Marginalized Bodies as Spectacle & the Good News in Jesus's Disabling Wounds

Blessed Are the Binary Breakers

In Jesus, God rose with wounds that would have impaired his mobility and fine motor skills. In John 20, Jesus allows his disciples to gaze at his impaired body, and even lets Thomas touch his wounds. Let's explore how this story connects to the complications of marginalized bodies being put on display for public consumption — of being made into a spectacle.

Is it possible for marginalized persons to have any agency in how our bodies are viewed and interpreted? How does Jesus model possibility for his disciples, similar to what Laverne Cox calls trans possibility models? How have marginalized persons identified with the wounded Christ across the centuries?

Content Warning: brief, undetailed mentions of hate crimes, transphobia, ableism, antiblackness, fatphobia

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Part of this episode explores an art piece by Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin — a photograph of Jesus with top surgery scars — that you can view here.
Or view it and other images, with image descriptions, in the episode transcript.

The episode also draws from S. Bear Bergman's 2021 article "Please Come and Be Fat."

The episode ends with Rebekah Anderson's meditation "The Body of God."

A previous episode of this podcast also delves into the John 20 story of Jesus and Thomas through a trans and disabled lens — episode 40, "Goodness Embodied: An Intersex, Nonbinary First Human and a Disabled Risen Christ."

If you want to watch the sermon that this ep is based off of, visit here.

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TALKING POINTS:

(0:00 - 3:36) - Introducing the topic: based off a sermon; Jesus's disabling wounds & marginalized bodies as spectacle
(3:37 - 6:30) - Affirmation of Faith in God the seamstress, the wounded Christ
(6:31 - 9:59) Introducing & reading John 20:19-29
(10:00 - 15:59) Identifying our experiences with Christ's — medieval labor pains; Jesus with top surgery scars
(16:00 - 21:52) - Possibility models: proving it's possible to be trans and successful & happy; Jesus proving there is life after suffering & death
(21:53 - 23:51) - Jesus on the cross was forced to be a spectacle; the resurrected Jesus has regained his agency, chooses to share his wounds
(23:52 - 26:10) - "Blessed are those who haven't seen and believe" — parallel with a friend's chronic illness & being believed
(26:11 - 29:18) - risking vulnerability — visibility politics in trans & disabled communities
(29:19 - 33:48) - The risen wounded Christ proves once and for all that what the world calls shameful & broken is not incompatible with the divine
(33:49 - end) - "Imagine the body of God...God has every ability, and every disability in the world"
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Blessed Are the Binary Breakers is part of the Rock Candy Podcast Network. Find more shows, such as Magnified Pod, at www.rockcandyrecordings.com.

This show's theme song is "Aetherium" by Leah Horn. This episode includes clips from “Dreamer,” “Theme 9,” and “Mod 5,” by Jeremy SH Griffith; as well as "Can't Find" by Mother Hood.