Do You Really and Truly Choose God? by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Patti Lusher)

On Monday afternoon, around 1:30 p.m. just about a block from my kids’ school, Toledo School for the Arts, and an elementary school, a woman named Candice Rose Milligan was assaulted by three men. She remembers one of them said: “That’s a dude in a dress,” before they attacked her. You see, Candice is a transgender woman.

According to a story in the Toledo Blade: the three men approached her, made derogatory comments, and then one of the men punched her in the face, mouth, and head, according to a Toledo police report. Once she was on the ground, the other men kicked and punched her. One of them grabbed her cell phone and they fled. (Source: http://m.toledoblade.com/Police-Fire/2014/11/07/Transgender-woman-in-hospital-after-brutal-attack.html).

The police did come and witnesses gave descriptions of the attackers. One arrest has been made but two more suspects are still at large. Candice had two surgeries including one to wire her jaw shut because it is broken. It will be wired shut for 4 to 6 weeks. She has staples on the side of her head from her forehead to below her ear.

The attack on Candice Rose Milligan was a hate crime. BRAVO, or the Buckeye Region Anti-Violence Organization has documented 100 incidents of anti-LGBT hate crime in Ohio. (source: Hate Violence Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and HIV-Affected Communities in the United States in 2013, BRAVO.)  During the 18 months from January 2013 to June 2014 four transwomen have been murdered in Ohio, victims of hate crimes:  Cemia Dove, Betty Skinner, and Nicole Kidd-Stergis and most recently, 28 year old Tiffany Edwards in Cincinnati. It could have been worse for Candice Milligan. She could have been number five. Mercifully, she was not. But her life was forever changed by this horrific crime.

Transgender men and women are some of the most persecuted people in our society. They are misunderstood, abused, and outcast. Aggressors think them to be easy prey.

I don’t know what the passersby did when they saw Candice being beat up. It appears that someone called the police. I hope they ran to her aid as soon as they felt safe to do so. I wish there had been someone with martial arts training who felt strong enough to take on those three men. I even wish some brave soul had stood up to those men and spoken a word of compassion for Candice, at personal risk to him or herself. I confess I don’t think I would have been brave enough to do that; but I wish I had that much courage. I would have liked to tell those men a thing or two about respect for your fellow human being, another child of God.

Here at The Village every time we baptize a baby or an adult we ask this question: "Do you accept the power God gives you to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves and do you desire the freedom of new life in Christ?" We believe resisting evil, injustice and oppression is a power that God gives us in our baptism.

Here at the Village, we value every single person as a beloved child of God. No one deserves to be victimized by violence for any reason. No exceptions. I would like to think as a follower of Jesus I would put myself between a vulnerable person and an aggressor.

Certainly before those men got violent I hope I would have come to Candice’s rescue, that if I heard people making derogatory comments about a transgender person, just walking down the street, I hope I would have tried to intervene. Perhaps I could have used humor to de-escalate the situation. Perhaps I could have called those men to be their best selves and not be so full of hate and judgment, before it got violent.

When I hear someone make a racist or sexist comment I sometimes respond to them and say something like this: “We don’t talk like that around here. We treat all people with respect here. Everyone is a child of God.” Especially if it’s a friend of mine, saying something racist or sexist.  I can do the same to someone who is being disrespectful of my transgender brothers and sisters.

This is what it means to be consistently faithful. This is what it means to truly say “yes” to God and to choose to walk in the way of God. Choosing the way of God means that when someone around us is being a hater, we are not silent. We do not stand by silently and watch the oppressor oppress. We stand up to the oppressor on behalf of the oppressed.

Yes, I know it’s hard, and I have failed many times.  God never promised that being a follower of Jesus would be easy, only that being faithful would bring us blessings. It is a blessing to do the right thing and to stand up for the oppressed.

So long ago, when God’s people reached the Promised Land, Joshua said to them, “Now is the time to make a decision. God wants to be our God . . . our ONLY God.

“God has just brought us into the land that God promised to our ancestors… God handed you a land for which you did not work, towns you did not build. And here you are now living in them and eating from vineyards and olive groves you did not plant.”

I love that image. They have been given all these blessings that they did not earn. They were just plopped down in front of them. We are the same way, if you think about it. We have so many blessings, so many creature comforts. Our lives are easy in so many ways compared to previous generations, compared to so many people in the world. We are blessed. We have so many things that we did not earn, they were just handed to us. We inherited this earth. It is a blessing, a gift from God. We think we own a plot of land with a house on it. We don’t own anything, the whole earth was made by God and belongs to God. We just have it on loan. 

Joshua reminds the people how blessed they are and who blessed them. Then he says to the people, “It is time to make your choice.

So now: Worship God in total commitment. Get rid of the gods your ancestors worshiped on the far side of The River (the Euphrates) and in Egypt. You, worship God.

¹⁵ “If you decide that it’s a bad thing to worship God, then choose a god you’d rather serve—and do it today. Choose one of the gods your ancestors … As for me and my family, we’ll worship God.”

¹⁶ The people answered, “We’d never forsake God! Never! ^17-18 “God is our God! God brought up our ancestors from Egypt and from slave conditions. …

“Count us in: We too are going to worship God.”

²² And so Joshua addressed the people: “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen God for yourselves—to worship God.”

And they said, “We are witnesses.”

²⁴ The people [said] “We will worship God. What God says, we’ll do.”

²⁵ Joshua completed a Covenant for the people that day there at Shechem. He made it official, spelling it out in detail.

And so the people gave their whole selves to God. No turning back. They really and truly chose God. They were all in. Joshua made a covenant for them that day at Shechem, so they would remember this promise they had made.

So what would you say to Joshua today? The question is as real for us today as it was to them so many centuries ago. Do we choose to worship God in total commitment? Will we leave behind the gods of trust in ourselves rather than trust in God? And the gods of fear or fame? Will we leave behind the gods of material wealth and self-preservation? Will we leave behind the gods that keep us away from the one true God?

Will we give ourselves wholly and completely to God? This means that when we see someone in danger, like Candice, that we will put ourselves on the line to stand up for her. Because, my friends, that is what God would do. It means that when we see a neighbor being hateful that we will have the courage to call them on their behavior because God’s way is the way of justice for all. No more minding our own business if one of God’s children is being abused. We need to stand up on behalf of the oppressed. This is what it means to be “all in” with God. We speak the truth. We stand up to all forms of evil, injustice and oppression in the world, because God gave us the power to do so in our baptism. 

Will you? Will you choose to serve God with your whole self? Let’s give our whole lives, not just part. Let’s give it all to God.