The Biblical Origins of Queer Theology – Isaiah 42:1-9, Matthew 3:13-17

Brian: Welcome to the Queer Theology podcast!

Fr. Shay: Where each episode, we take a queer look at the week’s lectionary readings. We’re the co-founders of QueerTheology.com and the hosts for this podcast. I’m Father Shay Kearns 

B: And I’m Brian G. Murphy.

FS: Hello, hello! Welcome back to the QueerTheology podcast. This week we are taking a look at the lectionary text for Sunday, January 12, 2020. We’re actually going to look at two of them today because, well, you’ll find out. 

Both: [laughs]

FS: We’re gonna look at Isaiah 42:1-9 and Matthew 3:13-17, so I’m gonna go ahead and read both of these for you. Neither of them are very long. So this is Isaiah 42:1-9, this is from the common English Bible. 

God’s servant described
But here is my servant, the one I uphold;
    my chosen, who brings me delight.
I’ve put my spirit upon him;
    he will bring justice to the nations

He won’t cry out or shout aloud
    or make his voice heard in public.
He won’t break a bruised reed;
    he won’t extinguish a faint wick,
    but he will surely bring justice.

He won’t be extinguished or broken
    until he has established justice in the land.
The coastlands await his teaching.

God the Lord says—
    the one who created the heavens,
    the one who stretched them out,
    the one who spread out the earth and its offspring,
    the one who gave breath to its people
    and life to those who walk on it—

I, the Lord, have called you for a good reason.
    I will grasp your hand and guard you,
    and give you as a covenant to the people,
    as a light to the nations,
   to open blind eyes, to lead the prisoners from prison,
    and those who sit in darkness from the dungeon.

I am the Lord;
    that is my name;
    I don’t hand out my glory to others
        or my praise to idols.

The things announced in the past—look—they’ve already happened,
    but I’m declaring new things.
    Before they even appear,
    I tell you about them.

And this is Matthew 3:13-17

At that time Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan River so that John would baptize him. John tried to stop him and said, “I need to be baptized by you, yet you come to me?”

Jesus answered, “Allow me to be baptized now. This is necessary to fulfill all righteousness.”

So John agreed to baptize Jesus. When Jesus was baptized, he immediately came up out of the water. Heaven was opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God coming down like a dove and resting on him. A voice from heaven said, “This is my Son whom I dearly love; I find happiness in him.”

Alright! So queer ’em up, Brian!

B: I am just living for these two verses working together or passages working together in tandem. If you didn’t notice, I’m gonna underline some things for you. 

In Isaiah we hear, “But here is my servant, the one I uphold; my chosen, who brings me delight.” And then in Mathew we see, “…heaven opening up and the spirit of God coming down and a  voice from heaven saying, ‘This is my Son whom I dearly love; I find happiness in him.'” 

Clearly, there are parallels in languages between this voice from heaven in Matthew and this passage from Isaiah, it’s like a harkening back to it. And so, I’m remembering that growing up I heard that you could look at all of these different places in the Hebrew Bible, that “predicted” who of the Messiah would be, the coming Messiah. You could look at the gospels, which were supposed to be this factual, historical documentary style retelling of what happened and you could see all of the various ways in which Jesus “fulfilled” these “prophecies”. Which BTW, lots of the folks that Christians are pointing to as prophecies of the Messiah in the Hebrew Bible, actual Jewish folks are “What are you talking about? That’s not what that passage means?” So you just need to put that out there. 

But more the point is that the gospels and the Bible in general is often not supposed to be this literal, factual, historical recounting of what happened as sort of objective truth. And we know that because sometimes the authors of the passages themselves outright say that – explain that it’s a metaphor or a story or a myth. But also the Bible, in particular the gospels, in places contradict themselves. It’s not possible that Matthew and John, for instance, are both historically, factually accurate. Which does not mean that they are not true, or good, or useful. It means we have to stop trying to use them in a way that they weren’t intended to be used. And so instead, if we understand the gospels as and I mean this in the most generous way possible, religio-political propaganda, right? There are people spreading religious-political message with an agenda to convince you about truth and goodness, which is what we’re all doing. We do that here. Jerry Falwell did it. Franklin Graham is doing it. Donald Trump is doing his own version. We’re all doing it. So that’s happening here. 

The gospel writers are looking at their sacred texts and saying, “What does our sacred texts and our religious tradition have to say about that which is happening right here and right now.” And that wasn’t is a deeply Jewish thing to do. That rabbis and Jewish religious leaders throughout the ages have done and continue to do today. So this is not a new thing. That is something that we us queer Christians continue to do. Also, it’s not something we made up right? We are asking ourselves, “What does our religious tradition and religious text have to say about this moment here in time?” I think that it’s important for us to remember that that practice is a deeply Biblical, faithful, historic thing to do. So when we ask ourselves, “What is my faith have to say about the US, Mexico border?” or “What is my faith have to say about my open and polyamoruos relationship?” or “What is my faith have to say about XYZ?” That’s what faith is for. If it doesn’t have something to say about your life now and what the meaning is there, then it’s dead. As Christians we say that we have a living faith. I was excited to find this clear reminder that the work that we do in Queering Theology is just a continuation of the work that folks have been doing throughout the millennia. 

I also have a million other things to say about this passage as like entry way into justice, but what about you Shay?

FS: You pretty much summed it all up for me. I do think that it’s important to know that the author of Matthew had a very specific audience in mind, right? That audience wouldn’t have known this Isaiah text. It’s not like the Bible was put together in a way after the fact. People had access to some of this work and some of these things. We’re commenting on it and reflecting on it, and I think that that’s important and that’s how we make sense of our faith. That’s how we make sense of this story and this is how Matthew was trying to make sense of both his own tradition, but also this thing that had happened with Jesus. And trying to make sense of it for a new community who is trying to figure out, “Okay well, if we believe this stuff and now this has happened. How do we make sense of that?” And I think that is a really valid, and deeply faithful thing to do. Like you were saying Brian, I think that we continue to do that work and we often will get feedback when we’re doing talks on QueerTheology whatever, isn’t it really not right that you bring a queer perspective to the Bible because we didn’t have language back then, and yadahyadahyadah. People and communities of faith have been doing this type of work for years. Everything that we do around theology is meaning making and it’s trying to make sense of God’s relationship to the world, our relationship to God, and how we make sense of it all. I think that meaning “making work” has to be done from our personal perspective, it has to be done from our own context, it has to be done from our own lives, and we have to bring our whole lives to bare on those questions. That’s the work! That’s the work that we are called to do. That’s the work that the early church was doing. That’s the work!

B: Yeah. Amen! 

There’s a whole other podcast episode in here that maybe in three years when this text comes back around that we’ll do; but I also just want to, if you want to study more, just note here that in time Jesus’ ministry back to this passage in Isaiah and the author of Matthew here is setting Jesus in a deeply political context because Isaiah goes on to talk about: opening blind eyes, leading prisoners from prison, and those who sit in the darkness from the dungeon, being a light to the nations. Right? It’s not just a voice from the heaven. It’s also what that then translates into in the here and now, and on earth. If you’re looking to studying more, there’s an entry way into some Jesus political stuff, and we got more on the politics of Jesus on the website. If you go to QueerTheology.com, you can find that. They’ll be a way to find it on the new website, coming soon.

FS: Yeah, and just a reminder that we are soliciting both questions for the podcast and also Bible passages that you want us to tackle and you can submit those by sending us an email at connect@queertheology.com. You can send us an audio file with your question, you can send us just a text or email, and we’ll read it out. If you want to tell us why you’re picking a certain Bible passage that you want us to tackle, feel free to drop it in there too. We’re super excited about starting to incorporate more of you into this show coming up in a little bit. 

B: And our Patreon campaign is ongoing to make this work sustainable. We know each and everyone of the folks who pledge, because we see you come in and message you and talk to you, and we value all of that support. So if this work is meaningful to you, we would love to have your support so that we can keep doing this. You can go to Patreon.com/queertheology and for as little as $2 a month help to keep this podcast on the air and this work online. So that’s all for now and we’ll see you next week.

[outro music plays]

B: The Queer Theology podcast is just one of many things that we do at QueerTheology.com which provides resources, community, and inspiration for LGBTQ Christians and straight cisgender supporters. 

FS: To dive into more of the action, visit us at QueerTheology.com. You can also connect with us online: on Facebook, Tumbler, Twitter, and Instagram.

B: We’ll see you next week.