If you are in Central Ohio, join us for tonight’s Transgender Day of Remembrance Service on November 20, 2025 at 7pm at King Avenue United Methodist Church
OF WHOM THE WORLD WAS NOT WORTHY
A Sermon for Transgender Day of Remembrance
Hebrews 11:1–16
Good afternoon. My name is Joelle Henneman, my pronouns are she/her, I serve as a pastor at the United Methodist Church for All People, and am on the socials @TransPreacher.
Thank you for inviting me to speak today, as this week we honor Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day carved out of the pain of witnessing God’s vulnerable children killed. A day when we speak aloud the names of those taken by violence: violence that is physical, political, spiritual, and too often justified by distorted interpretations of the faith we love.
Yet we do not gather only to grieve.We gather to proclaim something far more subversive.
We gather to declare that transgender lives are sacred, beloved, Spirit-filled.We gather to say that gender diversity is woven into the creativity of God.We gather to honor the gifts that transgender people bring into this world—gifts so radiant that, as Hebrews 11 says, we are those “of whom the world was not worthy.”
One of those who died in the last year was my friend, Meka Shabaaz.
A transgender woman who danced in churches and community centers across Columbus.
A woman who sought to share her joy with others by teaching dance classes.
A woman who this world rejected because of the color of her skin and her gender expression. She was truly one for whom this world was not worthy.
Through my friend Meka, I have seen how the world often reacts with fear, with cruelty, with violence toward those who dare to live outside its anxious norms. But scripture reminds us that faith itself has always been the heart of living beyond what the world can understand.
The author of Hebrews writes, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Faith is not certainty.Faith is not conformity.Faith is not fear of difference.
Faith is the assurance of something beyond the world we know, the conviction of something the world has not yet recognized.
And isn’t that the story of every transgender person who has ever lived?
Before some of us had words for who we were, we carried a conviction of things not seen.
We lived with the assurance of something hoped for: a truer self, a fuller life, a name to call our own, an external expression that matched the internal spirit God creates us with.
This is not unlike the faith of Abram and Sarai, who God renamed to Abraham and Sarah, who set out “not knowing where they were going.” They trusted the inner call, the divine whisper, the identity not yet visible to the world around them. They were willing to journey into a future that contradicted everything others expected of them.
Transgender people understand that kind of faith.We practice it every day.
To transition is to step into the unknown.To live authentically is to risk rejection.To claim your truth is to challenge the world’s assumptions.
And because we embody that kind of faith, some call us dangerous.Some call us unholy.Some call us a threat to the “order” of things.
But Scripture calls us something entirely different:
People of faith.People who walk by courage, not by sight.People who prepare the way for worlds not yet imagined.
I have seen my transgender siblings so much in the example of Hebrews 11, that I wrote a TRANSlation of this scripture, naming our trancestors, their contributions to the world, and their rejection.
Here is my Hebrews 11 parahprase:
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of dignity not yet seen. By faith our transcestors bore witness, and through their courage we now stand.
By faith Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson stood at Stonewall, casting out fear and shame, declaring that trans people belong. Though scorned and rejected, their love birthed movements of liberation.
By faith Lou Sullivan told the world that gay trans men exist, insisting that one could be both transgender and queer, because of his witness, generations found language for their truth.
By faith Christine Jorgensen stepped into the public eye, bearing the weight of curiosity and ridicule, so that trans lives could no longer be hidden in silence.
By faith Leslie Feinberg gave us words, proclaiming that our struggle is holy and our survival a gospel of resistance.
By faith Miss Major carried the torch of Stonewall, nurturing trans women discarded by the world, lifting up Black trans women as prophets of survival.
By faith Monica Roberts, told the stories others ignored, naming our dead with dignity, proclaiming that Black trans lives matter.
By faith Miriam Rivera stood before the world unapologetic, declaring that trans is beautiful, teaching millions to see the image of God in us.
By faith Cecilia Chung fought for healthcare and justice, ensuring that trans women living with HIV were not forgotten but embraced.
By faith countless unnamed trans saints: sex workers, caregivers, artists, dreamers, laid down their lives so that we might live openly. And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Stormé DeLarverie, protector of her community, or Meka Shabaaz, who danced with joy around Columbus churches or Pauli Murray, priest and poet, whose vision of human dignity points us still toward freedom.
All of these died in faith, not having received the fullness of promise, but seeing it from afar, they greeted it. They confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on this earth, yet they made a way for us.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run with perseverance the race set before us, casting off the weight of shame and the sin of self-hatred, looking to the One who made us in divine diversity, who for the joy set before them endured the cross of rejection, and now calls us beloved.
These trancestors, and the people whose names we read today, and the others who were killed for who they are, but whose names we do not know are those for whom the world was not worthy.
Not because they were perfect.Not because they were powerful.Not because they fit in.
The world was not worthy of them precisely because their existence exposed the limits of the world’s imagination.
How many transgender people have walked this earth and were never recognized for their brilliance?How many were saints whose compassion grew from suffering the world refused to see?How many were warriors for joy, beauty, embodiment, and truth—whose lives were cut short because the world could not handle the freedom they represented?
We remember them today.
We remember the Black trans women whose murders go unreported, unnamed, unmourned by the world that refuses to see their humanity.We remember the trans men, the nonbinary folks, the two-spirit relatives who dared to live honestly and paid with their lives.
Their deaths are not holy.Their suffering is not redemptive.Their violence is not God’s will.
But their lives—their lives were holy.Their presence was sacred.Their courage was prophetic.
And in the language of Hebrews, they were people “of whom the world was not worthy”—not because they were less, but because they were more.
More honest.More courageous.More imaginative.More reflective of the God who creates in infinite diversity.
Transgender people bring gifts that challenge the world to widen its heart.When I was working on my DMin I interviewed the Scottish playright, Jo Clifford who wrote a play called “Jesus: Queen of Heaven.” Jo said to me that she believed that God is doing a new work in the world through people like us, And, whenever God is doing something new, people and systems will resist.
But despite the political rhetoric of this year diversity is NEVER a mistake—it is a sacred manifestation of God’s creativity.
The God who not only made light and dark, but also dawn and dusk, did not suddenly run out of imagination when crafting humanity.The God who invented coral reefs, singing whales, and fractals did not intend human gender to be monochromatic.
Black holes and daisies exist in the same creation.So do trans women and cis men.Nonbinary folk and intersex folk
trans men and genderfluid people—all reflect the kaleidoscopic glory of the Divine.
When we embrace gender diversity, we are not stepping outside God’s creation—we are stepping deeper into it.
Psalm 139 says we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” or as I like to say “queerfully and wonderfully made”
But I wonder if we’ve underestimated how wonderful God truly is.
Transgender bodies are miracles of emergence.Transgender identities are revelations of authenticity.Transgender journeys are testimonies of resilience.
We are not lesser versions of humanity; we are living parables of transformation.
If the church cannot see that, then it is the church—not transgender people—that is in need of conversion.
Hebrews 11 tells the story of people who lived by faith, not conformity. And for that, they suffered.
The world has always been cruel to those who refuse to fit into the boxes it constructs.
The early Christians were killed for building a community that defied empire.The prophets were silenced for speaking truth to power.Jesus was crucified because he revealed a kindom the world wasn’t ready for.
And trans people today face violence for a similar reason:We reveal that God created gender to be as diverse as the rest of creation—and that terrifies a world built on the gendered controls of patriarchy, misogyny, and white supremacy.
Trans existence destabilizes social binaries.Trans joy undermines privilege.Trans community reveals that chosen family can be holier than inherited systems.
Violence is the tool of an unjust world that senses its power slipping.
So what does power do, it wields violence through
Legislative attacks.Bathroom bans.Healthcare restrictions.
Sports bans.
Passport restrictionsDehumanizing rhetoric.Which all lead to the physical violence that has taken the lives of our siblings who we remember today.
These are modern expressions of the same fear that led ancient rulers to persecute the prophets.
But:Fear has never been holy.Violence has never been righteous.Exclusion has never been the will of God.
We are called to be a people who make room for the faith-filled, the courageous, the expansive, and the free.
Let us honor the gifts transgender people offer—not abstractly, but concretely.
Trans People Bring the Gift of Authenticity: We take off the mask of what Carl Jung described as the false self and show our true self. Our lives teach the world that the antidote to despair is truth.
Trans People Bring the Gift of Imagination: We imagine possibilities beyond the binaries and boundaries the world insists on. We show that identity is dynamic, relational, alive.
Trans People Bring the Gift of Revelation: We reveal the fluidity already present in creation. We help the world see that God is still creating.
Trans lives are testimonies of faith—evidence of things not yet fully seen.
As a seminary community, as leaders of the church:
You have a choice.Will you become leaders who shrink back in fear,
Will you be like so many institutions who are eager to comply with legalized bigotry?or will you be leaders who step forward “by faith”?
Hebrews says that God is not ashamed to be called the God of those who seek a better country—a more just world.
The question is:
Will the church be that country?Will your ministries create that world?
Transgender people do not need saviors.We don’t even need allies.
We need accomplices.We need advocates.We need pastors who preach courage.We need leaders who will confront legislation, challenge exclusion, and create spaces where transgender people can not only survive but thrive.
We need a church that says not just “you are welcome,” but “you are celebrated; your existence reveals the nature of God.”
Hebrews 11 ends by telling us that the ancestors “did not receive what was promised,” like Dr King they did not make it to the mountain top, but their faith helped shape a world where the promise could be realized.
What future are we shaping for the people yet to come?
A future where their names are mourned,
or a future where their names are celebrated?A future where people hide,
or a future where people thrive?A future where people are erased,
or a future where people shine?
Faith is not passive.Faith builds.Faith disrupts.Faith refuses to accept the world as it is.Faith prepares the way for the world as it should be.
And that is the calling of this community—this seminary—this church.
Let us strive to be the people who do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly by faith.
Let us run the race with perseverance, so that we may be counted among those for whom the world is not worthy.
Amen.
