CIRCLE – JULY 28 AT 7 PM
You are invited to an hour of storytelling on Wednesday July 28, hearing and telling stories about how LGBTQ+ issues have touched and shaped our lives, either as LGBTQ+ people, or through loved ones, or in general. All are welcome. This workshop is part of our exploration of the Affirming church process and people from both churches are welcome to take part. The workshop will happen in person at Mount Paul (140 Laburnum Street) on Wednesday, July 28 at 7 PM, led by Rev. Emily.

Our Wider World…
Posting Prayers Weekly
This week we are praying for the ministry congregation of: Anspayaxw – Pierce Memorial UC (Kispiox), Augsburg/Mackenzie UC(Bella Coola), BC Native Ministries, Darby Memorial UC(Bella Bella), Bethany-Newton UC, and Bowen Island UC. As participants in the World Council of Churches, we are invited to remember and pray for the peoples of The Churches in Djibouti and Somalia.

Worship services are hosted live every Sunday at 10 AM Pacific on Zoom.

Contact the office for a link if you would like to attend.

Music used for this service is licensed under OneLicense A-727478 and CCLI 20776078.

Sermon

Text: Mark 6: 30 – 34, 53 – 56 

You’ll have to excuse me, I’m not at my best,

I’ve been gone for a month, I’ve been drunk since I left,

and these so-called vacations will soon be my death,

I’m so sick from the drink, I need home for a rest.

—Spirit of the West, “Home for a Rest” 

There, that’s my sermon intro. 

I mean, it sort of sets up the theme of the gospel story, which is that the retreat Jesus means to bring his disciples on, a respite from the preaching and travelling and healing they’ve been doing, just becomes more work. So, the theme of a vacation that wasn’t really a vacation sort of sent me to thinking about that song, even though I doubt Jesus and the Disciples were binge drinking, which is what the song’s about. 

We pick up the story when the twelve Apostles, whom Jesus had sent out two by two (I wonder who got paired with Judas), return, telling Jesus about all the things they had done. They healed, they cast out demons, they preached, they converted, they baptized, they had rocks thrown at them . . . and they became pretty popular. Of course, with more popularity just comes more work. “For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.” They can’t get a moment’s peace, alone, even to just sit down for a moment. 

So Jesus says, essentially, “Let’s go on a retreat.” They will take a week off, reset, do all the self-care things you’re supposed to do in the helping professions so you aren’t “pouring from an empty cup,” and be able to return rejuvenated and ready to engage in the work of love once more. 

“The work of love” . . . put a pin in that phrase. I’ll come back to it. 

But instead what happens is that the people find out where they are going, and run ahead, to give them more work to do. 

Jesus steps out of the boat onto the spot he had picked out, expecting to see nothing and instead sees a great crowd, pushing and shoving to get to the front of the line to be blessed, healed, exorcised, whatever. 

He could send them away. He could be indignant that they interrupted his and his disciples’ rest. He could set healthy pastoral boundaries and remind them of office hours and not to contact except in case of emergency. 

But instead, he has “compassion for them,” and gets to work. 

If you are in any kind of helping profession, actually any kind of profession at all probably, you’ve no doubt been just completely flooded with talk about how to take care of yourself. Take time off, take moments, set healthy boundaries. If you didn’t know, “self-care and spiritual development” is actually written into my job description here, and not just vacation but deliberately part of every week. Your M&P committee makes sure I take care of myself. What I do, Sunday afternoons, is play Dungeons and Dragons. 

But . . . I don’t know if you’ve ever gone on vacation and couldn’t relax because you’re stressing about all the work you have to do when you get back. Maybe you’ve gone on vacation and it’s only become a list of chores you haven’t had time to do while you’re working, things that have been piling up in your personal life. Maybe you haven’t been able to go on vacation because you don’t make enough to take time off. And maybe you’ve sat in a bubble bath just completely unable to let yourself relax. Maybe you’ve binged Netflix and it’s only been a way to turn off your brain for awhile and go numb, not relax. 

A thing that was going around social media lately was news that Amazon, in some of its warehouses, has installed these booths you can go to “take a few minutes for yourself.” People laughed at this because Amazon’s been criticized for extremely stressful working conditions in its warehouses where people have been penalized for taking washroom breaks and have had medical emergencies on the warehouse floor and no one has even noticed. I’ve seen these booths called “crying booths,” where you go to have a nervous breakdown, but only once per shift. 

I, personally, actually find all this emphasis on self-care kind of exhausting. Like taking care of myself was one more thing on the to-do list, and one that would get routinely pushed down by other tasks which were more urgent. In the end, honestly, putting “self-care” on the to-do list just makes the list longer. 

And all I’m thinking is, maybe our day to day lives shouldn’t feel like something we have to escape from? 

And that’s where Jesus comes back in. What he and his disciples are doing is work, and they need rest, but it’s a very particular kind of work, the kind of work we are all called to no matter what our profession: the work of love. And love shouldn’t feel like work. The very act of loving must be what restores our souls, not drains them. 

The gospel uses the word, “compassion,” in the English translation. “Compassion” is a powerful word that we often gloss over, to simply mean “pity” or “care.” But the Latin roots, com meaning “with” and passio meaning “suffering,” point to something much more. “To suffer with.” Jesus “has compassion” for them. And Christ “suffering with” us is at the heart of the gospel story, isn’t it? 

The Greek word used is a mouthful, splagchnizomai, from the root splagchnon, meaning “guts, entrails, innards,” but in the same way that we would use the word “heart;” to Greeks the seat of emotion wasn’t in the heart but in the bowels. Jesus feels for these people in the very depths of his body and soul. 

The way God loves is unconditionally, completely, and totally self-giving. It seems like the kind of love that would be exhausting. It would be exhausting to constantly have to go after that one sheep that keeps wandering off. It would be exhausting to love a people who keep turning away. Honestly, after a while, why would God even love us? We keep screwing up. We keep abusing each other and ourselves, we keep abusing the earth, we can’t get it right? Aren’t God’s love reserves drained by now? 

And maybe you feel that way. Maybe it’s hard for you to love someone, or a particular kind of someone, and you find yourself stretched more and more and loving them just feels exhausting. 

But God’s love is not exhausting; it is rejuvenating. It’s us who make loving each other hard. 

I’m not saying that you’re loving the wrong way if you feel exhausted in your love for your partner, children, parents, strangers, the world . . . I’m not saying you’re bad at love if you feel drained. I’m saying that the way that we are set up to love—transactional as if paying out of a love account—in a society that wants us to judge all human relationships we have on the basis of “what can you do for me”—is at odds with the way God loves. 

Why did God create humanity? Just to love. We were never going to be able to give Him anything, other than someone to love. We were never going to be able to “repay” that love, but that isn’t why She made us. Jesus and the disciples are able to go back to the crowd because “he has compassion for them,” because love is at the heart of what they do. Because the love of God is life-giving, liberating, especially when we share it with others. In loving others is when we can feel the most loved by God. 

I’m not saying don’t take moments of rest and rejuvenation if you can find them. But for me, I find doing the work of love—being there for people when they need me—to be so much more life-affirming and refreshing in my soul than a bubble bath. I like vacations, but because they give me the opportunity to do things I wouldn’t have the time for otherwise. But when I feel like I’m doing the work that God calls me to do, when I feel “on a roll,” that’s when I feel most energized and ready to engage with God’s world. 

I’ve always been skeptical of the use of the Bible as essentially a self-help book. But there is a thing I think we can learn from this which is to view the work of love and justice as getting closer to God, as restoring in the soul, as much a part of “spiritual development” as meditation or prayer. God sets aside the Sabbath and Jesus heals on the Sabbath, because loving one another is shabbat. It is rest. It is restoring. It is not work, the way we think of work. It is life. Amen.

Worship services are hosted live every Sunday at 10 AM Pacific on Zoom.

Contact the office for a link if you would like to attend.

Music used for this service is licensed under OneLicense A-727478 and CCLI 20776078.

Sermon

Text: Mark 6: 14 – 29

So, lately, the sort of religious liberal Twitter I follow has been abuzz, because of a recent study from the Public Religon Research Institute in the US, a survey of how Americans identify religiously, that seemed to show the start of something we’ve so long been hoping for: White conservative evangelical Christianity is starting to decline, non-religiousness is no longer growing but has plateaued, and mainline liberal Christianity is no longer declining but starting to grow again.

Oh my God! Finally, no more closing churches! No more of those evangelicals gloating over us saying that it’s because we’re accepting of LGBTQ+ people and women preachers and other religions that we’re declining, no more insisting that we don’t really know Jesus here! No more looking at budgets with despair! We’re going to grow again, and have vibrant active churches again, and have full bank accounts again, and be able to pay our ministers what they deserve again! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

And while I think there is hope there, I admit I feel a little bit of unease about the air of celebration around it. Relief, I get. I don’t want to be constantly stressing about whether I’ll have a well-paying job in the future, whether what I do is relevant, but at the same time . . . I never grew up in a full church. I have never known when the church was the centre of social life. I have always looked at the nostalgia for that kind of church, the church that was a dominant social force in society, with a bit of scepticism.

To me, that kind of church wasn’t really following Jesus. It was more concerned with its own position and power. To me, it seems like that was a church full of social cliques you had to fit into; it was the church that rejected people if they didn’t measure up to standards: if you weren’t the right social class, never mind the right race or sexuality or whatever. That was the church that ran the residential schools.

Whereas a church that follows Jesus is on the outside; it tells truth to power; it gets into trouble. So, logically, it isn’t going to be very popular. At least not with the “right kind” of people. John the Baptist gets beheaded for telling truth to power; Jesus gets crucified.

I did my undergrad in English literature, so I’m often wondering about the way the gospels go about telling the story, what kind of literary devices they use and why. This story, the story of John the Baptist’s execution, is told in a very interesting way that no other story in the Bible is told: as a flashback. We can imagine Herod sitting on his throne, being told about what Jesus is doing and how people think he is John the Baptist come back to life, and then Herod says, “But I killed John!” And harp music starts playing in the background while a wave effect happens on screen and we see Herod and Herodias at the feast.

It’s interesting this story is told as a flashback because it makes you think about what’s happening in the present and comparing the past to the present. As always, the lectionary leaves out some crucial context; this flashback is shown after Jesus sends out the Twelve to go around to villages preaching and healing.

Jesus sends out his apostles to villages, to common people, to the poor and outcast, to the sick and the dying. John, by contrast, finds himself at the centre of power. He preaches in the court of the king (okay, a puppet king of the Romans, but still) and angers the people with privilege: Herod’s wife and her daughter.

The text says that Herod actually liked listening to John, and so John finds himself in an interesting position. He could tone down his message to appeal to a wealthy patron; he could start telling Herod and Herodias and the wealthy and powerful people they have gathered around them the things they want to hear. He could be a society prophet, an approved preacher; he could be popular and he and his disciples would not have to worry about money ever again.

But no, he calls out Herod’s debauchery, because that is what he is supposed to do. He tells truth to power and gets executed for it.

If we live in a world full of injustice, of inequality, and the powers that be seem perfectly okay with it because they still get to have their feasts, marry their brothers’ wives, watch their step-daughters dance and lust after them; we cannot be the society church. I would hope that any political leader who came to my church, no matter what political party, whether I personally voted for them or not, I hope that I would annoy them enough to stand up and leave by never letting them have a moment’s peace. I promise you that neither John Horgan nor Justin Trudeau nor Donald Trump would ever hear me praise them, publicly or privately.

So, in a way, part of the church’s mission is to make powerful enemies. If we’re authentically preaching the gospel, the gospel of liberation for the oppressed, the prisoner, the poor . . . if we’re going out as Jesus’ apostles do to the towns and the villages, not to the cities and the halls of power, we will not be that church of the past ever again.

One of the core themes of the gospels is how the Holy Spirit does her work in unexpected, unsavoury places. She works in the heart of an unwed teenage mother, of a poor carpenter, of a raving man wearing a hairshirt, in fishers and farmers, in the outcasts and the sinners, not in the heart of those who are at the centre of society; not in the priests, the lawyers, and the rulers.

One of the criticisms of liberal mainline Christianity is that we’ve abandoned the “real gospel” because we don’t follow all the rules, or we’re not strict enough, or we don’t talk about sin and sacrifice enough. But an honest church following the gospel is a church for those who have been excluded. For people with mental illness, disability, LGBTQ+ people, “sinners” (whatever that means). They are God’s people.

Jesus sends out the twelve to those people. John tells truth to power. These are the stories of the true gospel, stories of good news. God heals and defends the lowly, not the powerful.

Let us be faithful, authentic Christians and not worry about whether more people will come to our churches. Let us simply do, and leave what’s left in the hand of God. We’re sent out by Her command, so let us simply follow, in hope, faith, and love. Amen.

Mt Paul – DID YOU KNOW

DID YOU KNOW That the drive by bottle return raised $59.90 for our fund raising project.  Thank you to all who participated.

Mt Paul – VOLUNTEERS NEEDED AS A SECRETARY

The M&P Committee are looking for 1 or 2 people to volunteer as secretary  from August 5 to August 27.  We would only ask that you volunteer for 1 week.  Generally you would prepare & send out the announcements and the link for the ZOOM Sunday Service, plus anything that comes up.  Training would be provided.  Contact Don L by phone or email (in announcements email)

Our Wider World…

Posting Prayers Weekly

This week we are praying for the ministry congregation of:

Camp Fircom, Vancouver, BC,
Camp Grafton, Kamloops, BC,
Camp Koolaree, Trail, BC,
Camp Pringle, Victoria, BC,
Mackenzie Camp, Armstrong, BC,
and Rock Lake Camp, Creston, BC.

Asparticipants in the World Council of Churches, we are invited to remember and pray for the peoples of The Churches in Kenya, and Tanzania.

CONTACT INFORMATION

 Rev. E. Cooke is on holidays until after July 11, 2021.  Please contact the office, the board or one of the other people listed as appropriate. 

Rev. Emily Cooke

email: mtpaulminister@gmail.com

PLURA Hills: Mon to Thurs 9 AM-12 PM           250 828-1123

Mt Paul: Mon to Thurs 12:30 PM- 5 PM              250 376-2261

Secretary:  Margaret

email:  mtpauloffice@gmail.com

Telephone:  250 376-2261

website:  www.mtpauluc.ca

Pastoral Care Needs: Merle B

Prayers Requests : Karen M

Letter to Mount Paul and Plura Hills

Hello all,

After conversation with church leaders, my husband, and my God, among others, I have decided that now is the time to announce that I am a transgender person. My name is Emily Catherine Cooke. My pronouns are she/her/hers. I identify as being female.

I am sure this comes as a surprise, and this is the first step in a journey we will have to take together. I also understand that you will have many questions. I am willing to answer some of them, while remaining respectful of the boundaries between minister and congregant. To be clear, I will not disclose personal medical information, discuss matters relating to any specific part of the body, or discuss anything that would violate another person’s privacy (for instance, what my husband thinks of this). I will answer questions about being transgender in a general way, for the sake of education and understanding and I am always willing to talk about being transgender as it relates to our faith, spirituality, and theology.

In short, I believe that the God who has searched me and known me, who made me in my mother’s womb, loves me this way and lifts up this part of myself. I will admit I don’t fully understand it myself, so I can’t expect you to, but all I know is what I feel, and I feel this is right. This is who I am, I cannot deny it, and I cannot imagine faithfully serving God while being untrue to my own self. So here I stand; I can do no other.

What I am asking from you is simply to refer to me by my name and to use feminine pronouns (she/her/hers) when referring to me in the third person, and to avoid referring to me as male or with masculine pronouns or my previous name. You have my permission to inform those who you think might need or want to know this information. If you have any questions as to how to do so respectfully, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.

Ultimately, what I want to say is this: God asks us to love, first and foremost. Even if we don’t understand, our job as Christians is to love. I intend to continue preaching that simple message, proclaiming the simple gospel that God is love, no matter our gender identity, sexuality, race, age, religion, class, or ability. I intend to proclaim the same gospel of justice and of Christ’s radical inclusion as I always have. I intend to do so while being true to myself so that you can be true to yourselves.

“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

With love in Christ,

Rev. Emily C. Cooke

Worship services are hosted live every Sunday at 10 AM Pacific on Zoom.

Contact the office for a link if you would like to attend.

Music used for this service is licensed under OneLicense A-727478 and CCLI 20776078.

Sermon

Text: 1 Samuel 17: 1 – 49

I’ve told this story before. I was a child, I think 6 or 7, and was going to be in the church Christmas pageant. There were a lot of us kids, and only so many major parts, and all those go to the older children anyway—the ones who can remember their lines—and the younger kids are the only ones willing to dress up like cows or sheep and “moo” or “baa” to the howling laughter of adults. So, they said to the rest of us, “Boys, you will be shepherds and girls, you’ll be angels.” And I started crying my eyes out because I wanted to be an angel.

The girls were going to wear white junior choir robes with tinsel wings and halos and the boys would wear terrycloth bathrobes and kitchen towels on their heads. I didn’t want to wear a bathrobe; I wanted to be pretty. When I finally calmed down enough to tell them why I was crying, I was allowed to be an angel, and I was so happy: the only boy who got to be an angel. And now I’ve gone into a profession where I get to wear a white robe all the time, every week.

You’ll see why I’m bringing this up in a few minutes. For now, let’s talk about David.

David Needs to Take the Armour Off

 “Saul clothed David with his armour; he put a bronze helmet on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail. David strapped Saul’s sword over the armour, and he tried in vain to walk, for he was not used to them. Then David said to Saul, ‘I cannot walk with these; for I am not used to them.’ So David removed them.” (1 Sam 17:38 – 39)

David can only face Goliath by taking off his armour. Saul gives him the best armour; it would protect David in ordinary circumstances; it would keep him safe from the arrows of the Philistines. But it will not keep him safe from Goliath. Goliath will crush him with this armour on because he can’t move.

It’s a coat of mail, just like Goliath’s. It’s made out of links of chain; he is literally and figuratively being put in chains. To other warriors, good armour is a source of pride—you wouldn’t dream of going into battle without your armour on; every link of chain in that mail is as strong as the links between battle-brothers that make an army strong—but to David they feel just the same as the chains of a prisoner. He feels ridiculous wearing it all. This armour . . . it isn’t him; “I’m not used to it,” he says. He is a shepherd boy; he is no warrior, not like Goliath at any rate. He will face Goliath, because it is what he must do, but he can’t do so with this armour on.

During the reading I showed a photo of Michelangelo’s David, but of his face. You rarely see the face because the statue is tall and you look at it from below. From below, you see the perfectly sculpted, muscular, youthful figure of David. But if you look at it from above, you see his face. And you see that he is terrified. He is naked before a giant. But he is honestly, truly, authentically scared. It’s who he is.

Vulnerability and the Image of God

 I talk a lot about needing to see the image of God in each other. It’s a theological concept called the Imago Dei, the “image of God.” “So God made humankind in His image; in the image of God She created them; male and female They created them,” says Genesis 1. Our responsibility to each other, to love one another, is all based on the fact that we each bear the image of God.

The image of God that we receive through the Christian story is a vulnerable image, a broken image. “Here is my body; broken for you.” It is not the image of a mighty warrior or towering giant. We’re so used to thinking of God in terms of power—almighty, omnipotent, invincible—but the story the Gospel tells us is one of a God who empties Herself of that power and chooses to become vulnerable, in human form.

Goliath represents traditional strength; he is masculine and powerful. David represents God’s strength, a strength that is found not in violence, or in safety, but in vulnerability and authenticity. The same strength and power that Christ displayed by dying on the cross. David stands before Goliath without armour, but he stands before the giant as he truly is, without any pretension, without any macho posturing. Here I am, he says, and I will face my giant. You have armour and weapons; I have faith.

God created David in Their image. God is with David not in armour, but in vulnerability. In authenticity. In honesty. The David who is naked and scared looks more like the image of God than the David dressed up in Saul’s best armour.

All of us, we need to be vulnerable. Our society is obsessed with safety and we hurt so many people trying to keep ourselves safe. We cause so many problems because rather than claiming the image of a vulnerable God, we try to claim the image of a powerful one. We dress up in armour trying to be Goliath, rather than stripping down to be David. We need to be honest and authentic about who we truly are, because that’s the only way we can truly love one another as God loves us. It’s the only way we can see His image in each other.

The armour we put on may make us feel safe, but it only weighs us down. Whether we pretend to be something we’re not, whether we’re scared of how others may react, whether we’re scared of losing something like our wealth or security, we need to be ourselves. No armour or weapons; what we will have is faith, hope, and love.

I Need to Take This Armour Off

 I’ve always felt weird preaching on the stories of David, because I shared my name with him. It seemed, I don’t know, kind of presumptuous, as if I’m talking about myself, as this famous Biblical hero. That when I talk about David needing to stand before Goliath without armour and without pretension, I’m talking about myself. And, in a way, I am.

But my name isn’t David. My name is Emily Catherine Cooke. I am transgender. I am a trans woman. I can’t wear this armour anymore; it is weighing me down. I cannot walk in it. As safe as it feels, I need to take it off.

I know, right? It almost feels like it came out of nowhere for me too. But this is who I am. I think back to that little kid who wanted to be an angel, and I know this is who I am. If it weren’t true, I wouldn’t be this scared; I wouldn’t feel this vulnerable.

I wasn’t lying about who I was. Saul, the king, gave me this armour and I tried my best to put it on. I thought it was the only option—soldiers do not go into battle without armour. So, I tried. I tried to walk in that coat of male in my own way. I obviously didn’t get on board with toxic masculinity, pretending to be a man’s man. But I tried to incorporate it into who I was. I’ve just reached a point where I realize that it isn’t going to work. I cannot move in this.

I have for so long felt only a connection to the crucified Christ, not just in terms of longing for my true gender identity, but in my relationship with Christopher and his eating disorder, with a vague sense of depression and anxiety I’ve felt my whole life, with looking at the world and how things are going with climate change and inequality. I pictured the God who was with me and I saw Her on a cross. I didn’t image Them with me at the empty tomb. I have never really felt a connection to the risen Christ, and I almost felt in a way that I didn’t deserve to. I was a person of privilege. Resurrection was for the truly oppressed.

I never really thought I could be happy. Not that I didn’t deserve to; everyone deserves to be happy. Not that anything was necessarily preventing me from being happy, but that it simply wasn’t an option. Like trying to find the right road to turn down to drive to Australia; that road just doesn’t exist. And I always felt like I had the hardest time putting myself out there; that in every social situation I had to force myself to smile, to engage, to simply talk, to do anything except run away and hide. And I thought it was just from being shy, an introvert. I disliked the forced happiness that I thought social interaction required.

I could preach the crucified Christ with honesty and experience, and I always felt that was the Christ I had to preach to a people of privilege, but not the resurrected Christ; He would always be an abstract idea for me.

I didn’t realize that I felt that way because the armour was weighing me down and that I had to take it off. I managed, and I thought that meant that I didn’t really have it all that bad, that the armour wasn’t that heavy. Until I started taking off the pieces one by one. Admitting it to myself, admitting it to others every person I come out to, every step I take to transition, standing before you right now; it feels like liberation, and it’s a feeling I do not think I have felt before. I have felt moments of happiness, yes, but being happy, living in it, abiding in it, this is something so different. It feels like I can move. And yes, there’s a giant out there; there’s a world full of people who hate me, a world still full of hatred and greed, but my God I can move.

I need to do this for the sake of my job. I need to be able to proclaim the risen Christ with as much authenticity of experience as I can with the crucified Christ. I need to be born again. I need to be present with you, as I am; even when we come back together, it would still feel like I was only talking to you from somewhere far away, through a screen.

I need to do this for the sake of my life, for the sake of being real in my relationship with my husband, with my family, with my friends; for the sake of being real in my relationship with my God; for the sake of being real in my relationship with you as my parishioners. In all of these, I cannot truly be in relationship if I am not truly myself. I cannot say to God, “Here I am,” if it is not me saying that.

I need to do this simply for the sake of being able to move. Like David taking off the armour of Saul to stand naked before Goliath; I have to stand as I truly am before you. Here I stand; I can do no other.

My Trans Identity in the Image of God

So, here I am. Emily, not David. I am in the image of God as a woman. As a trans person. As a person whose assigned gender—the gender people gave me when I was born and saw that I had a certain body—doesn’t match how I truly feel inside. It’s a very complicated image, but I believe that God’s image is complex.

That people are trans, that we don’t fit into the neat boxes of the gender binary, that isn’t a mistake; it’s a gift that makes humanity more beautiful. A diverse humanity looks more like the image of the triune God than a people where everyone is the same. For gender, sexuality, race, religion, ability, anything. As a trans woman, I claim the image of God. Thou loving Father, and I thy true daughter.

Something my theology professor in seminary, Thomas Reynolds, said in his book Vulnerable Communion, was, “Vulnerability and weakness carry a secret power because they radiate with divine plentitude, a surplus of love that ruptures conventional categories of instrumental value. Each being is loved into being, precious in its own right and because of its unique difference . . .” He was talking about disability, but in other words, the “mistake” of being transgender forces us to realize and affirm the fact that God loves us unconditionally, regardless of whether we are “useful” or made how we’re “supposed” to be made. She is love. The image of God is love. Being trans is not a lesser way of being one’s gender, not a mistake.

I am not a mistake. I don’t think this can be a mistake; it feels too wonderful to be who I am. There is something beautiful and amazing about being trans that I find hard to put into words.

Gender dysphoria is the medical diagnosis; dysphoria is just a Greek word that means “bad feelings.” And I never actually felt particularly bad, being male. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a man. Gender euphoria is a term I’ve only ever heard talked about by trans people: the good feelings that you get when you are living into your true gender. When someone calls me “Emily” or “she or her,” I feel giddy, unbelievably happy from such a small thing. It’s the feeling I get when I am dressed how I want to be and I see myself in the mirror and smile, and I have never smiled before when seeing myself in the mirror.

When gay people chose that word to describe themselves, they chose it because in early 20^th century, people said you were supposed to be miserable if you were homosexual, “struggling with homosexual feelings.” You were supposed to hate it, but instead they chose a word that means “happy,” because it is a happy feeling to truly be yourself. The trans experience is so often presented as depressing; the statistics for attempted suicide for trans youth are really horrifying—nearly half of trans youth if they’re in an unsupportive household—but, that isn’t the whole story. This feeling of euphoria; there’s nothing like it and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. It can’t be a mistake. For the first time in my life, I am happy.

I believe that God wants me to be happy. I don’t think They made a mistake with me. Being trans isn’t a mistake. Transphobia is a mistake; our narrow conception of gender and tying it to anatomy—insisting that every baby born with a penis is a boy and every baby with a vulva is a girl—is a mistake, and it’s one that we make, not God. God just makes us in His image.

This is who I am. Happy, free, and in love with myself in a way I’ve never been before: like I finally see myself as God sees me; like I can love myself as He loves me. Like I can move. This happiness, this gender euphoria, is also the image of God. It is not a mistake; it is not a distortion of God’s image, but perfectly clear, made in Her likeness. In this, I finally find my connection to the risen Christ. My “hallelujahs” aren’t cold and broken anymore. My chains are gone.

Time to Face the Giant

So, what this means is that, simply, my name is Emily. The Reverend Emily Cooke. When you refer to me in the third person, that is my name, and I ask you to use feminine pronouns: she, her, hers. I am a woman.

This is the last step I am taking to make this known. I have come out to myself, to my husband, to my family, my friends, my God . . . and now to you. That’s it; it’s public now, there’s no one left for me to tell. Here I stand; I can do no other. I cannot be anyone except for who I am.

I have to be vulnerable. I have to be me, and I have to be your minister, I have to be willing to answer questions. About moments like when I cried my eyes out because I wanted to be a girl and be an angel in the church Christmas pageant.

I am going on vacation for two weeks, and when I get back, I will be myself. And we will get to meet each other all over again. For real this time, without the armour. I want to hear all your questions; I want to answer them as best I can. I want to talk and laugh with you. I want to be able to hug you. And, hopefully, we will do all that. We will face the giants of the world together, as a people of God bound together in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. And I think . . . I will be happy. I will be me, as I am. I will be able to move. Amen.

Mt Paul – DID YOU KNOW

DID YOU KNOW That the Management Team will be meeting on July 7 to discuss any issues that come up and to make sure Emily  has the support needed over the summer..

Mt Paul – VOLUNTEERS NEEDED AS A SECRETARY

The M&P Committee are looking for 1 or 2 people to volunteer to replace Margaret while she is on holidays from August 5 to August 27.  We would only ask that you volunteer for 1 week.  Generally you would prepare & send out the Announcements and the link for the ZOOM Sunday Service, plus anything that comes up.  Training would be provided.  Contact Don L.

Mt Paul – “DRIVE BY” FOR LINDA LANGEVIN

A “Drive By” to say goodbye/so long to Linda L is planned for Tuesday June 22 at 7 PM at the Mt Paul UC parking lot.  In case you’re not aware, Linda is moving to Kelowna .  If Dr Henry’s regulations permit, we may be able to visit with social distancing, so if you’d like to stay for a few minutes, please feel free to bring a lawn chair and a mask.

Our Wider World…

Posting Prayers Weekly

This week we are praying for the ministry congregation of:  For teachers and students at the end of the year and in preparation for summer break!  As participants in the World Council of Churches, we are invited to remember and pray for the peoples of The  Churches in Malawi, and Zambia.

KUC – FESTIVE SOLSTICE EVENING

Follow the Sun:  A Solstice Encounter.

Sunday, June 20, 2021 from 7 PM – 9 PM.

Join Dan H and other inspiring guides for this online festive solstice evening of music, meditation and inner life exploration.  To register or get more information go to the KUC website and click on the article title named “Festive Solstice Evening”.  Go to the bottom of the KUC article and click on the last line “You can register or get more information here”.

Good Morning Everyone

Life & Ministry of Mt Paul United Church

Week of June 13, 2021 – June 20, 2021

Here at Mt Paul

Mt Paul – SUNDAY WORSHIP

Sunday worship services will be held via ZOOM at 10:00 AM for the foreseeable future in accordance with the following:  Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has announced wide-ranging new rules for controlling the spread of COVID-19, including mandatory masks in indoor public and retail spaces and restricting social gatherings to household members only for everyone across BC.

Mt Paul – DID YOU KNOW

DID YOU KNOW That we have applied for the Federal Wage Subsidy for May 9 to June 5, 2021, and $1,188.86 should be deposited to our account within a week.  This brings our total wage subsidy received in 2021 to $10,189.71 and $24,674.48 since the start of the pandemic.

Our Wider World…

Posting Prayers Weekly

This week we are praying for the ministry congregation of: Wilson Heights UC, Vancouver, BC, Windermere Valley SM, Invermere, BC, Winfield UC, Lake Country, BC, Zion UC – Armstrong, Armstrong, BC, and  Zion UC – Silverton, Silverton, BC.  As participants in the World Council of Churches, we are invited to remember and pray for the peoples of The  Churches in Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland).

KUC – PRIDE Cup Cakes Fundraiser     June 1 – 30

Sweet Spot Cupcakes and ASK Wellness.

Pride Cupcakes are $4.00 each.  $1.00 per cupcake will go towards the ASK Wellness Health Navigation Team to help them expand their 2sLGBTC [email protected]  Come buy a Pride cupcake during June 1 – 30^th to support the 2sLGBTQ+ community!

1415 Hillside Drive #8

Kamloops, BC V2E 1A9

Phone:  250 574-6251

KUC – FESTIVE SOLSTICE EVENING

Follow the Sun:  A Solstice Encounter.

Sunday, June 20, 2021 from 7 PM – 9 PM.

Join Dan Hines and other inspiring guides for this online festive solstice evening of music, meditation and inner life exploration.  To register or get more information go to the KUC website and click on the article title named “Festive Solstice Evening”.  Go to the bottom of the KUC article and click on the last line “You can register or get more information here”.

KUC – Anti-Stigma Video:  “Don’t Fight the Poor, Fight Poverty” (Youtube)

Kamloops United Church is a member organization of Changing the Face of Poverty and we are excited to share the anti-stigma video “Don’t Fight the Poor, Fight Poverty”.

Go to the KUC website and look for the above article.  Then left click once on the second line: “Don’t Fight the Poor, Fight Poverty” to view the video.