Last March, at the beginning of the pandemic, at the behest of Lona’s confirmation mentee, Lona and I decided to catch up on ten-years’ worth of a show that for some, has been culturally formative.
RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Yes. I have watched 10 years worth of RuPaul’s Drag Race over the past 8 months, immersing myself in the fantastical world of reality television, in which a cohort of drag queens compete for the crown. Early on in my viewing, I was somewhat embarrassed to have gone so “low brow” in my viewing choices—I’m usually an animal and cooking documentary kind of gal and the Great British Bake Off has been my literal and metaphorical “bread and butter” over the past few years. That said, it slowly began to occur to me (actually, it was my wife who pointed this out) that the structure of the show was not unlike that of church. The opening procession, the music, the emphasis upon traditions and exploration of how those traditions have evolved, commentary on what the clothing or the form have communicated, and a closing charge.
Just like church! Okay, well, maybe not exactly like church…
Feel free to laugh…because, I’m pretty confident that this is the only proper 25A sermon being preached today that relies heavily upon what I can only describe as, “the Gospel according to RuPaul.”
The Gospel, the good news of God’s love, according to a 60-something, black, drag queen, who has built an empire out of sequins, false eyelashes, and the deep and abiding need we all have to be loved and accepted for who God has made us to be. DragRace is not JUST a competition, it is an opportunity for people—many of whom have been scorned, derided, bullied, and cast out—to be celebrated for the very reasons that many of them have been denigrated. Like Jesus, RuPaul flips the societal norms around honor and shame in order to affirm and heal.
In order to affirm and heal. By watching ten years worth of DragRace in 9 months, I’ve had the opportunity to see the evolution of not just an art form, but our cultural understanding and increasing acceptance of individuals in the LGBTQ+ community. By getting to know the stories of the “stars” of this show, we are invited to empathize with their personal joys and sorrows. We are invited to a deeper understanding of how far we’ve come and how far we have left to go. We are invited, to see ourselves—our own hurts and celebrations—within the context of those whose lives may look very different then our own. As the “stars” of the show share their vulnerabilities, RuPaul meets them with compassion and connection. Compassion and connection that instill pride and offer healing.
In this, each season of RuPaul’s DragRace becomes an exercise in the restoration of dignity, of families, and of communities—goals that are easily translatable to the ministry of the church.
The church, where we commit at our baptism to, “seek and serve Christ in all persons, love our neighbor as ourselves, and honor the dignity of every human being.”
This is our commitment. If we are to call ourselves Christians, seeking and serving Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves and honoring the dignity of every human being, are not optional. We don’t get to pick and choose to whom we will extend love. We don’t get to pick who is worthy of dignity. We don’t get to decide that only people who look like us and act like us can partake in the presence of the abiding Christ.
All means ALL. And, this is expressly laid out in both our traditions and in our scriptures.
Our scriptures, which are emphatic in expressing the radical notion of God’s expansive love as a basic premise for our lives as people of faith. Not many of us have learned to look to Leviticus for this kind of expansive understanding of God’s love but it is, in fact, Leviticus in which this seminal understanding is unpacked as law for the early Israelites.
“You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”
To paraphrase, Leviticus commands us to the work of reconciliation. Leviticus asks us to intervene when our neighbor engages in hateful behavior. Leviticus charges us to forgive. Leviticus demands that we love our neighbor as ourselves and it is through this foundational command of love, that we are to view the entirety of the body of law. For, as our own Presiding Bishop ascertains, “if it does not speak of love, it does not speak of God” and “If it doesn’t look like love, if it doesn’t look like Jesus of Nazareth” (twitter, June 26, 2018).
Now, don’t just take it from me, or RuPaul, or Leviticus—take it from the one who came to love us all, [Jesus] said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
We are commanded to love God with everything, EVERYTHING, we have. We are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves. These commands are a-priori to everything else we read in scripture, experience in our tradition, or discern through our reason.
In this it is, honestly, baffling to me that so many of us, as Christian’s, have strayed so far from this fundamental teaching of our faith. That in our legalism and failures of forgiveness, we have twisted the scripture and used it as a means of exclusion and expulsion. That, in picking and choosing, throughout our holy texts, we have found the means to confirm our biases, hatred, greed, and malcontent.
So, why? Why are so many Christians known by their hate and not by their love?
One night, after the kids were in bed, while we were watching DragRace, I had an epiphany. At the end of each episode, RuPaul offers what I’ve come to recognize a sending prayer. A sending prayer before the music that accompanies the final recession.
“If you can’t love yourself, how the heck are you going to love anybody else!?”
From season to season, the sending has stayed the same—the only variation being the congregational style response as the gathered community complete’s the formula, shouting, “how the heck are you going to love anybody else!”
“If you can’t love yourself…”
Perhaps, that’s it. Perhaps those 5 words are exactly what has gone wrong in our interpretation of this passage from the Gospel. “If you can’t love yourself.”
Because, if you can’t love yourself, how are you going to love your neighbor?
Hate your neighbor as yourself?
Despise your neighbor as yourself?
Shame your neighbor as yourself?
Distrust your neighbor as yourself?
Scorn your neighbor as yourself?
I wonder, if this is, indeed what has gone so horribly wrong for all of us. I wonder, if we have set the bar for how we are to treat our neighbor too low. Set it too low, because we, in fact, so often fail in loving ourselves. Which is why, over the past 9 months or so, I’ve started to lean more heavily into the Gospel of John when it comes to this mandate to love. The Gospel of John, in which a new commandment is given, “love one another. Just as I [Jesus] have loved you…” (John 13:34).
So, dear friends, consider this reframing of the great command, as an invitation to see your neighbor AND yourselves through the lens of Christ’s love.
Love one another, as Christ loves you.
Love your neighbor, as Christ loves you.
Love yourself, as Christ loves you.
Because, the bar for love is not set by our failures, but by Christ’s perfection in love.
So, walk in love as Christ loved us.
Amen.
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