11 So then, remember that at one time you gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision”—a circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— 12 remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us, 15 abolishing the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, 16 and might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. 17 So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near, 18 for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, 20 built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone; 21 in him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.
Ephesians 2:11-22 (NRSVue)
Hands. Blood. Foreskins. Flesh. Bodies are complicated. Both in the ancient world and today, society has had fierce disagreements about what should be done with other people’s bodies. Too often, the powerful and privileged are the ones who not only have their voices heard, but get to set the terms of the debate. Can we imagine another way? What would it look like for the marginalized to not be the object of scrutiny, for their voices to not just be “centered” in conversations about them, but for them to be the ones to actually create new possibilities for embodiment?
Everywhere you turn, there are debates happening about people’s bodies. After the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the U.S., politicians have even more opportunity to make medical, reproductive decisions for people who can become pregnant. Earlier this summer, the Southern Baptist Convention made it their business to take a stance on in vitro fertilization. It feels like every week there is a new law or court decision impacting trans youth’s ability to access gender-affirming care or trans people’s ability to enter the appropriate bathrooms.
There are countless other decisions that people have to make every day that may be less overtly regulated, but are still heavily judged and politicized. Will you shave your legs? Will you get that tattoo or piercing? Will you wear a mask or get vaccinated? Will you wear your hair in locs to work? Will you wrap your hair in a turban at the airport? Will you let your son wear a dress to school?
Or, as we hear in Ephesians, will your genitals be circumcised?
Genital modification can be a sensitive, uncomfortable topic, but it is all around us. All over the world, some people choose to circumcise the foreskins of male infants, children, and adults, for religious reasons as well as for cultural reasons. On the other hand, some people choose to advocate for male genitals to remain “intact” or “whole,” and some legislation seeks to prevent male circumcisions from being done on minors. At the same time, female genital modification (called by some “circumcision” and by others “genital mutilation”) is likewise practiced and protested globally. Genital cutting more broadly also takes place for many intersex infants and children—occasionally for health reasons, but too often in an attempt to force their bodies into the gender binary. Surgery on genitals also happens for legitimate medical causes, for cosmetic reasons, and as part of gender-affirming health care—although such procedures are the subject of much greater religious and social debate when done for trans people than for cis people.
In the ancient world, there was no less disagreement about genital modification. The type of genital modification that we hear the most about in the Bible is of course Jewish circumcision on the eighth day of a newborn boy’s life, living out the covenant first established with Abraham in the book of Genesis. But you might be surprised to know that other ancient cultures practiced circumcision too, though not always the same cuts or the same ages or genders. And there were more types of genital modification in the ancient world than just circumcision. Castration was practiced, both voluntarily and involuntarily. Greco-Roman societies that did not practice circumcision nevertheless sometimes engaged in infibulation (temporarily closing the end of the foreskin) or epispasm (permanently lengthening the foreskin).
Wow! This level of detail about genitals might be more than you expected in a Bible blog post. But I share it to make you aware of the fact that when Ephesians was written genital modification was both common and complicated—just like it is today.
Ephesians is addressed to a non-Jewish audience, “gentiles by birth” (v. 11), who are joining a Jewish movement, what we today call Christianity. In their previous life, they almost certainly would not have thought about their identity in terms of the “uncircumcision”—literally, the foreskin (Greek: akrobustia)—of the men in their group. But within this new milieu, suddenly they find themselves “called ‘the uncircumcision’ by those who are called ‘the circumcision.’” Ultimately, this binary is both reductive and false. After all, what about those non-Jewish people with circumcisions, although slightly different types? What about people who aren’t born with foreskins at all? These categories label people by their “flesh,” a word that appears emphatically twice in the Greek in this verse.
But the next time we hear the word “flesh,” it is a reference to the flesh of Jesus (vv. 13-14). In the wake of Jesus’s crucifixion, whether or not your flesh has been cut and your blood has been spilled is no longer a reason to set up a “dividing wall” as a sign of “hostility” between groups (v. 14). And this logic goes both ways. Despite the reference to the law in v. 15, this is not a banning of circumcision. Indeed, Jesus himself was circumcised, according to Luke’s Gospel. Instead, this is a dismissal of the ability of a single set of “commandments and ordinances” to adequately guide the life of such a diverse, pluriform community. There is no single, correct mode of embodiment.
In the first century, circumcision status could be an expression of your Jewish identity. But it could also be seen as a measure of your sexual modesty. Whoever you were in the ancient world, you wanted to display your moral caliber through self-control: moderate and respectable levels of emotion, food, drink, wealth, and sex. To Jews, circumcision helped them cultivate a body and a life that was decent and controlled. As the first-century Jewish philosopher Philo phrased it, “becoming circumcised manifests the excision of pleasure and of all passions” (On the Migration of Abraham 92). In contrast, to most other Greeks and Romans, a foreskinned penis was covered up and therefore was decent and controlled, whereas a circumcised penis was lewd and hypersexual–even barbaric. Not only today but also in antiquity, disparaging rhetoric against the “uncivilized” could be simultaneously sexualized and racialized.
In light of these ancient insults, it is powerful to hear in this passage that neither group has a monopoly on sexual propriety. Neither Jews nor gentiles can any longer be treated as “strangers and aliens” (v. 18) with supposedly primitive, immoral customs. Instead, the community of faith is equally the country and the home of all of its members, and all have an innate place as “fellow citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.”
This new family is carried within Jesus’s flesh. In Jesus’s crucified body, there is a space like a womb that nurtures life and peace, creating “in himself one new humanity” (v. 15). As the new humanity is born, Jesus remains essential to the one body, like the cornerstone of a temple—not a typical stationary building, but a dynamic structure that is somehow alive, moving and growing (vv. 20-21). And this new body, a site of ethnic and religious mixing, a space for transgressing gendered and sexual norms, is the very “dwelling place for God” (v. 22).
How does Jesus’s body accomplish this? Is it simply a miracle, because Jesus is regarded as divine? No, not merely because of Jesus’s divinity, but just as much because of Jesus’s humanity. This space of diversity and belonging is inaugurated through the unbearable event of crucifixion. Although Jesus submitted to execution, in accordance with the divine plan, he certainly did not seek it out. It was a violent imposition of Roman imperial power along with their collaborators among the local religious leaders. But precisely because Jesus’s body was subject to such great vulnerability and marginality, his experience has the power to offer guidance to others.
Jesus does not tell you whether your genitals should be circumcised. They are not on his body; they are on yours. Your unique, embodied life will shape your answer to the questions of what to do with your skin and organs, clothes and nails, medications and surgeries. Instead of deciding these answers for others, we can share the nuances of our own decision-making processes, the ups and downs of trial and error, the pros and cons of each of our options. Instead of focusing only on what is the “right” choice, we can speak about the deeper insights that come from our embodied experiences like transition, pregnancy, or braiding our hair. Bodies are not just subjects of debate, but are also sources of spiritual knowledge and social transformation.
For those who regard themselves as part of the body of Jesus, part of the family that grows from Jesus’s body, that one body is really many bodies, complicated bodies, with hands, blood, some foreskins, and a whole lot of multi-colored flesh. Out of Jesus’s violent subjection to the unjust decisions of people in authority comes a different story: not one where he now dictates that all bodies should look like his, but a story about how life-giving it can be to imagine new, holy ways of being embodied.
So much of this resonates with the underlying commitment to advocate for gender and racial equality/equity. I found so much peace and affirmation in the following portions and look forward to discussing them further at a future opportunity:
1. “Surgery on genitals also happens for legitimate medical causes, for cosmetic reasons, and as part of gender-affirming health care—although such procedures are the subject of much greater religious and social debate when done for trans people than for cis people.”
2.”In the ancient world, there was no less disagreement about genital modification.” Whelp, we are not the first generation to grapple with genital modifications. I appreciate your terminology “genital modification.” It opens a wider door to include all the ways we grapple with genital modifications, e.g., LGBTQIA.
3.”In light of these ancient insults, it is powerful to hear in this passage that neither group has a monopoly on sexual propriety.” Amen!!! One is not more or less spiritually ‘approved’ because of how one chooses to or not modify their genitals!
4. “In the wake of Jesus’s crucifixion, whether or not your flesh has been cut and your blood has been spilled is no longer a reason to set up a “dividing wall” as a sign of “hostility” between groups (v. 14). And this logic goes both ways.”
The ‘approval’ of our spirituality does not lie in our genitals (and consequently, neither our gender) but in Yeshua’s reconciling work in the ‘flesh.’ ♥️♥️♥️
5. “Jesus does not tell you whether your genitals should be circumcised. They are not on his body; they are on yours. Your unique, embodied life will shape your answer to the questions of what to do with your skin and organs, clothes and nails, medications and surgeries. Instead of deciding these answers for others, we can share the nuances of our own decision-making processes, the ups and downs of trial and error, the pros and cons of each of our options. Instead of focusing only on what is the “right” choice, we can speak about the deeper insights that come from our embodied experiences like transition, pregnancy, or braiding our hair. Bodies are not just subjects of debate, but are also sources of spiritual knowledge and social transformation.” Amen!!! Dr. Gabrielle’s foregoing premise that while Yeshua willingly took our place, his situation was nevertheless forced upon him in his humanity, rightfully invokes compassion and empathy for the struggles of LGBTQIA people who did not ‘choose’ their sexual but it was also forced them by their humanity. Just like we need to lean into Yeshua’s decision to appreciate his story (which is not necessarily affirmed by all religions), we must also respectfully make space to listen to and hear the stories of LGBTQIA and respect their decisions.
I am adding this article to my collection of embodied spirituality. Haley, I love the trend of your work (writing and speaking/preaching). It focuses on the real work of Yeshua – embodiment. This is a real issue with Christianity because much of its theology tends to be disembodied, and unfortunately, disembodied theology ALWAYS paves the way for discrimination and othering.
Thank you so much once more, for letting Mother God speak through you to remind us that we are all her children and all equally loved by her, regardless of our bodied differences. ♥️
I also like the fact that Dr. Gabrielle’s discourse briefly included other body parts other than genitals.
As a fifty-something old Nigerian American woman whose hair had always modified to fit in with society’s expectations (braids and perms in Nigeria, and perms, braids and locs in the US), I recently cut my hair because I felt I needed to ‘breathe.’ For the first time in my life, I wanted to “be at peace” with my hair by focusing more on my ‘comfort’ than what was ‘required’ of my black hair. As a result, I am more responsive to my body’s needs rather than how society wants me to look or how I want to be perceived.
As a person who has always been tender-headed, all my life, my scalp always had wounds regardless of the hairstyle I chose. Except now. Now that I only attend to my hair in ways that are ‘comfortable,’ i.e., painless and more respectful of the ‘natural’ inclination of my hair type.
I also realize that I only found the courage to be ‘free’ of society’s expectations regarding my African hair type, only because I finally found affirmation of my humanity as one created in the image of the Divine.
I wonder what/how more people would look when we all start owning and affirming our humanity from this standpoint rather than from society’s expectations.