Celebrating God’s Beautiful Inbetweens
Isaiah 56:1-5; Acts 8:26-38
First, I want to thank Amy for her beautiful words…I see your bravery, and I am proud of you! I also thank Valerie for the opportunity to be under her mentorship this semester and to let me preach this sermon.
I, like many you I suspect, think my favorite place in the world is to be on the beach with my feet in the ocean at sunset. I love moments and places that transcend easy description. The beautiful moments between the end of day and the darkness of night, the sandy beach as it intersects the ocean—these are in between the boxes of day and night or land and sea, but they are my favorite. In a recent interview my transgender son, Alex and I did with NPR’s StoryCorp, I shared that his coming out as transgender introduced me to an “in between” world I would have never known and a calling I never expected…and I am eternally grateful. He is my favorite “in between.”
In Between
I stand between the sand and sea
The sun on my back, the water beneath
A transitional state
To remind myself
Of the gradient
Between the points of extremes
Nice or not when I raise my voice
What is my personality in this multiple choice?
One or the other
But I cannot simply choose?
That is not what i am built for
That is not how I muse
I could argue when the day or night ends or begins
Or enjoy the dawn and dusk as she simply is
An easing into the new thing named
A conversation that’s been reframed
Join me in the in between
Wipe your old assumptions clean
Open yourself and embrace the new
And find yourself in multi-hue
Alexander Jay Womack
November 2025
It was in the Spring of 2018 when the Womack family was launched into this expanded world we never expected to see. Alex, our #3 kiddo came home from UAB for Easter break and told us they were trans. At the time, I had to look up what that meant!
Just to clarify, today I am using the term “transgender” to cover anyone who has a gender identify that doesn’t match their assigned sex, this can also include “non binary” people whose gender identity doesn’t fit within the tradition definition of male or female.
While we thought we were being supportive of Alex, there were things we just didn’t understand at that time, and it took time and effort to work through them. The thing that really messed with me was their resistance to a specific gender. While he moved from they/them pronouns to he/him, he also wore make up and painted his nails regularly. I was thinking, “if you’re a guy, act like a guy!!” Turns out the black and white of the binary gender world was the hardest thing to let go of. It was a perception and way of thinking I didn’t even understand I needed to change. I mean, I am born/raised Southern Baptist—I was locked into the “male/female” roles we see in the bible, right?! But the reality is, there is so much more to gender than I had ever imagined.
This concept of a “third” gender or an “in between” gender actually goes back to ancient times. The Jewish Talmud, the huge and authoritative compendium of Jewish legal traditions, contains no less than seven gender designations. In Japan, India, Indonesia, Latin America, and indigenous cultures, there are also names for those of a “third gender.” In North American indigenous culture, the term Two-Spirit refers to people whom their communities believe embody both a male spirit and a female spirit. In many cultures, these people are viewed as sacred and important in the community’s spiritual rituals.
But, we’re in church. What does God say about any of this? Luckily, a good bit!
Let’s start with one of the most beautiful stories in scripture, the conversion story of the Ethiopian eunuch that Azreal read for us. If you want to go to Acts 8 beginning in verse 26, I want to show you a couple of things.
Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) So, he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.”
An important thing to notice about this story—the Holy Spirit initiated the encounter. It says the angel of the Lord told Philip to go down the road; the Spirit sends Philip down this wilderness road to meet someone unexpected. This person was an Ethiopian eunuch—two important distinctions: First, he was Ethiopian, which meant he was a Gentile. However, he has come all the way from Ethiopia to worship at the temple, so he obviously had interest in the God of Israel. A gentile who followed the ways of Yahweh could have been a “God fearer” (one who follows the way) or a “proselyte” (a full convert to Judaism). However, there is another important caveat about this government leader that tells us he was not fully included—he is a eunuch.
A eunuch is the best example we have of a gender “other” in scripture, so let’s look at some other scriptures. While the word “transgender” is relatively new, the presence of a eunuch in the writings of the Torah (first five books of the Bible) show that from the earliest of time there has been an “other” gender. Typically, in that culture, eunuchs were people who were assigned male at birth, but who had their reproductive organs changed or removed prior to puberty. These individuals were often in the royal court or in government and were allowed to move back and forth between men’s and women’s spaces, taking on tasks/roles related to both genders. They presented and acted differently than men or women, they were a “third sex.” Like the two spirit people of our Native American tribes, a eunuch was seen as being uniquely able to see life from both male and female perspectives. They were accepted as a normal part of Babylonian and Persian society, but in the early days of Israel, as God was setting his people apart as an exclusive people, there were restrictions against the eunuch. In Deuteronomy 23, the book which codifies the laws that identify Israel’s obedience to God’s covenant, anyone who had been emasculated could not enter the assembly of the Lord. The eunuch was deemed neither male nor female, unclean, and therefore, an outcast.
In these first books of the Bible, especially Genesis, binary language is used specifically to “set things apart.” The authors talk about land and sea, day and night, male and female. But this doesn’t discredit marshes and swamps, or dawn and dusk. In the same way we call God, Alpha and Omega, implying all things from first to last and everything in between, the authors of Genesis use this language, not to limit creation, but to corral the infinite diversity of creation into categories we can understand. These binaries aren’t meant to say that is all there is, but rather they invite us into thinking about everything in between and beyond.
Now, if Deuteronomy was where scripture ended in regard to gender, one could justifiably say God does not condone anything but a binary gender. However, God has more to say on this subject! In Isaiah 56, which we also heard earlier, God directly addresses the eunuch and gives them the most beautiful promise. Let me reread it starting in verse 3:
Do not let the eunuch say, “I am just a dry tree.” For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.
God reaches to the margin and pulls the outcast in, promising a full inheritance, identity in Him, and a new name! For trans folks who have struggled with identity and often changed their name, this scripture is like a balm to the soul. For those who wonder how God views the gender “other”, these verses should leave no doubt.
We then move into the New Testament to see if Jesus has anything to say about gender minorities. We certainly know Jesus went out of his way to minister to the marginalized, often speaking directly to women. But, in Matthew’s gospel, we see Jesus also mentions eunuchs. In Matthew 19, Jesus’ disciples exclaim Jesus has such strict guidelines for divorce that no one should marry (a little first century chauvinism coming through!). Jesus answers them in verse 11: “But he said to them, “Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.” Before Jesus spoke these words, eunuchs were considered the epitome of “other”—they were foreigners, pagans, morally suspect, sexually illicit, neither male nor female, an “exiles from the society of the human race.” Jesus not only acknowledged them but stated these “other gender” folks are often set aside for a higher purpose. Jesus says whether they were born “in between,” castrated and made that way; or just chose not to marry and stay celibate, they are an example of obedience—not shame. Just a note: even if someone doesn’t “come out” as transgender until they are an adult, they likely felt like they didn’t belong in their gender from an early age. They were born “in between,” they just didn’t have the words to explain that.
So now, we find ourselves back in Acts. The early church is beginning to expand outside of the nation of Israel, and the question becomes “who all are we gonna let in?” God gives a resounding answer in this story of a foreigner and gender other. At the Holy Spirit’s direction, Philip meets the Eunuch, reads the scroll of Isaiah with him, and the eunuch looks at him and asks one of the most important questions in all of scripture, “what is to prevent me from being baptized?” Remember the road this man has walked--he came all the way from Ethiopia to worship at the temple and has been told he is not welcome; he has read God’s word and came hoping to be taught, but no one has met him there. Now, he looks at Philip and asks, “can I be part of the family?” While many might have answered that the Ethiopian’s ethnicity as a non-Israelite, or his identity as a eunuch, made him ineligible, but Philip just stops the chariot and baptizes him with no questions, no qualifiers, no strings attached.
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This story should cause us to realize God isn’t in the business of drawing boundaries or putting people in boxes and neither should we.
We Womacks entered a spiritual wilderness when we let God transform our minds and hearts about the ambiguous “in-betweens,” a journey that ended when we found Weatherly. This month we are pondering “being thankful.” Very high on my list is being part of a church that has also made a habit of kicking down boundaries and thinking outside the box. Our tenants of boldly inclusive, faithfully thinking, and progressively Baptist, all speak to our commitment to not live in a black and white world, but to embrace the in betweens and the not knowing. You seek to follow God and love people with all your mind and heart, and I am so grateful for you.
This Thursday is Transgender Day of Remembrance. This is a Global Day of Remembrance where trans folks and allies hold gatherings to read aloud and remember trans folks who lost their lives over the past 12 months. It seems especially important this year.
Currently, in the United States, about 1% of the population identify as transgender. 1 percent. Yet, in this year alone, over 1,000 pieces of anti-trans legislation have been introduced in state houses across this country. These bills are designed to block trans people from receiving gender affirming care, education, and legal recognition. Just this past Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled that U.S. passports must reflect the sex noted on the holder’s birth certificate. Over 4,000 transgender US service members were recently ordered to get out of the military solely because they are trans. In one survey of transgender folks, 40% of respondents reported at least one suicide attempt. By all accounts, our trans siblings are under attack and are hurting.
I can attest—it’s scary to see the hate currently leveled at the transgender community. In our church family, we have trans folks and families who love trans kids and they need support. I am working with other local churches to build a Faith Alliance for Trans Support to be a supportive community for trans people and their families.
I think we at Weatherly are uniquely gifted to lean in and love in all the “in between” that is God’s creation.
The eunuch, humankind’s earliest gender “in between” was recognized as special by both Yahweh God and Jesus. Then the Spirit led Phillip to the eunuch’s chariot, and they became Christianity’s first non-Jewish convert. May we follow Phillip’s example and go where the Spirit leads. Amen.
