This is my story: The colours of creation
A diverse group of people at a Pride festival marching behind a banner that says 'Intersex not invisible'.
“As for ‘sex assigned at birth’, for me that was decided and adjusted by surgeons in my childhood, not by God! Ever since, I have been seeking to become the person God created me to be in the first place.”
‘This is my story’ is an occasional series of short devotions, based around the Bible, the experiences of Open Table members, reflection and prayer.
This month Revd Jayne Taylor, a minister in the United Reformed Church [URC] and trustee of the Open Table Network, reflects on her experience of the diversity of gender beyond the male/female binary.
Reading
So, God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.- Genesis 1:27 (NRSV)
Reflection
There is a lot to unpack in this verse. For starters, does God have a gender or is God beyond gender?
Elsewhere in the Bible, God is described as our father and compared to a mother several times. The phrase ‘Spirit of God’ is translated from the Hebrew noun ‘Ruach Elohim’, which is feminine.
But I take this verse to heart because I see myself as being made male and female. I was born with a variation in sex characteristics - a term used to encompass the term ‘intersex’. The Bible verse is set in the context of a series of contrasts: day and night, solid ground and seas, light and dark. None of these depictions are binary in the strictest sense, since we also have dawn and dusk, estuaries and beaches, and every colour of the spectrum!
When it comes to the term ‘biological sex’, I ask, as a biologist, what exactly are we referring to? Our chromosomes? Our hormones? Our genitals? Each of these can have intersex variations. And as for ‘sex assigned at birth’, for me that was decided and adjusted by surgeons in my childhood, not by God! Ever since, I have been seeking to become the person God created me to be in the first place.
Genesis chapter one tells me that every one of us is made in the image of God - a God who creates diversity and says that it is good!
There are some eight billion people in the world today and no two are exactly the same, not even ‘identical’ twins. Yet often we try to pigeonhole others, and sometimes even ourselves, into a framework much too narrow to represent the fulness of God’s rich creativity in all its colours.
Reflect for a moment:
How much do you see yourself as being made in the image of God?
In the Gospels, we see Jesus seeking those on the fringes of society. Are you on the fringes? How easy is it to encounter Jesus there?
If Jesus says ‘the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these’ on the fringes of society, how does our view of Heaven need to change?
Prayer
God of rainbow colours,
Thank you for the amazing diversity of humanity
which you have created in your image.
Help me appreciate the full variety of human existence
and to seek to treat others as I would wish to be treated.
Forgive me when my thoughts, speech and actions
are unloving towards your diverse creation,
and help me to see the spark of your goodness
in every person I encounter.
Amen.
Author
Revd Jayne Taylor (she/her) currently serves as minister of Exeter URCs where she helped to establish Open Table Exeter at Southernhay URC. Before this, Jayne was a research scientist working in Cambridge.
