I guess it’s time. As a member of the Queer community already, it is time to come out of the other closet: I am a preacher. It wasn’t something I chose. I was just born this way. My partner, Preaching, and I have been in a committed relationship for quite some time now. We live in full communion with others in our neighborhood–God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, a family of believers. Even if others will never accept who I am, Preaching and I hope that our relationship will speak for itself, that we can model how to be in relationship. Now I know that many churches are putting the validity of our relationship to referendum and I don’t know what that vote will look like. In the meantime, Preaching and I will just go on loving each other, gifting the world with our love and holding on to each other and the friends in our neighborhood for comfort. Preaching and I would love to invite you into our lives. Just bring yourselves, we’ll supply the bread and the wine.
Just wondering…..what would it be like if the people heard this as my testimony?
Once you have preached a sermon, exhaled the last amen, it seems as if that is the end of story. It is now out into the atmosphere where it will either move through, past or deep into the hearer. But what about the other end of the story? Each time I start to prepare a sermon the same question comes to mind, “What could I possibly bring to preaching?” And each time I start with the same two things, the Bible and myself. That may be all I have, but between the two there is still so much to unearth. I love looking at a verse, examining the words, thinking about the history that surrounds that text, as well as the nuances in the original languages and subsequent translations. I get excited when I see the words on the page take the shape of a message of good news. I am grateful when those words give comfort to a hurting soul and this hurting world.
A smile forms on my lips when I think about this, but then my heart sinks for just a moment. I remember for a moment that there are many who would silence my voice, try to break up this relationship that I have with the Word and its proclamation. I remember that there are many who believe that I should not have the honor of spreading the gospel because I am a member of the GLBTQ community. I often think to myself, how queer this situation is. It is like living in the time of the Markan Jesus. I have been blessed, but asked not to tell anyone. I experience healing, but am asked not to speak of it. I have chosen to bear witness to Christ on the cross, and am asked not to share the story of God’s gift. I have even looked into the empty tomb, and am asked not to shout, “Christ is no longer here!” How queer that God would give me the most incredible thing to witness, and that some would tell me to go away and tell no one.
I find the importance the more “theologically conservative” voices in Christian thought give to identity politics more sad than strange. In order to give identity politics in the apparent church a position of primacy in one’s thought, one has to willfully set aside or misread quite a few things in the canon.
The thing that most obviously must suffer in order to foster that perspective is Paul’s “Body of Christ” analogy for the Church, which is put forth quite beautifully in Galatians 3:28-29: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Much like his objection to the scriptural basis for opposing capital punishment or violence in general, the “conservative” thinker will argue that one is taking this passage too literally if one thinks that this means all members of the Church are alike in dignity, which is odd given their otherwise steadfast devotion to literal readings of the text.
What most suffer next is the message of social justice that runs through–and is arguably the center of–the entire post-exilic canon. From the laws in Deuteronomy, to the episode with the crows in Elijah, to the teachings of Christ, we are given a very, very basic message: all members of the moral community are members of worth, they have something to contribute to the larger community, and we should regard and care for the worst off in the community due to their worth. Obviously, an oppressed minority, such as the gay community, is an example of a community that is considered “unclean” in certain parts of the text but are also, plainly, members of worth in the eyes of God.
What next must suffer is the entire moral aspect of atonement. There is a reason that we call Jesus Christ “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” In ancient Judaism, the unclean or sinful members of the community had to remain outside the camp and they had a literal scapegoat that would assume this uncleanliness in the days of purification and allow the community to remain in the camp whole and intact. Christ on the Cross is that scapegoat for us. The entirety of his life, death, and resurrection is wrapped around the concept of atonement, not only between God and humanity but between ourselves and our neighbors. We are all “in the camp.”
The final and saddest thing that must suffer is Christ’s own teaching on how to interpret the text. He taught, very plainly, that the overall message of the text took priority over specific passages in the text. What was the overall message, according to Christ? ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ ; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
When one advocates treating some under the law differently than others–also known as injustice–or drawing an “us/them” or a “gay/straight” distinction, they prove they are, at best, poor students of the canon and–at worst–the wolves in sheep’s clothing that preach the name of Christ under a banner of hate.