Sermon given with the Young Prophet Collective on June 27, 2026 Where do you live? I don’t just mean what country or state or address do you live at, but who’s world do you live in? Do you live in the world of man, of empire, that is corrupted and leads to death. Or, do you live in the kindom of God that is marked by freedom and by life. We all serve someone. Does our service lead to the fruit of the spirit that produces love, joy, peace, etc… or does it result in the sins of isolation, broken relationships, and death? In Romans, when Paul talks about sin it is not about the individual mistakes we make but about the corporate sins that oppress. One of our most significant sins today is the sin of prejudice, because prejudice robs people of their divinity and their humanity. We are all created in the image of God. When we are able to fully live out all of the identities God has given us we shine with the glory of God. When we give people a safe space to express and offer all of who they are, in the person fully alive we see God. Prejudice corrupts the very image of God that we carry. Prejudice denies another person’s value. Prejudice leads us to wear masks and play small so that we can stay safe. Last week we celebrated the freedom of Juneteenth, but prejudice did not end in 1865. Prejudice continues to corrupt the image of God in people today. This is what Paul calls sin in Romans 6. Sin that denies the image of God in another person. If we are honest, that sin of denying people’s sacred value and divine worth is not only the history of the political world exercised in the modern practice of executive orders, but is also the history of the Christian church. The church is guilty of the sin of prejudice that has caused shame for LGBTQIA+ people not because of what they have done, but because of who God created them to be. The sin of prejudice not only hurts us queer folk, it impacts all of us across all of our identities. Racism teaches people that the color of their skin determines their worth. Sixty years after Dr King’s dream we are still judging people by the color of their skin instead of the content of their character. We saw prejudice unfold this week as the Supreme Court ruled that the government can turn away asylum seekers before they are permitted to set foot on U.S. soil, denying many the opportunity to even begin the legal process of seeking refuge while making people from Haiti and Syria and other countries vulnerable to deportation. Misogyny teaches women that their voices and gifts matter less than men’s. Ageism tells people that they no longer have anything to contribute. Ableism sees people with different abilities as broken with nothing to give. Every system of oppression begins with the same lie: “Who you are is wrong.” When we accept what other people say about us, and change who we are to accommodate them, we end up living in what psychologist Carl Jung called the false self. We construct the false self to stay safe, to survive the expectations of the world. When we become trapped behind that mask, we lose ourselves. The energy required to maintain the false self leaves us anxious, exhausted, and divided inside. Paul understood this long before modern psychology. Sin is not merely breaking rules. Sin enslaves us to identities that God never intended for us to live. Prejudice convinces us that conformity is safer than authenticity. Prejudice tells us that acceptance is found by becoming less of ourselves instead of more. But Christ sets us free. Freedom in Christ is not simply freedom from guilt and shame. It is freedom to become our true selves. It is the grace to stop performing and start living. The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard taught that every person has what he called a “givenness,” our God-given self, who God created us to be rather than who we are told to be by the world around us. Kierkegaard says when we live contrary to who God made us, that leads to despair. But when we can live in to who God made us to be, our givenness, that is when we live and thrive. Kierkegaard wrote, “The great thing is not to be this or that but to be oneself.“ That is the gospel Paul is proclaiming. In Christ, we no longer belong to the powers that demanded masks. We belong to the God who delights in our creation. We no longer have to spend our lives pretending. We are free to become who we have always been in God’s loving imagination. That freedom is joyful because it ends the exhausting struggle against ourselves. We stop asking, “How do I become acceptable?” and begin asking, “How do I become more fully the person God created me to be?” This is what we celebrate when we celebrate pride. The joy of pride comes from the freedom we have found in Christ to express who God created us to be. The words of Howard Thurman still speak to that same power: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” When we live into our God-given selves, we come alive. When we come alive in Christ, we become the means of grace that gives permission and enables other people to live in to their true, given selves. Our invitation today is to be free Be free to be who God made you to be. Be free in your queerness. Be free in your melanin. Be free in your neurodiversity. Be free in the wisdom of your age. Be free in your gender. Be free to be all of who God created you to be. As the early church theologian Ireanaus said, “the glory of God is the person fully alive,” Be alive and, in doing so, God will be glorified. Amen. Get full access to TransPreacher at transpreacher.substack.com/subscribe
