We are indeed ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, the Rev. Laura Mariko Cheifetz tells PW’s 2024 Churchwide Gathering

by Darla Carter | Presbyterian News Service

The Rev. Laura Mariko Cheifetz offers a charge to conclude the opening devotion remembering recent gun violence and the anniversary of the Charleston shootings at the 222nd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in Portland, Oregon, on June 18, 2016. (Photo by Michael Whitman)

LOUISVILLE — At times, do you have negative thoughts playing in your head that conflict with the biblical statement, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made”?

If so, you’re not alone, according to the Rev. Laura Mariko Cheifetz, transitional associate pastor for Sunnyvale Presbyterian Church in Sunnyvale, California.

“God knit us together,” Cheifetz said. “We are created wonderfully and fearfully and yet, many, if not most of us, walk around with negative tapes going in the back of our heads. We could all keep therapists in business forever.”

Cheifetz made that declaration while speaking Saturday at Presbyterian Women’s 2024 Churchwide Gathering, where she raised thought-provoking questions about envisioning body image, loving one’s neighbor and having the courage to love oneself.

“What message did you receive about your body as a girl, as a teenager?” Cheifetz asked. “If you gave birth or didn’t, what message did you receive about your body and its processes? If you were an older or a more seasoned person, what message did you receive about your body as it aged? Did you ever perceive your body as your enemy, as something that had to be controlled, as something that had to be modest in order not to tempt men?”

While continuing to raise uncomfortable questions, Cheifetz, who has served as an assistant dean at Vanderbilt Divinity School, revealed personal traits about herself, such as being “too hairy,” and that some people have thought she looked “too white” or “too Asian.”

She went on to ask, “Did you have to unlearn some messages about your body to discover the truth? To learn that you are the right size, to learn that you are strong, to learn that you are capable, to learn that body hair or cellulite are not a measure of your humanity or your morality? To learn that hair and skin are racialized and enforcing beauty standards is both racist and misogynistic? To learn that you are the right shape, to learn that you are the right weight, to learn that you are beautiful?”

In addition to nudging audience members to explore their own body image and inner dialogue, Cheifetz tied together how failing to love oneself can affect interactions with others. “When we do not love ourselves well, sometimes that bleeds over to how we treat other people,” she said. “When we do not love ourselves, we may not always be great at loving our neighbors.”

Cheifetz has experienced that negative treatment personally. “After living in this body, in this society, I know that I, as a biracial, queer Asian American of Japanese and Jewish descent, an ordained woman, I fall into several categories that are regularly dehumanized in our society,” she said. “I’ve been harassed online for being a woman pastor by those who don’t believe in women’s ordination. … My sexual orientation was at one point criminalized, and it only became legal for me and my partner to marry just over a decade ago. We have white supremacists marching into my Nashville Tennessee Metro Council meetings shouting antisemitic slogans and wearing swastikas. Once upon a time, it was illegal for Japanese people to be citizens or own property or be out after dark or exist on the West Coast outside of a concentration camp.”

She went on to say, “In the most broad sense, there are people out there who want me dead, or at least quiet,” so for Cheifetz, self-love means understanding “I am created in God’s image, that I am loved, that I deserve to be a human who is alive and free to live, that I live in a society that makes space for me to flourish. This, as you know, is not a given for all people.”

Cheifetz also showed how the importance of loving oneself intersects with forging helpful public policy and creating a less dangerous world.

“We deserve to be safe and valued,” she said. “Our bodies need health care. They need a clean environment. They need healthy food and safe outdoor spaces. They need community. They need a home free of abuse and violence. These bodies sometimes produce other humans who require education, childcare, safe neighborhoods, safe schools free of bullying and gun violence and bomb threats and evacuations and hate crimes.”

Regarding the role of religion, she said, “When we are able to wake up in the morning and do what we are meant to do, and our families, neighborhoods, states and country support us in getting that done, we will feel loved and supported, and when the theology taught in our churches proves to us over and over again that we are loved and created in the image of God, we will be free to love ourselves,” she said. “After all, loving ourselves should not always have to be a revolutionary and defiant act.”

Dr. Veda Pendleton

Cheifetz’s talk was part of the morning plenary which also included an update on Frontera de Cristo, part of the Presbyterian Borderlands Ministry that does work at the U.S. southern border, and a presentation by Dr. Veda Pendleton, the author of an upcoming Bible study for Presbyterian Women/Horizons, whose remarks focused on love as equity in the body of Christ.

“Equity is not a dirty word, neither are her triplet siblings, diversity and inclusion,” said Pendleton, a ruling elder at Harvey Browne Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. “In fact, equity is providing each person with the tools, resources and opportunities that she needs at the time that she needs it and the way in which she needs it. Equity is giving each person what she needs in order to thrive and not merely survive. It is meeting someone’s needs in a way and at a time that is best for her.”

Read other stories on the 2024 Churchwide Gathering of Presbyterian Women here, here, here and here.